Author
Sunil Humne
Sunil Humne is co-founder of Galvor. He is the named author of the research on this site, and he writes the Decoded by Galvor newsletter.
Updated
About Sunil
Sunil Humne is Co-Founder, Galvor. He is the named author of the research, benchmarks and ad gallery on this site. He writes the Decoded by Galvor newsletter.
Galvor is a creative marketing intelligence platform for direct-to-consumer performance teams. More on the About page. How the research is made is on the methodology page.
What he writes about
Research
How one brand at a time advertises. Baby care, innerwear, intimates, vitamins, women's nutrition, feminine care, lending, a sandwich chain and a wellness resort, in India, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Benchmarks
What public ad libraries contain and how to read them. The creative attributes that decide whether an ad works, how many ads a D2C brand needs per month, how to read a competitor's Meta ad library, and what to do when a library is too big to read whole.
Ad gallery
Competitor ad libraries, measured exactly.
Newsletter
The creative memory gap, and why ads keep starting from zero.
Published work
19 pieces are listed here: 11 research posts, 6 benchmarks, 1 ad gallery and 1 newsletter issue.
Research
How XYXX uses a ₹999 five-pack to sell a whole wardrobe
XYXX points most of its ads at one cheap five-pack, lets creators make a third of them, and sells the rest of the wardrobe afterwards. FREECULTR and Bummer answer the same category in two other ways.
Updated 2026-10-04
How DaMENSCH leads with a body-shaping fix instead of a price
DaMENSCH sends 101 of the 250 ads we read to shapewear, padded vests and compression pages. It sells a fix for how a man looks, where XYXX sells a price and Bummer sells a joke.
Updated 2026-10-04
How Penn Station turns 37 creatives into 300 ads
Penn Station keeps 300 ads live, but they come from 37 creatives: one $7.99 deal, a set of craving lines on one photo, and a franchise offer. Jersey Mike's and Jimmy John's play the same game with more people and more seasons in it.
Updated 2026-10-04
How Sofy uses 24 ads to point at the quick-commerce shelf and lets creators do the reaching
Sofy runs 24 paid ads, most of them sending shoppers to Blinkit or Zepto. Its reach comes from 178 organic posts and creator reels. Stayfree and Nua run far bigger ad libraries and argue about different things.
Updated 2026-10-04
How Novomins sells one problem per ad against a rival four times its size
Novomins cannot match Vitabiotics on volume, so it writes each ad around one problem, from a child's bedtime to trying to conceive, and sends it to a matching page. Vitabiotics leans on a 3-for-2 offer and the Myvitamins brand on lifestyle.
Updated 2026-10-04
How MamyPoko spends 18 ads on one product and the rest of its effort on a mascot and a podcast
MamyPoko Pants keeps 18 paid ads on two product claims, and sends most of them to Blinkit. The brand-building happens in 192 organic posts, a mascot and a podcast. Pampers runs 314 ads and leans on mothers' testimonials.
Updated 2026-10-04
How Bibado pairs messy-baby creators with a bundle it has run for over 18 months
Bibado shows babies covered in food, lets parents make some of the ads, and keeps bundle and free-product offers running for more than 18 months. Tommee Tippee, the category leader, mostly runs a product feed and discounts.
Updated 2026-10-04
How Victoria's Secret lets its Fashion Show build the audience and keeps its ads for sales and scent
Victoria's Secret runs 104 live ads, mostly seasonal sales, scent and body care, while 200 organic posts and a Fashion Show on 18 October carry the glamour. Savage X Fenty discounts and Aerie shows ordinary days.
Updated 2026-10-04
How Piramal Finance runs 3 ads and lets its Instagram do the selling
Piramal Finance keeps just 3 ads live and uses them to send people to its Instagram. There, 366 posts in two years teach customers to spot scams, explain loans and carry a campaign film. Bajaj Finserv and Tata Capital run far more ads.
Updated 2026-10-04
How Free Soul launched CreaGlow with 536 ads and women who say it worked
Free Soul put 265 of the 478 ads we read behind one new product, CreaGlow, and started almost all of them in September. Creators' stories carry the proof. Wild Nutrition and Form Nutrition run smaller libraries and lean on experts and data.
Updated 2026-10-04
How Fazlani Nature's Nest uses a health calendar to reposition a resort as a wellness stay
Fazlani Nature's Nest says it is moving from a leisure resort to a wellness stay. Its 12 live ads tie each treatment to a health date, such as PCOS Awareness Month, and all 12 send people to Instagram. Atmantan runs 145 ads with booking buttons.
Updated 2026-10-04
Benchmarks
The creative attributes that decide whether an ad works
Hook type, format, who is on camera, where it was shot. The dimensions every ad gets tagged against, and the values each can take.
Updated 2026-10-02
What 41 D2C brands' public ad libraries actually contain
13,842 distinct creatives decoded across 35 attributed competitor reads. Live library sizes run from 3 ads to 2,247.
Updated 2026-10-02
The biggest number is often a rival's
In 12 of 35 competitor reads, the largest creative count belonged to a rival, not the brand that commissioned the report. In five of those it was within 2x of the brand's own.
Updated 2026-10-02
How many ads a D2C brand needs per month, by ad spend
A brand spending $50–200K a month on paid social ships 29–69 creatives a month, and only 5–8% of them become winners.
Updated 2026-10-02
How to read a competitor's Meta ad library properly
Live ad count is the most-quoted and least reliable number in a competitive read. De-duplicate first, or you can be wrong by an order of magnitude.
Updated 2026-10-02
When a library is too big to read whole
8 of 99 advertiser pulls hit a ceiling rather than the end of the library. One yielded 1,258 creatives with no measurable library size at all.
Updated 2026-10-02