Are your Facebook and Instagram ads getting lost in the feed while your competitors keep stealing the clicks? Are you spending time and money tweaking campaign settings when your real problem might be on screen? In this article, you'll discover how to build a Facebook and Instagram ad creative strategy from the ground up—including how to identify the right messages to test, what kinds of creative formats actually perform, and how to tap into Meta's free creator network to generate high-performing ads without doing all the production yourself. This article was co-created by Ben Heath and Michael Stelzner. For more about Ben, scroll to the end of this article. Five or six years ago, Facebook advertisers could gain a real competitive advantage through smarter targeting, more complex funnels, manual placement selections, and campaign-level settings that most advertisers ignored. That era is over. Meta's Advantage Plus suite has automated nearly all of that.…