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What is celeb bait in advertising: how grey advertisers use celebrities in ad creatives
Meta has recently been intensifying its fight against scams and fake advertising, particularly against celeb bait — creatives that use celebrities' faces to grab attention.
Algorithms and moderation are increasingly catching such ads, and the format itself is gradually becoming riskier for advertisers.
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So let's break down what celeb bait is and how it works in advertising.
Celeb bait is one of the most common types of ad creatives that use images of well-known people to attract user attention and build trust in a product.
Most often, these ads feature what appear to be celebrity endorsements, interviews, news segments, or videos where a famous person talks about a particular service, investment platform, or product.
In the vast majority of cases, the celebrities have no actual connection to the ad, and their images or videos are used without permission — sometimes even with the help of deepfakes or artificial intelligence.
Due to the high recognizability of public figures, such creatives often attract attention and receive high engagement rates, which is why the celeb bait scheme is actively used across various advertising verticals.
In this article, we'll cover:
- what celeb bait is in advertising;
- how this scheme works;
- which niches use it most frequently;
- and why ad platforms like Meta are actively fighting such campaigns.
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How the celeb bait scheme works
The core idea of celeb bait is to leverage a celebrity's authority or recognizability to build trust in the ad message and motivate the user to visit a website.
Most often, such ads are presented as a supposed news story or interview in which a famous person talks about their experience with a particular product or service.
The typical scheme works like this:
1. The user sees an ad featuring a celebrity
The creative uses a photo or video of a well-known person — a businessman, actor, TV host, or influencer. It's often paired with a attention-grabbing headline like: "famous entrepreneur reveals his secret to making money," "celebrity's scandalous interview pulled from air," "this investment platform tried to get banned"
Such headlines create a sense of sensation and encourage the user to click through.
2. Landing page visit
After clicking, the user lands on a page that is often styled as a news website or interview. It features a story about how a celebrity supposedly discovered a new way to make money, lose weight, or invest.
To boost credibility, the page may include fake comments, income screenshots, quotes from the "article," and logos of well-known media outlets.
3. Product or service offer
At the bottom of the page, the user is directed to a product. This could be an investment platform, a crypto service, a nutra product, a fast-money program, and so on.
A sense of urgency is often added: limited spots available or a "last chance to join."
4. Conversion
The user is then asked to leave their contact details, register, make a deposit, or purchase a product outright.
It is precisely the trust generated by a familiar face that can give such creatives high CTR and conversion rates.
Which niches use celeb bait most often
The celeb bait scheme appears across various types of online advertising, but it is most commonly found in verticals where user trust and fast decision-making play a key role.
Since celebrities are associated with authority and success, using their image can significantly increase ad click-through rates.
Celeb bait is most frequently used in the following niches.
Crypto and investments
This is one of the most common areas for celeb bait. Ads may feature well-known businessmen, TV hosts, or entrepreneurs who supposedly talk about a new investment platform or a way to make quick money.
Typical headlines look something like:
- "Famous businessman reveals new investment platform"
- "This way of making money was meant to be kept secret"
- "TV show interrupted by scandalous interview"
Such creatives often lead to landing pages formatted as news articles.
Nutra products
In the health and wellness niche, celeb bait is used to promote various products for weight loss, anti-aging, or health improvement.
Ads may feature celebrities who supposedly talk about a new diet, the secret to fast weight loss, or a "revolutionary" health product. These stories are usually also formatted as interviews or articles.
Gambling
In the online casino space, celeb bait is used to create stories about big wins.
Ads may suggest that a famous athlete, actor, or TV host plays at a particular casino or won a substantial sum of money.
Ronaldo creatives in casino advertising
Get-rich-quick schemes
Another common variant is advertising so-called "passive income systems." In such ads, a celebrity supposedly demonstrates earning results, income screenshots, or a simple way to make money online.
These creatives often use a "secret exposed" format — something that was allegedly being suppressed.
Why celeb bait still works: the psychology behind these ad creatives
Despite the fact that many users are already aware of these schemes, celeb bait continues to be actively used in advertising. The reason is that such creatives are built on several powerful psychological mechanisms.
The authority effect
People tend to trust the opinions of well-known and authoritative figures. When a celebrity appears in an ad, it automatically increases the level of trust in the message. Even if the user isn't a fan of that particular person, the familiar face alone can create a sense of reliability.
Recognizability
The human brain responds faster to familiar images. When the face of a well-known actor, athlete, or TV host appears in a feed, users are more likely to pay attention to that ad. This helps the creative stand out among other listings and increases the likelihood of a click.
Social proof effect
When a user sees that a famous person supposedly uses a certain product or service, it creates the impression that the product has already been tested by others. Even if the information looks dubious, the mere presence of a celebrity can reduce critical thinking.
Sensationalism and the curiosity gap
Most celeb bait creatives use highly emotional and intriguing headlines:
- "Scandalous interview pulled from air"
- "Famous businessman reveals earning secret"
- "This platform tried to get shut down"
Such phrasing creates a curiosity gap — an information void that the user wants to fill by clicking on the ad.
News format
Another factor is the presentation of ads in the style of news articles. Users may perceive such content not as advertising but as informational material, which increases their trust in it.
It is precisely the combination of a familiar face, a sensational headline, and a "news" format that makes celeb bait one of the most clickable types of ad creatives.
Characteristic features of celeb bait advertising
Celeb bait creatives have a fairly recognizable structure. Over time, a set of characteristic patterns has emerged in the niche, making such ads easy to identify in ad libraries and spy services.
For media buyers and arbitrageurs, understanding these patterns is important — they help quickly find similar creatives, analyze their approaches, and track trends in the niche.
Use of well-known people's images
The primary hallmark of celeb bait is the use of famous individuals in creatives:
- actors,
- athletes,
- TV hosts,
- businessmen,
- influencers.
The celebrity almost always has no real connection to the product. In modern creatives, AI-generated images, deepfake videos, edited interviews, and out-of-context photos are commonly used for this purpose.
The goal of such a creative is to quickly grab attention in the feed through a recognizable face.
"News" or "interview" format
Another characteristic feature is the styling of ads as news content. A creative or landing page may look like a news article, a celebrity interview, a TV segment, or a piece from a well-known media outlet.
This format increases trust and creates the impression that the user is reading a real news story rather than a promotional piece.
Sensational headlines
Celeb bait almost always uses headlines with a high level of emotion and intrigue.
Typical examples:
- "This interview was pulled from air"
- "Studio went silent after this statement"
- "Famous entrepreneur accidentally revealed a secret"
- "This video tried to get banned"
Such phrasing creates a curiosity gap — an informational hook that encourages the user to click through.
Use of bridge pages
In most cases, traffic from the ad does not go directly to the offer. First, the user lands on an intermediate page styled as a news article, interview, or product review. This page may include fake comments, fabricated quotes, pseudo user reviews, and "earnings" screenshots — all designed to warm up the user before redirecting them to the main offer.
Cloaking
Many celeb bait campaigns use cloaking — a technology that allows different content to be shown to ad platform moderators and real users. In other words, moderators see a neutral page with no violations, while users who click land on a completely different page. This allows campaigns to run for a period of time even in niches with strict moderation.
How to find celeb bait ads in Meta Ads
For media buyers and arbitrageurs, celeb bait is not just a type of ad creative — it's a distinct approach to building funnels and scaling traffic. So it's important not only to understand what it is, but also to be able to quickly find such campaigns and analyze how they're structured.
Searching through ad libraries and spy services
The easiest way to find celeb bait ads is to use ad libraries or specialized ad intelligence services for Meta Ads, such as Adheart.
These tools allow you to:
- find ads by keywords;
- analyze advertiser pages;
- view all creatives launched from a single page;
- track new ad launches.
This helps quickly understand which approaches are currently being scaled in the niche.
Celeb bait campaigns often follow one characteristic pattern: a large number of nearly identical creatives with different headline or image variations are launched from a single page.
It's therefore useful to analyze:
- the number of ads from a single page;
- different creative variations;
- the GEOs being targeted;
- the lifespan of the ads.
This helps identify which funnels are being actively tested and scaled.
Particular attention should be paid to the creatives themselves. In celeb bait advertising, you'll often see:
- the same celebrity faces appearing across dozens of creatives;
- various sensational headline variations;
- adaptations for different GEOs;
- altered images or edited videos.
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Analyzing such creatives helps understand which approaches are being used to grab attention in the feed.
Another important signal is the scale of ad activity. If the same creative or approach is being launched across a large number of ads or on different pages, it may indicate that the campaign is delivering strong results.
This is precisely why it's important to see the full picture of ad activity, not just individual listings.
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