This field record asks: When the same creative assets run in two ad sets in the same account, do spend-share (and CPC/CPA) ranks agree across those ad sets? It is part of a seven-study Darwin IQ Labs series on early signals for newly introduced Meta creatives (Nos. 113–119).

When the same creative assets appear in two Meta ad sets in the same account (64 pairs; clients sampled of various industries), spend-share ranks agree at Spearman 0.61 (95% CI 0.49–0.69). Top-1 agreement is ~2.9× chance. CPC ranks also transfer (~0.50); CPA ranks do not (~0.13).

Sample

Dataset EMR-2026-10F: 51 accounts, 183 ad sets in a 16-week weekly panel; pairs require ≥3 shared creatives with material spend. Clients sampled of various industries.

Method

Creatives matched on exact image/video asset sets. Ranks use full-window spend share, CPC, and CPA. Spearman correlations are weighted by shared-creative count; CIs bootstrap accounts. Smaller→larger contrasts the lower-spend ad set’s ranks against the higher-spend ad set. Observational.

Findings

Spend order transfers; CPA order does not. A creative's spend-share rank in one ad set predicts its rank in another: Spearman 0.61 (95% CI 0.49 to 0.69) across 64 ad-set pairs. The top spender in one set is the top in the other 42% of the time (2.9x chance).

Spend-share and CPC ranks transfer across ad sets; CPA ranks do not

Spearman correlation of creative ranks in ad set A vs ad set B

0.30 barSpend share0.61CPC0.50CPA0.13

Source: Darwin IQ Labs, dataset EMR-2026-10F · Success bar 0.30 for spend share

Agreement holds for same-funnel and mixed-funnel pairs and when the spend gap between ad sets is ≥2×.

What this record does not claim

  • No account or creative IDs are released with EMR-2026-10F.
  • Shared creatives are often pasted winners, so agreement may overstate a brand-new test creative.
  • Ranks use the full window, not day-1 container reads alone.