In this instructional YouTube video, Tanner Smith systematically ranks common home‑service advertising creative formats—from low‑performing D‑tier to top‑performing S‑tier. He critiques each ad type, explaining why expensive brand commercials, stock photos, and AI renders underperform, while highlighting the surprising effectiveness of simple financing‑first static images and unpolished 30‑second phone videos filmed by the business owner on a job site. The video concludes with a promotional call‑to‑action, offering viewers a free swipe file of over 20,000 high‑performing ads across more than 40 trades and an invitation to join his school community.
Chapters
Ranking every home service ad type from D tier to S tier. Let's go. First up, the brand commercial, the one you paid a video company $15 grand for. I'm talking drone shots, slow music, your logo at the end. Looks great, does not get leads. D tier. Stock photo or AI-generated photo with your logo on it. Homeowners have seen that exact type of picture 400 times. D tier. AI render of the finished product. Now these are actually useful. You can make 50 of them in an hour and test angles fast. But a render can't carry trust by itself. It's a thumbnail, not the full ad. C tier. Before and after carousel. The proof is real, and I love proof. The problem is the swipe. If card 1 isn't the hook and the payoff, nobody swipes to card 2. C tier. Now the boring one. A photo and a question. Is your roof leaking? Is your AC older than your kid? This is the longest running ad in almost every trade we track. It's ugly and it never stops working. B tier. Screenshot of a Google review. Real name, real stars, real words. It costs you nothing and it beats anything a designer makes you. B tier. Process footage. Nobody talking. Coding getting rolled on a garage floor. Shingles going down. It's satisfying to watch, so people watch. Put the offer in the text on screen. B tier. The drone sizzle. Fly over the house. Crew working. Big reveal. On its own, that's a pretty video. C tier. But put the owner's voice over it and a payment on the screen— new roof as low as $149 a month— And now it sells a $20,000 job. A tier. Customer testimonial. Listen, if it's a phone selfie in their car, B tier. But if you filmed it in their kitchen with the new windows right behind them, that's a different ad. A tier. Now the top 2. One static image with the product and one line. New roof as low as $149 a month. That's it. The monthly number is the hook. Financing first has been the number one offer in replacement trades for as long as we've been doing this. S tier. And number 1, you on your phone at a job site, 30 seconds. Hey, I'm Tanner, I own XYZ Windows. If your windows are over 15 years old, here's what I'd check. No script, no editing, captions on. It beats every produced video we've ever run because it doesn't look like an ad. S tier. You want to get access not just these ads but a swipe file over 20,000 of the highest performing ads in over 40 different trades? Go ahead, comment ads below, and I'm gonna send you a link to my school community where you can join for free and get access to entire vault.
