Should you bother with creatives in 2023?

A creative is an advertising image or video that attracts a potential client and encourages them to perform the target action: click, transition, registration. Many novice webmasters do not pay due attention to this part of the ad campaign, use other people’s affiliate creatives. In practice, from 60% to 90% (depending on the traffic source) of the conversion rate depends on the creative.

 

What makes a good creative?

Statistics claim that the user makes a decision on whether or not to click on an ad within 7 seconds. That’s why the main objective of the creative is to grab the user’s attention and showcase the product or service in the shortest amount of time possible. 

An advertising image or video should be catchy and evoke vivid emotions and associations that inspire action. The text (that takes up 30% of the creative) must contain the advantages and exclusivity of the product. If a creative requires a lot of reading or has a vague message, the user will just skip it.

A high-quality creative must include:

• the target audience’s insecurities or a solution for them;
• a unique selling proposition (USP) – product advantages, motivation to use this specific offer;
• a call to action;
• for gray-hat offers, the creative must not violate the rules of ad platforms;

 

Types of ad creatives and approaches

Creatives for targeting and affiliate marketing can be static and dynamic. 

 

Regardless of the creative type, the ad is a little story that must arouse emotion and motivate people to purchase the product.

By approaches we mean the techniques affiliates use to evoke the needed emotions in a potential client. To adopt the right approach, you need to understand the needs of the GEO you’re targeting. Which means you’ll need different approaches for each separate GEO.

The main approaches can be compared to the widespread needs of people:

• live a long and happy life;
• be rich;
• be beautiful;
• be better than others;
• not feel pain;
• be part of society;

 

For example, when designing betting creatives, affiliates focus on users’ attraction to major sporting events or fan-favorite teams and athletes  in a specific country. This approach centers on fan loyalty.

Gambling creatives attract users through cool emotions, the thrill of the game and the chance to win. Such approaches convert better in developed countries, where casinos and betting are perceived more as a form of entertainment rather than a way to make money. Meaning your focus should be on the need to experience emotions to lead a pleasant life. 

In developing countries and the CIS region, people are more attracted to creatives that promise the chance to win big and get rich. When it comes to gambling, this is hitting the jackpot, getting fat wads of cash, attributes of a luxurious lifestyle. In the betting vertical, capper channels (where the user can get event results in advance and make money on it) are still popular. With this approach, place the emphasis on the need for money and a rich lifestyle.

 

Features to keep in mind when working with creatives

There are several general rules to follow when designing a creative:

 

• you can’t promise a 100% guaranteed result from the product or service, such creatives are considered misleading and don’t pass moderation; 
• for Facebook, the text mustn’t occupy more than 20% of the ad;
• use associations, innuendos and hidden messages in your creatives, many gray-hat offer images are prohibited and won’t pass moderation;
• study the rules of ad platforms and follow them to reduce the number of bans for violating the former;

How to design an ad creative?

First, you need to understand which creatives work and bring in leads. You can use spy services for this. They offer plenty of settings for GEO, topics, devices, age and sex. You can input your offer’s name and see the ad creatives that are currently being used.

Then you pick out an approach depending on the selected GEO.

You can get materials for your creatives from photos, video stocks and YouTube.

If you have advanced Photoshop or Movavi skills, it’ll come in handy. 

Useful services for video creatives: Canva, Infogram, Gifmaker for editing images. 

Удобные сервисы для видео креативов: Supa, Vimperor, Animoto.

Process the selected images, make it fit the necessary size and add text. 

For video creatives, make a compilation of clips to match the needed format, add text, effects, emotion-arousing emojis and suitable music.  

 

For both types of creatives, it’s important to make sure the text contains:

• a description of what exclusive features the client will get from purchasing the product;
• a call to action (click the link, use the promo code, swipe, etc.);

 

The texts for either type of creative, should be short and easy-to-read. Don’t forget that you only have 7 seconds to catch a user’s attention. Don’t make them think about the text, it should be short and immediately show the product’s strong suits.

Common mistakes when designing creatives

The most common mistake newbies make is take other people’s affiliate marketing creatives and use them in their own ad campaigns. Sure, spy services let you do just that, but that’s not what they’re made for – their purpose is to identify trending approaches and get inspired. Nowadays, ad platform algorithms can detect identical creatives and block the respectful ad campaigns if such creatives were ever banned before. 

Moreover, these beginners don’t allow themselves to discover new approaches that can turn out to be breakthroughs and lead to enormous profits.

Adopting the right approach can also damage your conversion rate. Different national mentalities have different wants and needs, you need to be aware of them and use appropriate ones for each GEO. 

 

How to evaluate the effectiveness of a creative?

The effectiveness of an ad creative is checked through tests. Many novice webmasters make the mistake of making too few creatives for the testing phase and try to dive into targeting. Nowadays, many advertising platforms have smart algorithms that can independently locate relevant target audiences. After that, the conversion rate depends on how attractive the creative is. A good ratio for the testing phase is at least 5 creatives per offer, per GEO, with similar targeting settings.

If you’re not getting enough clicks, the reason is also likely to be your creative.

 

What’s the value of creatives?

Modern trends – automation, machine learning, artificial intelligence – all apply to affiliate marketing just like to everything else. More and more tools appear that allow webmasters to rely on bots. But only a person can feel another person and provide something that arouses the necessary emotions.

There have been many cases when affiliates used a popular traffic source, targeting settings available to everyone, but thanks to a fresh approach and creative, they secured large ROIs.