Best Practices: Creating Appealing Ads

The creative assets you build and use in your marketing campaigns should reach your customer along their brand journey, consider the device they are on, and stand out. To help you navigate these challenges, we have put together the following guide, which will allow you to understand how the audience, format choices, and key design impact results. In this article:

Customer Journey

Creative messaging should align with the relevant stage of your customer journey.

Devices and Formats

Creative sizes are needed to fill bid opportunities. Having all sizes allows the platform to get in front of the right people--wherever they may be on the internet. The image below includes recommended ad sizes, however, the bolded ad sizes have more inventory for bid opportunities. We recommend always including the bolded ad sizes to help improve performance and scale.

160x600 300x250 728x90 300x600 970x250	120x600 468x60 336x280 970x90	300x250 320x50	300x50 728x90

For more information on creative specifications, see the following articles:

• Creative Specifications (Display)

• Creative Specifications (Native)

• Creative Specifications (Video)

Key Visual Elements

Visual hierarchy refers to the arrangement or presentation of elements in a way that implies importance. Visual hierarchy influences the order in which the human eye perceives what it sees. The visual contrast between forms in a field of perception creates this order.

Key visual elements include: 

• Color & Contrast. Consider using colorful, eye-catching background colors to draw in consumer attention. 

  
  

  Colors not only help your brand stand out but also act as emotional cues. Understanding color psychology ensures your brand is associated with the right feelings, values, and actions you want to convey.

  
  

  

  
  

• Logo Placement. Ensure your company’s logo is prominent and consistent in location and dimension across the different banner sizes within each creative set. 

• Distinct Borders, Spacing, Fonts, & Sizes. Ads with a white background must include a distinct border to identify where the page ends, and advertisement begins.

• Eye-catching images. Include brand imagery and clear images of your product/service. Utilize people and top-selling products when possible. People relate more to  ads where they can see faces reflecting emotions while using the product or service advertised.

• Clear CTA button. The call-to-action (CTA) should be prominent and clear, being the focal point of the ad. Contrasting colors typically help the button stand out from the background. Place your CTA towards the bottom right of the ad as this will align with the user's experience while reading. 

• File Size. Optimize for file weight without sacrificing quality of the assets. Consider simple changes such as limiting the amount of type or compressing images to reduce file weight. Avoid images that appear low-quality or pixelated which can cause user mistrust.

• Animation. Movement helps catch the eye. Think about your brand when choosing animation. For example, a jumpy animation wouldn’t suit a high fashion retailer.

• Legibility. You have an average of 3-5 seconds to catch the user’s attention--blurry text or text that is too small will be missed. 

• Don’t Overfill. Emotionally driven images that express exaggerated mannerisms work best. Having too much text in your images can negatively impact your ad’s performance. Give the elements in the ad space to be seen--don’t over-clutter. Have one clear selling point.

• Terms & Conditions. May be required if your ad includes an offer, such as discounts. Ad unit and landing page must have detailed disclosures as appropriate; in particular, full terms and conditions of the offer must be easily accessible on the landing page