Days running: the free signal of a winning ad
· 4 min · Intentos
You cannot see a competitor’s return on ad spend. You can see when each ad started running. Because unprofitable ads usually get paused, the ones still running after weeks or months tell you what works.
Why staying power works
Every day an ad runs costs money. A brand that keeps an ad live for 90 days is either making money with it or not paying attention, and serious advertisers pay attention. Long runners are the best shortlist you can build for free.
Three traps
Use days running together with other signals:
- Duplicates: the same creative relaunched many times can look like many new ads. Group by copy and image first.
- Always on brand ads: some ads run forever at a tiny budget. Check reach next to the days.
- New winners: a strong ad from last week has few days yet. Watch it instead of ignoring it.
Turning long runners into a brief
Once you have a shortlist, look at what the long runners share: the format, the hook, the offer, the first three seconds. In Intentos, Radar tracks how many ads each brand starts and stops, shows days running on every card and tags each ad by format, hook and angle, so the pattern is visible across brands.
