Creating Successful Graphics for Mobile and Social Ad Campaigns

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1 Creating Successful Graphics for Mobile and Social Ad Campaigns

2 The Importance of Successful Creative Preparing an advertising campaign for success is an intricate process with infinite elements to consider before, during, and after its launch. Targeting options aside, one of the central factors in determining a campaign s success is the ad creative. Ineffective or unsuccessful graphics within the ad itself can cause an otherwise effective campaign to fall flat. Still, for advertisers, developers, and graphic designers, creating the perfect image to drive audience engagement can be a challenge. In this whitepaper, we will share some insider strategies and data-backed methods for campaign creative success. Successful creative can increase your campaign s KPIs across the board 16x More Installs 3x Higher CVRs 5x Higher Post-Acquisition Engagement Taking the First Step The first step in creating a visually effective ad is the same first step as launching any early stage campaign: do your research. Before designing your graphics, make sure you know your target audience and designated channel. Consider factors such as audience demographics and interests, as well as channel parameters, like incentivized versus non-incentivized traffic. Also consider the fact that different channels have different image specifications and capability restrictions that determine various facets of the ad, for example image ratio, image/thumbnail size, and percentage of text allowance on both desktop and mobile platforms. Knowing your channel s technical specs can save you from auto-rejected or poorly cropped creative, all the while ensuring you make the best use of what is available. Another aspect of your research should involve any and all available historical data. Have you run a campaign for a similar product before? If so, what best engaged each cohort of your target audience? Looking at what worked well and what did not in previous campaigns can provide a great starting point. 1

3 Generating the Creative Generating creative is an entirely transitional process; nothing you initially create should be final. Preliminary design development generates a wide range of possibilities, the most successful of which should be determined by extensive testing in due course. Start by considering what you personally find engaging, but keep an open mind to the fact that what appeals to you may not appeal to your target audience and vice versa. Generate numerous options that run the gamut of possibilities, only avoiding that which goes against your brand. Color Number One: When creating new graphics, one important factor to consider is color. The color combinations within an ad are a key determinant of its appeal to a given target audience. This aspect of ad creation can often be challenging, given that what is ultimately most successful may not align with the designer or the advertiser s own preference. Consider the table below, which compares the success of various background colors in ads that are otherwise identical. This data attests to the importance of creating and testing various color options, given that oftentimes certain color combinations are overwhelmingly successful for no ostensible reason other than the personal preference of your audience. Table 1 Image Image Background CVR Installs Green 46% +16,000 Blue & Purple 36% +1,000 Red 16% In this case, a green background was exponentially more appealing to users, and the corresponding ad generated 16x more installs than the blue/purple background option. On the other hand, the red background garnered far less engagement, where the number of installs reached less than 50. Another factor to consider is how you can utilize custom ads to more effectively reach individual segments of your overall target audience. It is likely that the color combinations that appeal to men will be different than those that appeal to women, and those that attract older audiences will be different than those that attract younger audiences. So, targeting ads with different color elements to different user cohorts can help you reach a much greater portion of your audience as a whole. 2

4 Consider the chart below which compares the most successful ad color among men and women for a Taptica campaign advertising a casino app. Table 2 Gender Color Within Gender Across Genders M Blue 4x the average male install rate 7x more male installs F Grey 2x the average female install rate 9x more female installs In this case, the color blue was significantly more successful than any other color tested for men. Similarly, grey was more successful than any other color tested for women. Meanwhile, the opposite combination, blue for women and grey for men, performed fairly lower overall. Relevance Number Two: In addition to color, one of the most important considerations in generating ad creative is the ad s relevance and consistency with the product it features. Creating relevant and consistent ads ensures that campaign budgets are well spent on reaching the most relevant users by providing a solid understanding of what to expect from an app or ecommerce experience. This, as opposed to ambiguous or misleading creative, leads to higher click-through and conversion rates, and most importantly, to the acquisition of the most highly engaged users with the highest lifetime values. Consistency can be improved by aligning color schemes and syntax, including images of real characters, screen caps of menus or game play, or graphics that depict in-app user experience. Consider the relationship between image relevance and user quality in the following ads for a popular browser game. Table 3 Image Relevance 1 st Time Deposit Average Deposits Reach a Given Point in Game High: Depicts main character, also shows on landing page 7.5x Greater than control 630% ~5x More likely Medium: Depicts character in game 6x Greater than control 500% ~4x More likely Low: Depicts character in style of game In these examples, it is clear that visual consistency is absolutely crucial in attaining high quality users and maximizing your ROI outcome. For this campaign, when the ad depicted the main character in the game, first time deposit rates were 7.5x above control rates, average deposits were 630% higher, and newly acquired users were nearly 5x more likely to reach a given in app-goal. 3

5 When the ad depicted a secondary character, these numbers were still considerably above the control rates, but the gap between medium and high relevance ads still strongly attests to the correlation between an ad s relevance and its performance. Number Three: Despite the fact that advertisers have lots of information to convey, most ad formats offer a limited amount of space. Because of this, they often tend towards information overload when creating an ad. However, visual ads capture audience attention because they re exactly that visual. If the graphic is overwhelming, crowded, or confusing in appearance, the ad is likely to be ignored. Less is More To avoid overwhelming or deterring your audience, focus on including only the most essential information: an appealing image, a product name, and a clear call to action. Consider the success of the following images which differ only in their degrees of complexity. Table 4 Image Elements CVR Installs Poker cards and chips 42% +110,000 Poker cards, 3D poker chips, total winnings 38% This comparison strongly exemplifies the importance of simplicity, in that the more complex ad at the bottom of the table proved much less successful in generating conversions than the simpler ad shown above it. In this instance, the straightforwardness of the first ad was its only differentiating factor, thus giving it sole accolade for generating nearly 17x more installs. When it comes to generating the creative, remember: Color Always experiment with a full range of color options within your ads. You'll never know what resonates best until you test it. Relevance Make sure that your audience knows what you're all about. Simulating the look and feel of your in-app experience is a surefire way to boost your conversion quality. 4 Simplicity When it comes to mobile ads, less is more. For best results, keep things clean, simple, and easily digestible.

6 AreaOne Creative Optimization Once you have created a wide range of visual options, the task still remains to decide which is best. Given that what appeals to you may be entirely different than what appeals to your target audience, the best option is often to A/B test each iteration. Test for different colors, fonts, characters or models, scenes, phrasing, image orientations, and any other differentiating aspect present in your ads. But, be sure that your testing is very specific. Try to avoid including so many variants within your ad that you don t know which aspect is responsible for its success. Utilizing this strategy as you move through your testing allows for creative optimization that will slowly focus your ads to become more audience specific, until only the best iterations remain. Also keep in mind that it is important to move quickly according to your KPIs to ensure that resources are not lost on unsuccessful ads. CTR and CVR serve as good immediate indicators of image quality, but if you re gauging an ad s ability to generate high quality users, you ll also want to pay attention to various downstream events, making post-acquisition event tracking another essential factor in your creative optimization process. Analyzing data garnered from the tracking of downstream events helps to ensure your ads are meeting long term LTV, ROI, and quality goals. At Taptica for example, we focus on analyzing key insights from post-acquisition events, such as day one retention, session time, deposits and purchases, repeat customers, and LTV, utilizing our high-caliber mobile ad tech to programmatically cut underperformers and push top performers throughout the optimization process. 5

7 Creative Rotation Following the final analyses and determination of your most successful creative options, one final factor to consider is the importance of creative rotation. Creative rotation is absolutely crucial in ensuring that your ads capture and hold your audience s attention throughout the duration of your campaign. When users consistently see the same ad, they may begin to ignore it. In contrast, continually rotating and refreshing your ad creative helps to keep content fresh and different, and allows you to reach the largest percentage of your core audience with different visuals designed to appeal to them specifically. Consider the chart below which demonstrates the impact on several KPIs before and after unique creative rotation for two separate campaigns. In these cases, optimized creative was rotated every one-two weeks and, as a result, tens of thousands of installs could be driven weekly over the campaigns lifespans. Table 5 Campaign Timelime CVR App Use Installs 1 1 day after rotation 64% 1 day before rotation 60% 2x 3x 2 1 day after rotation 1 day before rotation 41% 36% 3x 2.5x When comparing the KPIs one day before and one day after their rotation, it is striking to note that CVRs increased up to five percentage points, and both app use and installs were up to 3x higher just one day after rotation. With this data in mind, it is easy to understand the importance of entering your campaign launch equipped with various high performing creative options for frequent rotation, and to continue designing new iterations throughout the campaign s span in order to sustain acquisition quality and speed over time. 6

8 In Summary Generating creative can be an involved process, but an incredibly important one no less. There are countless factors to consider when deciding what is best for your brand and your unique product. However, for any campaign to be visually engaging and successful, advertisers must consider questions of color, relevance, consistency, simplicity, testing, optimization, and creative rotation, all paired with continuous critical analysis throughout each step of the process. When each of these factors is taken into consideration, campaigns can see increased performance across the board, including major increases in conversion rates, installs, and post-acquisition engagement rates. Don t let generating ad creative be a burden. Strategic planning, research, testing, and analysis can make all the difference in launching a high performing mobile campaign. 7

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