Back on the topic of creatives: types of creatives in advertising, where to find them, and how to make them for free
All types of creatives that your dear customers see are the main “hammer” that shutter their doubts about buying your product and are a direct reflection of our personal ingenuity, without which one just can’t do in affiliate marketing. And in order for this “hammer” to gain influence or not lose it, it can’t hurt to look at the types of advertising creatives with a new attitude. This magical feature boosts conversions, captures the attention of users and, of course, shows the product from the best side. So, why don’t we discuss the types of creatives in advertising ever so passionately? Of course, we mean the creatives used in our dear affiliate marketing, and at the same time discuss how to find them, how to create them yourself and for free.
Types of creatives
– Banners. The size and format here can be all sorts, the only thing in common here is that such creatives contain a text and an image, which people from your target audience should “peck” at.
– Landing pages. Websites where the user ends up after a fateful click on your ad. If you go all Feng Shui on your landings, then this principle should apply well here, “1 landing page = 1 offer”, no distraction of attention to 2 or 3 offers.
– Pre-landing pages (or transit pages). As the name of such a creative suggests, it is an intermediary between an advertisement and a landing page. Such intermediaries should contain extra information about your offer. The main tasks of pre-landing pages are to warm up the interest of the target audience + work out the objections of the target audience.
– Video advertising. Types of creatives presenting the offer. Video advertising is placed on hostings or social networks.
– Text posts. There are many of them in messengers, social networks and push notifications.
– Photos. Types of advertising creatives that serve as a supplement to the text and are published in the same channels.
This list is the backbone of creatives. Of course, it’s totally okay to test and mix one with the other.
Creatives by vertical
eCommerce
Here’s what’s popular in this vertical:
– Video reviews. Stories about the best aspects of the offer and a demonstration of its application. The purpose of video reviews is, of course, cultivating the trust of the target audience in the offer.
– Interactive ads that allow the user to interact with the offer. A simple example is a picture that can be scrolled and viewed from all sides. People love this and it works great for selling different types of things.
– Promotions and all sorts of giveaways. In these giveaways, winners get a valuable product or at least a discount as a reward.
Nutra
– Before-and-after photos. Demonstrate clear changes in the appearance/life of the customer thanks to the offer. Show some good proof.
– Positive feedback. Let your customers of this or that offer or someone more significant (such as, for example, celebrities) talk about the work of the offer. It’s also an efficient and effective approach.
– Happy-end stories of using the offer. Let those who’ve used the offer tell their story (well, or have someone interview them). It can also inspire others to buy.
Gambling and betting
– Photos showing someone’s success. Design creatives showing bundles of money and expensive things, for sure!
– Win stories. A story about how someone won at a casino or betting
Where can you look for creatives?
There are several ways you can go here:
– Designing creatives on your own. The advantage of this path is the ability to adapt ads to your goals and target audience.
– Affiliate programs. Become part of an affiliate program that provides ready-to-use creatives for their affiliates.
– Creative agencies. Enlist the help of professionals trained to create working promotional materials.
– Freelance sites. Here, you can find a good designer and, if you spend some more time looking for one, you’ll even get a reasonable price.
– Uniqualization. Find some ready-made creatives and make them more original
– Your competitors. Dig up others’ work on spying services, get your competitors’ creatives and just remake them.
Spying services
Here’s a small list of useful “peeping” programs for competitors:
– AdSpy. Full access to millions of social media creatives. Users are given the option to view other people’s work and analyze advertising metrics: conversions, clicks, and the like. Also, in this service they have a feature for improving creatives.
– AdHeart. This service has detailed data on social media ads, as they monitor and analyze competitor activity by collecting data on their performance, budgets, impressions, and interaction with users. AdHeart can give you insight into which ad campaigns are performing better to improve your strategies.
– Adlover. They help to keep abreast of what is happening with other brands and analyze their strategy and all types of creatives. Adlover makes it possible to study competitors’ advertising: analyze text, design, and the target audience itself. Also, this little spy will provide you with data on ad impressions by region and other parameters.
Creative software you may need
Photo uniqualization
Here are a few ways to make someone’s photo creative unique again:
– Change the background or replace the main object of the composition
– Adjust the color scheme with a photo editor
– Change the font
– Rewrite the text
– Add an interactive element – video or animation
– Put the ad in another part of the composition
Video uniqualization
Here are a few ways make a video creative nee and unique:
– Get a program for designing creatives for targeted ads (we will attach a list of those at the end of the article) and play with the content of the video: add new elements, change the sequence of scenes, etc.
– Apply different effects, color correction, filters, and more
– Add an interactive element in the video to make it more original. Again, programs for designing video creatives for marketplaces and social networks shall come in helpful.
– Add any relevant, unique promotional materials – ideally handmade.
– Mix in a new and original soundtrack.
How to design a text creative?
– Highlight the main message that you want to convey to the audience and it should be short, unique, and attractive.
– Mark the basic advantages of the offer and emphasize them in the creative text. In the final text of the creative, leave only the most important and interesting information – show how the offer can solve the problems of the target audience.
– Describe the offer clearly, do not forget to indicate bonuses, if you have any; mention the duration of the offer, contacts for communication, etc.
– When finished with the text, take a look at it as if you’re a stranger and, of course, don’t forget to check for errors.
– Next, test the effectiveness of the test creative – run several variations and take the most effective ones.
How to make a photo creative?
– First of all, clearly define the goal of your campaign.
– Make an analysis of the target audience: age segment, approximate sex ratio, location and interests
– Give preference to bright colors, unusual shapes or unexpected combinations of elements
– Integrate data into your ad that describes the benefits or value of the offer
– Next, choose the appropriate platforms where your photo creative will be displayed with the highest efficiency.
– Next, test the effectiveness of the creative – launch several variations of the photo creative and leave the most effective ones.
How to make a video creative?
– First come up with a general concept and plot
– Next, write the script (preferably with a storyboard, not necessarily thorough)
– Compile video (or shoot it if you’re feeling extra). Write lines and accompanying sound tracks that you will add to your footage
– Import materials and edit them with a video editor
– Do some color grading
– Export the final video to a format that is digestible for different devices
– Next, choose the appropriate platforms where your photo creative will be displayed with the highest efficiency.
– Next, test the effectiveness of the creative – launch several variations of the video creative and take the most effective ones.
The best apps for ad creatives
What are the best affiliate marketing apps? First of all, those that don’t require you to spend money. Of course, if their tools are fine and satisfy the creative needs of a regular affiliate. There are a lot of new serives on the market that are not yet up to paid subscriptions, but they are doing everything to develop their brand – they sleep and see when they gain at least a little media exposure. And the Futuretools.io search engine will help you find these in two clicks.
Working with images and videos
Need an ad creative app to help with your images? Open Futuretools.io and check the boxes next to “Image Improvement” and “Free”.
The Karlo ad creative app only requires you to sign up, after which you can create all sorts of AI-generated masterpieces based on a text description.
A good helper tool for the uniqualization of photos and hand-drawn creatives – just drag the desired photo or drawing in, select any object to be erased and that object will either be completely erased or blurred as a result (depending on the level of erasing and the object itself). Again, it’s free and doesn’t even require signing up.
Another free tool for uniqualizing photo creatives or hand-drawn creatives: upload an image where you need to remove the background and get either a completely erased or blurry background. Both will make someone else’s creative unique. There’s also a feature for generating videos from images. This application doesn’t require signing up in order to use it.
LeiaPix Converter allows you to instantly convert 2D images to beautiful 3D images. Export to Leia image format, Side-By-Side 3D, depth map or light field animation. Free, but after signing up.
Text editors
A good toolkit for creating texts in creative advertising. AI-powered Brainstorm tool for generating innovative campaign ideas. The platform also provides campaign management features that make it easy to create and organize ads effectively. This is how the creators of the application describe this feature, “It acts as a creative partner, combining creative flair, wit and sophistication to help the user lam on their creative journey.” Free, but after signing up.
A free tool for creating presentations (which is, of course, great for landing pages). Powered by Chat GPT-3, sign up required.
We took some comments on the topic from experienced affiliates:
1) Ivan Merkulov, owner of the Carbon affiliate marketing team
The easiest way to find a creative is to open a spying service, download the creative that’s been used longest and uniqualize it through a bot or service. If you make creatives yourself, you need to test both static image and video. In the team, we mainly use videos, which shows itself better at a distance. For the video, you can use simple logic of this video sequence: before – application – result – CTA.
2) Evgeny Toporkov, founder of the ZeonAds agency, affiliate marketing specialist since 2016, owner of the “Arbitrazh iz topora” Teleram channel
Before uploading creatives, we conduct full research of niches, with the search for approaches, hypotheses, etc. In the near future, I will write an article on this topic, so subscribe to my channel so you don’t miss it, or you can read the shortened version for now.
When we have conducted research and have chosen approaches for ourselves, we begin to make creatives.
We make them according to the classics using Photoshop for images and Adobe Premier for video.
All of our creatives comply with internal requirements, either follow the AIDA formula or other marketing formulas.
Conclusion
Creatives, whether it be a test, photo or video creative, are the head of everything and repeating these basics can’t hurt even market pros. And keeping up to date with the latest free creative tools is a must by default (if you want to save more advertising budget for yourself).