Ad Creation Tools

Overview of Ad Creation Tools

AdWords offers the Display Ad Builder to help you create a customized display ad that both suits your business or product, and better targets web content across the Google Display Network. Display ads are one of the best ways to really engage web users and to keep them interested in your advertising content as they browse Google partner sites.

About the Display Ad Builder

You can use the Display Ad Builder to create and customize a display ad that will engage users and drive traffic to your site.

Creating a display ad requires very little time and effort to get started. After selecting the Display Ad Builder from any ad group page within your account, you'll be able to fully customize an ad template's background colors, fonts, images, and text. We'll automatically format your ad in most of the standard IAB ad sizes. The ads you can create will include product showcases, galleries, and industry-specific ads.

Display Ad Builder Best Practices

One of the key benefits of the Display Ad Builder is the freedom it gives you to easily and quickly customize how your ad looks and feels. Doing this can help you reach your target audience more effectively, and get results sooner. Be sure to do the following to get the best performance out of your display ads:

Customize your ad

Color

• Choose easy-to-view colors: Make sure you've customized the color scheme of your ad, like the background and font color. First, try to align the color scheme of the template with the content of your image. Be careful of your color choices; extremely bright colors can be unpleasant or difficult to read. Using the same color for the foreground and background of your ad will also make it difficult to identify items within the image clearly.
• Work with the publisher color schemes: If you're placement targeting certain sites, consider tailoring the color scheme to match the publishers' pages. If your ad looks unattractive or out of place on a page, users will be less likely to click. It's more important to match the sites that you're targeting than to match your landing page.

Calls to Action

• For animations, make sure the final frame contains all the key messaging and call to action: Some ads have animated "teaser" text which may enter and exit. Users may miss this text, and if what they end up seeing doesn't clearly communicate your offering and what they should do, they'll be less likely to click.
• Be explicit about your call to action, in a button or elsewhere: This is especially important in image-based ads, because users may not know what part of the ad is clickable or, in some cases, that your ad is an ad. They also want to know what they can do if they click their ad: "Learn more?" or "Buy now?". Let them know.

Images

Use transparent PNG format images whenever possible. This can greatly improve the aesthetics and unique look of your ad. If you don't have a transparent PNG image, make sure your ad color scheme matches the background of your images. If your image has a white background for example, consider setting your ad background to white.

Balance your ad content

Make sure your ad text and images are balanced within the body of the display ad and within the overall ad size. Images should be clear, resized to fit the ad shape, and easy to recognize. All text should be easy to read and understand in relation to the included images and shape and size of the ad in all size versions. Images should not be cut off or unrecognizable, and lines of text should be complete and make sense. Check your ad in each available ad size and resize images as needed.

Create a visible Display URL

Your display url should be visible. If it's the same color as the ad's background color, it won't be visible to the user.

Try different display options

Display ads offer so many options that you may need to experiment with different templates, colors, and content to get the best results. Here are some things to keep trying as you optimize your display ad campaigns:

Change color schemes

Our own experiments have found that changes to the background and font colors of display ads can dramatically increase clickthrough rates, which can lead to more impressions and more conversions. Set up your ad, then choose that same template again, change colors, save it in the same ad group, and then let the variations compete against each other. You can then pause the ads that are doing the worst, leaving the best color combinations to lead your campaign.

Try new templates

Performance can vary widely by template. Consider trying out templates with images, with no images, with various types of animations, with no animations. Minor differences in layout and animations can have large impacts on click-through rates, depending on your product or service.

The differences between "Buy it now" and "Learn more," for example, can significantly impact a user's propensity to click. Consider trying out several variations. Also, the typical calls to action for text ads may need to be altered when you create display ads.