CONNLA GaffneyIndustry report · Oct 2026

The State ofSupplement Ads2026

What 29,923 customer reviews say, compared with what 53 supplement brands' Meta ads say. Where they match, where they don't, and what to do about it.

Read the findings→

Sample size: 29,923 reviews
Brands: 53 small · 14 leaders
Regions: UK, IE, US
Products: protein, creatine, pre-workout, electrolytes
Period: Sep – Oct 2026

29,923customer reviews tagged

53small brands' ads reviewed

14category leaders mapped

7 in 10run no customer proof

Key findings

The short version

Over the last few weeks I went through the reviews and live Meta ads of 53 small and mid-sized supplement brands across the UK, Ireland and the US, plus the ads of 14 category leaders like Myprotein, Bulk, GHOST and Transparent Labs.

Then I put what customers say next to what the ads say.

They're not having the same conversation.

1

Customers buy on taste. 32 of 43 brands' reviews put it first.

The typical brand has taste mentioned in 42% of its reviews, more than three times anything else customers can legally be quoted on in an ad.

2

About 7 in 10 brands' ads never sell taste as a benefit.

25 of 36 brands with readable ads either never mention taste, or only list flavour names.

3

About 7 in 10 run no customer proof at all.

24 of 35 brands show no review, rating or testimonial in their ads. Only 5 show real customers.

4

Ads lead with what customers mention least.

Doses, discounts and "tested" are the most common ad angles. In reviews, value comes up 5% of the time and testing 3%.

5

Creators everywhere, customers nowhere.

Paid creators, athletes or influencers appeared in the ads of 15 brands. Real customer UGC appeared at just 1.

Part 1

What customers talk about

The median share of reviews mentioning each theme, across 43 brands.

0%10%20%30%40%50%

Median across the 43 brands with 30+ written reviews. A review can mention several themes. Effect talk ("great pump", "no crash", "slept better") is left out of this chart because most of it can't be used in UK ads and needs proof in US ones; it sits at a median of 20%.

Show as a table

Theme	Median share of reviews

Taste dwarfs everything else. Loyalty ("my third tub", "won't go anywhere else") comes second, and it's mostly a taste story too: people come back to what they enjoy drinking.

By product

Product	Brands	Taste is the #1 theme at	Median taste share
Creatine	7	7 of 7	53%
Electrolytes	6	5 of 6	57%
Protein	13	11 of 13	42%
Pre-workout	11	5 of 11	38%

Creatine is the surprise. It's sold as the most "science" product on the shelf, yet flavoured creatine reviews are taste reviews first.

Pre-workout is the exception. Pre buyers talk most about how it feels (pump, focus, no crash: a median of 48% of reviews). That's exactly the talk UK rules won't let you advertise, which makes taste and the experience of drinking it the open lane for pre brands too.

Part 2

What the ads talk about

The share of the 53 brands using each angle in their live ads.

0%10%20%30%40%50%

Coded from each brand's live ads in the Meta Ad Library, 27 Sep – 3 Oct 2026. A brand can use several angles.

Show as a table

Angle	Share of brands

The mismatch, side by side

Rank	Customers talk about	Ads lead with
1	Taste	Doses and ingredients
2	Coming back for more	Discounts and price
3	How it mixes	"Clean" and "tested"
4	Why they switched	Athletes and influencers
5	Value	Taste

Brands are writing ads about what they're proud of. Customers are writing reviews about what they enjoy. The gap between the two lists is where new winning ads come from.

Part 3

The gaps, brand by brand

For 38 brands, I compared the top review themes with their ads one by one.

Missing from the ads, but loud in the reviews	Brands
Taste The #1 gap at 19	24 of 38 (63%)
"Best I've tried" / switching from another brand	13 of 38 (34%)
Mixability and texture	8 of 38 (21%)
Service and a personal touch	5 of 38 (13%)
"No jitters, no crash" (pre-workout)	5 of 38 (13%)

Patterns that kept coming up

One-message accounts. Several brands run every ad on a single angle: all "military-safe", all "clinically dosed", all discount. One message reaches one type of buyer.
Thousands of reviews, zero in the ads. One US brand had over 5,000 reviews on its best-seller and no customer proof in its top 10 ads.
The wrong product in the spotlight. A few brands advertise a product their reviews barely mention, while their most-loved product gets no ads at all.
Discount as the only lever. Several brands lean so hard on codes that the ad says nothing about why you'd want the product at full price.

Part 4

What the big brands do

I mapped the live ads of 8 UK and 6 US category leaders.

Brand	What their ads lean on
Myprotein (UK)	Taste, through polished videos of licensed chocolate-bar flavours
Bulk (UK)	Big sales ("up to 80% off") pushed through many paid creators
PER4M (UK)	Flavour ("King of Flavour", sweet-shop creatine) plus free gifts
Warrior (UK)	Price: "Stop overpaying" has run for over 150 days
GHOST (US)	Licensed flavours. Its longest statics have run well over a year
Bucked Up (US)	A low-cost sample kit that has run for about 9 months
Raw Nutrition (US)	Star ratings and review counts up front
Transparent Labs (US)	Dose transparency: "check the label"

The lesson: the biggest brands sell taste and make trying it cheap (samples, kits, licensed flavours). Small brands have a better weapon they rarely use: thousands of real customers saying it tastes great.

Lanes almost nobody owns, in either country

Real customer reviews as the ad. Review cards, quotes and named customers, beyond a star count.
Testing as the story. Plenty of brands show a badge. Hardly any explain what's tested and why it matters.
A small-brand founder on camera, answering the questions customers actually ask.
Pre-workout frustrations as the hook (bitter taste, itchy tingles, the crash), told through customers' words rather than brand promises.

Meta Ad Library, UK and US, 3 October 2026. Read from the ad cards, top 25–30 per brand by impressions.

Part 5

5 moves for any supplement brand

Count your reviews before you write your next ad
Tag 100+ recent reviews by theme. If taste or mixability is your #1 theme and none of your ads say it, that's your next test.
Put a real customer in at least one ad
A verified review, word for word, with a first name and initial. It's the cheapest proof you'll ever buy, and almost nobody in the category uses it.
Run at least three different angles
Taste, switching, value, testing, identity. Different angles reach different buyers. Ten versions of one message reach one.
Sell the experience, not the effect
Taste, texture, "I actually finish the bottle" and how it fits the routine are all safe to advertise. Energy, focus, recovery and sleep mostly aren't, especially in the UK.
Keep your control, test next to it
Don't switch off what works. Put new angles in their own ad set at the same budget, and judge them on cost per purchase after a fair spend.

Check your brand

Where do you stand?

Answer six quick questions about your live ads.

Answer all six to see your score.

Want this for your brand?

I'll run the same analysis on your reviews, your ads and your competitors, and send you a Brand Intel Report with 5 angles to test. Free.

Book a Free Ad Angle Call

Or reply to my email with "report".

How this was made

Reviews: 29,923 public reviews from 43 brands (Trustpilot, Judge.me, Okendo, Loox, store reviews and Amazon), collected Sep–Oct 2026. Tagged by theme with keyword rules, then hand-checked on 120 random reviews across 9–16 brands per round (about 97–98% accurate; misses lean towards undercounting). Duplicate and imported reviews were removed. Brands with fewer than 30 written reviews were left out.
Ads: the live Meta ads of 53 brands, read in the Meta Ad Library between 27 Sep and 3 Oct 2026, plus 14 category leaders on 3 Oct.
Who's in it: small and mid-sized gym-supplement brands I researched as potential clients. That's not a random sample. Brands already running strong review ads were less likely to make my list, so treat the ad numbers as "what's common among small brands", not the whole market.
Anonymous: no small brand is named. Category leaders are named only for their public ads.