Creative Is the New Targeting (And 2026 Just Confirmed It)

Persona over demographics

The decision to use a persona over a marketing demographic has been talked about for years – Brafton’s Samantha Gordon spoke on the advantages of a Persona nearly a decade ago. And while this advantage may be cut and dry, not everyone can afford the resources that go into developing a fully detailed persona. The demographic then becomes a “good enough” approach that is only used because the better option is unavailable.

Example of a persona generated by Delve AI. Source: Delve AI

But a lot has changed since last year, and even more so since Gordon’s article in 2016. We now have the means to generate relevant, accurate, and hyper specific marketing personas thanks to tools like ChatGPT and Delve AI. Using AI-powered tools means your content and followers can be monitored to adjust at scale, painting a clearer picture over time of who your content is reaching. When it comes to curating our content, we’re no longer accepting “good enough”.

Similarity clusters punishing lazy iterations

As we’ve discussed in our previous article, net-new concept testing is the way to go for ads in 2026. Platforms such as Meta’s Andromeda are helping us test faster and smarter so we stop backing ourselves into a corner by iterating over concepts that just don’t work.

Example of two net-new concepts for jewelry brand rocksbox. Source: Primer

Andromeda will dynamically test your various concepts to determine what works first. Then comes the refining stage: once your winning concepts have been proven to work, you can then move on to A/B testing. Whereas net-new testing used to be an expensive and time-consuming process, Andromeda lets you test your concepts simultaneously, tracking their performance in real time.

Conclusion: Creative teams now own performance more than ever

If 2025 taught us anything, it’s this: your creative isn’t supporting your media strategy – it is your media strategy. Marketing teams can now use AI tools like delve.aito generate personas so accurate that a marketing demographic stops being relevant. And Andromeda can track their performance to help guide future content, refining what does good into what does great.

Works Cited

Fritz. “Delve AI Review: Is It the Best AI Persona Tool Right Now? – Fritz Ai.” Fritz Ai, Fritz.ai, 10 Oct. 2025, fritz.ai/delve-ai-review/. Accessed 15 Jan. 2026.

Gordon, Samantha. “The Difference between Targeting Demographics & Creating Personas (in under 2 Minutes) [Video].” Brafton, Feb. 2016, www.brafton.com/blog/news/the-difference-between-targeting-demographics-creating-personas-in-under-3-minutes-video/. Accessed 12 Jan. 2026.

Primer. “Creative Testing after the Meta Andromeda Update: Strategies for Better Ad Performance.” Goprimer.com, 2026, www.goprimer.com/blog/meta-andromeda-update. Accessed 15 Jan. 2026.