CMO @ Heatmap.com

Building the future of creative operations @ CreativeOS. Using this machine to make the world a more creative place through less busy work and more time to create!

Chase Mohseni

Sarah Levinger

Tether Insights

Founder

Alt Marketing School

Top 100 Trailblazers for 2023

SarahLevinger.co

Paid Creative Consultant, Consumer Behavior Analyst

KnoCommerce

Fractional Director of Growth Marketing

Storetasker

Top 20 Ecommerce Experts to Follow in 2023

Ad World Conference

Future of Advertising Track Speaker

Forbes

Read the article ➡️ https://bit.ly/3HW2BHu

Forbes Featured Performance Creative Agency

Halftone Graphics

Media Buyer, Creative Strategist

Agency Owner, Marketing & Business Consultant

After watching my agency clients struggle to connect deeply with their customers, I went on a 10 year long search to figure out what really makes buyers tick.

What I found was kind of shocking…

My gut feeling was right - it’s not always about how creative your ads are, how irresistible your offers seem, or even the strategy you've spent months perfecting.

Nope, the secret to truly connecting with those elusive customers and unlocking the potential to generate millions is...well, a bit deeper than that.

When you understand the real reasons behind customer behaviors, you're not just shooting arrows in the dark hoping to hit the target. You’re crafting messages that resonate, strategies that work, and connections that last. 

And that’s where the magic happens, where browsing turns into buying, and casual customers become loyal fans.

I’m here to guide you through this journey, translating complex consumer behavior into actionable, growth-driving strategies. 

It’s time you unlocked the full potential of your brand…using psychology.

Director of Growth Marketing

I’ve read over 250 books on consumer psychology. Most are useless 😅 But these 6 will turn you into a top 1% marketer:

1️⃣ Marketing to Mindstates – Will Leach
The most “plug-and-play” psychology book for marketers. Shows you how goals, emotions, and cognitive biases combine into “mindstates” — and how to write ads, offers, and CTAs that meet people in that exact state.

2️⃣ Thinking, Fast and Slow – Daniel Kahneman
Not a “marketing” book, but it explains why your customers say one thing on surveys and do the opposite in real life. System 1 vs System 2 = creative vs CRO in book form.

3️⃣ Predictably Irrational – Dan Ariely
Turns abstract biases into real experiments: decoy pricing, “free,” anchors, weird buying behavior. You’ll start seeing test ideas on every PDP you visit.

4️⃣ How Brands Grow – Byron Sharp
The uncomfortable one. Kills a lot of “perfect avatar” myths and forces you to think in penetration, distinctiveness, and memory structures instead of vibe-based targeting.

5️⃣ The Choice Factory – Richard Shotton
Short, punchy chapters. 25 biases, each with a practical application. Easiest one to go from “that’s interesting” → “I just changed this ad because of it.”

6️⃣ Alchemy – Rory Sutherland
This is where you learn to stop being a spreadsheet gremlin and start making creative leaps again. It’s pure “logic is overrated, perception is everything” energy.

I help DTC brands generate better ROI with psychology-based creative. 🧠 Talks about: consumer psychology, behavior science, paid ads. Founder @ Tether Insights

STAAAAP...I've been in marketing for 17+ years and NO ONE TOLD ME THIS?!? 🤯🤯🤯

According to science, you can boost your click through rate by 127% just by aligning your TEXT OVERLAY in a certain way!

👉 Statics: text in the center, use a larger size
👉 GIFs: away from center (below or to the side)
👉 Video: away from center (below or to the side)

This study also noted that on IG, text should take up at least 11% of the frame, but not over 44%. On Twitter, text should take up to 46% of the frame.

This university even came up with their own tool for testing this (link in comments).

FINALLY someone studied this!! 🤩

Source:

Open article: The text overlay formula to optimize ads by app.sciencesays.com

A client came in last week with a stagnant ad account and a burnt-out creative team.

I got them on my new creative strategy system that only builds from real-time customer insights and within just a few days, 50% of their spend had shifted to ads built with the new OS! The team also told me they, "love checking the emotional dashboard" we created since it shows emotional trends, not just behavioral ones, which gives me all the warm fuzzies. 🥰

Clean your customer data. It will uncover where your ads will actually win.

The typical creative strategy goes like:
Browse →
Guess → 
Make → 
Hope → 
Repeat…

My creative strategy goes like:
Listen → 
Score → 
Message → 
Ship → 
Scale.

I want to show you guys something I’ve been building for the past 6 months that I’m incredibly proud of! 🤩

This came from over a decade of behavior science and 6 years in DTC as a creative strategist, working with brands from startup to 9-fig. 

DTC is fascinating because even after all the advances in technology, systems, and AI…creative teams still pretty much just brainstorm their creative ideas in an empty room, pick the prettiest idea, then run that idea for years. 😝😅💀

I’ve personally experienced the burnout this loop creates and it suuuuuucks.

sure, it’s fun to sit around and come up with ideas…until it’s not. You end up optimizing a crap ton of bias, not truth which is why I started building something to solve this.

PS: I turned the whole thing into a 1-page decision tree you can try on your next campaign! DM me if you want to grab it. No comment necessary 😅

My creative strategy is a simple 4 step system:

Listen 👉 I first pipe in real insights: reviews, post purchase data, quiz data, DMs, etc, all captured in one place so nothing gets left behind.

Score 👉 Each insight then gets assigned a number (ESS, GAP, Friction, Hit) based on how likely that insight will translate to sales. High scores = high probability ads.

Message 👉 I then build a stack of 5 ads (2 statics, one GIF, one carousel, one video). Each batch of ads utilizes just three simple psychological models: Valence (good/bad feeling), Intensity (how strong the emotion is), and Self (Actual vs. Ideal vs. Ought).

(Social proof, authority proof, urgency, and scarcity are added on as secondary levers in post.)

Ship 👉 Then we map each message to the correct customer journey phase: Trigger → Explore → Evaluate → Purchase. This way, we put the right message in the right moment.

🚨The final step is the most important. I always go back and mark WHICH INSIGHTS HIT!!! that way we know what worked…and WHY.

This kind of creative strategy system moves the team from running on opinion to running on evidence. From “I think this might work?” to “Dang, that was an easy win.” 

I have 20+ creative teams using this system and all have reported shorter meetings, cleaner tests, better performance and overall…less stress. 😅

For these brands, the floor came up and the ceiling moved higher because we stopped wasting cycles on the 𝘸𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘱𝘴𝘺𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘺…(which is funny because every guru is teaching the wrong psychology these days 😝)


Founders and creative teams who are tired of chasing hooks and want a system that makes the yes/no call for them super fast without losing the soul of the brand…this is for you!!

Ideas don’t scale. Decisions do.

TLDR
Creative strategy should be hella simple : Listen → Score → Message → Ship. If it’s not, you’re overdoing it.

Germans are 31% more likely to save money.
They retire with 39% more wealth.
They smoke less, exercise more, and are generally healthier than comparable countries (like the US).

According to economist M. Keith Chen this isn't because they're more disciplined, earn more, or because they're culturally more advanced...

It's because their language makes them think about the future...all the time. 😅

In Chen’s 2013 study (“The Effect of Language on Economic Behavior”), he found that languages that don’t clearly mark the future (like German, Mandarin, Finnish) make people believe and behave as if the future is happening 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘯𝘰𝘸.

Ex: if you speak German and wanted to remark about the weather, you'd say: “It 𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘴 tomorrow.”

If you speak English, you'd say: “It 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 rain tomorrow.”

That tiny structural difference in grammar is incredibly powerful. So much in fact, that it can predict:

✅ Whether you spend or save
✅ Whether you exercise
✅ How much you exercise
✅ How much you eat
✅ How far ahead in life you plan
✅ Even national GDP savings rates

If you change the way people talk about the future, you change the way the brain behaves.

👉 Here’s why this should matter to marketers:

Because of the way the English language works, if you're marketing to an English speaker, you can accidentally cause people to psychologically distance themselves from you just by 𝘩𝘰𝘸 you say things. Every time you say “feel better today,” “see results today,” “get improvements today”…you’re pushing the action you want them to take into the future.

𝘕𝘖𝘛𝘌: 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘦 𝘱𝘩𝘳𝘢𝘴𝘦𝘴 𝘮𝘢𝘺 𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺'𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘯 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘵, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘪𝘵’𝘴 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘥𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘵𝘰𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘶𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦. 𝘎𝘳𝘢𝘮𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴: 𝘺𝘰𝘶’𝘳𝘦 𝘨𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘵 (“𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭”), 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘢 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘴𝘯’𝘵 𝘱𝘩𝘺𝘴𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘺𝘦𝘵.

The brain interprets it as: start feeling better 𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘳, not now.

📌 To fix this, bring the future closer so the brain understands what's at stake if no action is taken:

𝟭. 𝗧𝗲𝘀𝘁 “𝗳𝘂𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂” 𝘃𝘀 “𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂” 𝗶𝗻 𝗮𝗱𝘀.
“Your future self 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬 you” → “Your future self 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬𝘴 you.”
Identity activates now, not later.

𝟮. 𝗥𝗲𝘄𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗲𝗺𝗮𝗶𝗹𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗱𝗲𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲.
“You’ll learn how…” → “Learn how…”
“You’ll discover why…” → “Discover why…”
Stop selling the future; collapse the timeline.

𝟯. 𝗨𝘀𝗲 𝗮 𝗻𝗼𝗻-𝗼𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗳𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗲.
“You’ll feel more confident when you do X.” → “Confidence kicks in the moment you start.”
If the benefit feels immediate, the brain treats it like a reward, not homework.

TLDR: If grammar can change national savings rates, it can absolutely change your conversion rate. Fix the words → shift the behavior.

🎁 Don’t know who needs this, but here’s a prompt that will generate ad concepts based on 2 psychology principles: endowment effect and commitment consistency principle:

🎯 Objective
Create ad concepts using the Endowment Effect + Commitment–Consistency to push warm buyers over the line.
Make people feel like the outcome is already theirs, and that the next click is just finishing what they started.

⸻

🧠 Psychology Behind It

Endowment Effect
We value things more once they feel like ours—even temporarily. “Reserved for you,” free trials, and personalized previews work because the brain upgrades an item from “a product” to “my product.”

Commitment–Consistency
After a small “yes” (quiz answers, starting a trial, adding to cart), people feel pressure to act in line with that decision. It’s easier to follow through than feel flaky.

Together
Endowment = emotional ownership (“this is already mine”).
Commitment–Consistency = behavioral follow-through (“people like me finish what we start”).
Saying no now feels weirder than saying yes.

⸻

🛠️ Build Rules
	•	Create instant ownership: “your plan,” “your reserved seat,” pre-filled dashboard, saved cart, “we already set this up for you.”
	•	Surface prior commitments: remind them what they clicked, answered, or said they wanted.
	•	Tie it to identity: the next step is what organized / protective / ambitious people do.
	•	Make quitting feel off: wasted effort, staying stuck, leaving an upgrade half-finished.
	•	Position your brand as the obvious continuation—not a new decision.

⸻

✍️ Concept Template

Each ad concept should include:
	1.	Big Idea / Premise
How they’re already mentally “owning” the outcome + the commitment they’ve already made that naturally leads to your offer.
	2.	Narrative Angle / Hook
Visual or line that shows:
	•	this is already theirs (reserved screen, almost-complete checklist, “your results”), and
	•	the nudge to stay consistent.
	3.	Mechanisms in Play
	•	Endowment Effect → feels like theirs.
	•	Commitment–Consistency → following through feels like being true to themselves.
	4.	Best Formats
	•	“Reserved for [First Name]” UI mockups
	•	Pre-built dashboards or plans
	•	Quiz result pages (“Based on your answers…”)
	•	Checklists with one box unchecked
	•	Cart/booking reminders referencing what they already chose

⸻

✅ Output Instructions

Generate 3 ad concepts that:
	•	Make the product/result feel already owned.
	•	Call back to a belief, step, or micro-yes they gave earlier.
	•	Frame backing out as wasteful or off-brand for them.
	•	Present your offer as the natural final step.

Tone: confident, identity-driven, and nudgy—built to turn fence-sitters into “of course I’m in.”

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Maybe just stop what you’re doing and read this whole book because I have encountered 41 epiphanies in the first 4 chapters alone. 🤯

Finding the “why” might have been the single worst thing we could have ever told marketers to do.

Logical thinking is taught pervasively throughout all levels of education (from pre-schools to advanced PhDs) precisely because it is not the default brain setting for humans and therefore takes years of study to master even at a basic level.

Remember this, the next time your “no-brainer” offer flops.

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Chase Mohseni

Sarah Levinger

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The Battle

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Sarah Levinger

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Engagements

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