Win Automated Advertising By Maximizing Your Creative

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When it comes to the fast-paced world of search, shopping, and social campaigns; automated creative campaigns are key players in ensuring that you find the right consumer at the right moment in their journey. A perfectly curated visual catches your eye as you shop for a new pair of jeans and pulls you in as you scroll through TikTok, Instagram, or Pinterest. But not all marketers are using their advertising creative to effectively move consumers through the funnel. In our recent webinar, our creative, social, and strategy experts shared actionable steps to show you how to maximize your creative to win automated advertising. Interested in watching the full webinar on-demand? Watch it here. Let’s review the panel’s data-driven tips and tricks to help your creative break through the noise and capture your consumer’s attention.

Testing + Measuring Creative Success

DRIVING PERFORMANCE THROUGH CREATIVE: DYNAMIC CREATIVE TESTING

Before we dive in, let’s discuss creative testing. Continuous creative testing is truly the bread and butter of learning exactly how you can resonate with your consumer. First, ask yourself what you would like to learn; then create your hypothesis. Once your test produces results, learn from the outcome, tweak your evergreen campaigns, then keep testing, learning, rinsing, and repeating.

And the best part about creative testing? The options are limitless. You can use the same set of photography and assets kind of across the full campaign, whether you’re shooting specifically for your campaign, or just pulling from the collection you already have available. If you only have one set of photographs or visuals, you can still gain valuable insights by tweaking and testing messaging in your copy.

CREATIVE BRIEFS: HOW TO GET STARTED

Our performance creative team always kick-off projects with a creative brief. In briefs, we typically cover objectives, audience, tone, positioning, deliverables, scope, and timeline. This way, we can set ourselves up for success and ensure that everybody is on the same page.

TESTING IN ACTION

Don’t just take our word for it; here is an example of how we helped a major medical retail client increase conversion through a few simple tweaks to the language.

We created an integrated, cross-channel campaign with performance creative for YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Display and tested branded messaging against more specific, features-oriented copy, while highlighting the scrubs brand with lightweight motion video, as well as a variety of static placements. We tested our hypothesis that specific features-oriented copy would resonate best by running ads with general copy against ads with more design-specific content.

After an approximately two-week test, we determined that features-oriented copy resonated most with their target audience. As a result, they saw a 56% increase in YouTube revenue, 53% increase in YouTube ROAS, and a 50% increase in YouTube orders.

Four Essential 2022 Performance Creative Trends

VIDEO IS VITAL (EVEN LO-FI)

Automated campaigns (like Google’s Performance Max, or PMax) have video placements to provide incremental performance to meet your goals. It is even more important to keep in mind that if you don’t upload your own video asset for Performance Max campaigns, Google will create one for you that is less custom and have that run in its place. Therefore, it’s in your best interest to have a video asset created so that you have full control over your brand.

ORGANIZING FOR AUTOMATION

It’s always been important to organize assets across campaigns. With automation ramping up, having the right assets to combine for placements is essential for cohesive campaigns that convert. No matter what platform your campaign is on, it should have consistent messaging.

FIRST-PARTY DATA INSIGHTS

With iOS14.5 and data-tracking changes, marketing creative now has to work harder and smarter than ever before. Our proprietary smart bidding technology, Adlucent Index™, helps to better inform automated bidding algorithms with your first-party data as well as how you can iterate your creative.

ACCESSIBILITY/UGC ON SOCIAL

Authentic advertising experiences that don’t look like ads go a long way in building brand trust. UGC (User-Generated Content) itself acts as a signal to potential buyers solidifying their purchase decision. It’s also a cost-efficient way to explore new content.

Leveraging Video Without Full-Service Production

VIDEO ISN’T AS SCARY AS IT SOUNDS

Many brands and retailers don’t always have the resources to create full-scale production videos. However, that doesn’t mean they should rely on static assets alone. Whether stringing together short clips to create video ads or using lightweight motion animation to bring static images to life, there are endless options to create captivating motion in your marketing. Take this video for example.

optimizing creative for performance max

WHAT ARE Google’s PERFORMANCE MAX CAMPAIGNS?

This year, Google is sunsetting Smart Shopping Campaigns and premiering Performance Max Campaigns. Performance Max builds on automated, visual and feed-based aspects of paid ads, extends reach across Google properties (i.e. Google Display Network, Gmail, YouTube, and Discovery), and enables optimization of both online and offline sales objectives. Think of it as a “one-size fits all” approach to cross-channel automated advertising. Performance Max is very similar to Smart Shopping, but with a few extra bells and whistles including new; inventory and formats, bidding and controls, and insights and reporting. By September 2022, Smart Shopping Campaigns will automatically migrate to Performance Max.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR YOU?

Creative assets will lead the way in the new world of Performance Max. With that in mind, here are a few of our tips and tricks to help you maximize your creative to win automated advertising.

Text Guidelines

• Have a consistent theme in your messaging
• Highlight information about your product offerings
• Only capitalize the first word and proper nouns for a more authentic ad experience
• Assets should be distinct and make sense when combined; avoid repetition

Image Guidelines

• Use the maximum number of images available to be eligible for all inventory
• Use authentic, high-quality images that inspire engagement
• Use consistent backgrounds and orientations for product images

Video Guidelines

• Use video assets that are aligned with your brand guidelines + messaging
• Adopt lightweight video assets at minimum
• Grab attention early + introduce branding as early and frequently as possible
• Videos will be automatically created by Google if you do not upload an asset

Designing Creatives for Cross-Channel

Cross-channel optimization has always been important. Now, with Performance Max serving ads for Google Display Network, Gmail, YouTube, and Discovery feed all in one campaign, Google acts more like an automated channel on its own. While it’s important to have varying static advertisement dimensions and a consistent theme across placements, it’s crucial to create a video. Remember, if you don’t create one, Google will make one for you, which will not be custom.

Creating cohesion across channels for your different audiences is key, so try to run a campaign on all channels when possible. Ideally, strive for lifestyle ads with relevant assets to choose from, rather than using the Performance Max option to “scan my website.” As always, you should follow best practices for each channel and plan assets ahead of time to make sure you have the right sizes for all the placements.

FACEBOOK

Facebook reigns supreme in the world of social media platforms. When it comes to static images, more visual and less text-heavy assets are the name of the game. If you are highlighting your product, it is important to show people making use of the product. If done properly, carousel ads are a great way to tell a story about your product. In order to achieve this, use images that are cohesive and engaging, and don’t forget to link to the products or services featured in each card.

For video, keep in mind that most visitors are on mobile devices, so it is vital to prioritize a vertical design. Attention spans are even shorter in 2022, so you only have about three seconds to capture attention. You’ll also want to make sure you’re showcasing your brand identity and messaging early on. Additionally, people should be able to understand your advertisement without audio since a lot of people scroll with sound off.

TIKTOK

TikTok is a more organic social media platform, so it’s important to make sure your assets are not over-produced; you want your ads to look natural. Trends can also make or break your reach on the platform, so stay in the know on the fast-paced trends. If you see a trend that aligns with your branding – seize the moment! And don’t forget to utilize hashtags so your assets appear organically in user searches. Since TikTok opens directly to an immersive full-screen stream of videos, remember to design vertical, full-screen videos that are concise and immersive; 11-17 second videos perform best. Last but not least, consistency is key. Post often to solidify your brand’s point of view and messaging.

DISPLAY + DISCOVERY

No matter the channel, high-quality images are important to ensure consumers are able to see and understand your product. As a good rule of thumb, simple is better. Avoid overlays, whether it’s text, logos, buttons, or anything of that nature on top of images. For clarity, don’t use collages, and make sure your asset contrasts with the white platform interface.

AMAZON

Similar to TikTok, Amazon video creative should be 15 seconds or less and fully comprehensive without audio. Show the brand logo early on in the video, feature one product, and use minimal text. Don’t forget to avoid the use of URLs in the video as Amazon will auto-reject them.

YOUTUBE

And lastly, YouTube. You’ve probably noticed a reoccurring theme here, but make sure to introduce the brand within the first 5 seconds. In the opening, be sure the product or person is in a tight frame, and as the video unfolds, facilitate connection by making people core to the storyline. In the end, make sure you show compelling offers and calls to action to create a sense of urgency that motivates the viewer to take action.

Using First-Party Data for Creative Iteration

BRING CONTROL INTO YOUR AUTOMATION

We’ve talked about creative testing as well as how you can optimize your assets for cross-channel success, but how do you analyze and respond to consumer preferences in real-time? Our proprietary smart bidding technology, Adlucent Index™, turns real-time bidding (RTB) algorithms into your algorithm. Rather than bidding on clicks, it takes control of how you value each conversion. Adlucent Index™ works in tandem with Google’s automation solutions, is available for Google text ads, Smart Shopping campaigns, Performance Max campaigns, and Facebook advertising, and is fully customizable to your business goal(s).

With Adlucent Index™ you can work with the algorithm to test and improve your creative to optimize towards the people that matter most to your business. Through first-party data and order level, you can take the next step to make automation work better and produce the results you want.

Interest in Adlucent Index™? Learn more.

Conclusion

As automated advertising continues to evolve, use these tips and tricks to avoid developing creative assets that fall flat. Invest in creative testing, lean into video, align with cross-channel best practices, and leverage Adlucent Index™ to optimize first-party data to win automated advertising. If you’re a retailer that’s interested in trying out one of the tactics above, feel free to reach out to our team.

Eden Pierson

Eden is a content manager with a wide range of experience in the marketing space. From B2B advertising, branding, and retail marketing, she is passionate about curating content that resonates with target audiences.