From emails to chatbots to scheduling, automation has transformed the way we work—and it’s only getting bigger: 86% of employees surveyed think automation will help them improve their efficiency, productivity, and growth. And one area that’s grown by leaps and bounds recently is creative automation.
Creative automation can be a lifesaver for small and/or stretched marketing teams (which is probably every marketing team ever) because it does the heavy lifting for you when it comes to some of the most time-consuming parts of creating, launching, and managing ads.
In this article, we’ll take a closer look at how marketers can take advantage of creative automation to save time.
What is creative automation?
In a nutshell, creative automation uses technology to automate the creation and/or optimization of your ad campaigns. This can include anything from simple A/B testing to more complex machine learning algorithms that will automatically generate new ad variations based on past performance.
There are a number of different platforms that offer creative automation, each with its own unique features and capabilities. Some of the more popular ones include Creatopy, BannerFlow, and Celtra.
How does creative automation work?
Creative automation apps create multiple versions of a base template automatically. Dynamic elements like text and audio are customized on top. Teams then link these components to a field in a data repository spreadsheet. When something in the spreadsheet changes, the dynamic elements respond. This makes it possible to launch an entire ad campaign with just a few clicks—and without ever having to leave your creative tools.
Why use creative automation?
Saving time is a major benefit of creative automation, but it's not the only one. Here are a few more reasons to consider using it in your marketing campaigns.
- Improved quality: By running multiple versions of an ad simultaneously and letting the data determine which performs best, you can be confident that you’re always putting your best foot forward.
- Increased efficiency: Automating the ad creation process frees up your team to focus on other tasks, like strategy and analysis. It also makes it easy to align your marketing campaigns, collect data, and learn what’s working (and what isn’t) faster.
- Better organization: With all your creative assets stored in one central location, it’s easy to keep track of everything and ensure that everyone is working with the most current and effective versions.
- Reduced production costs: By using automation to create ads, you have shorter production cycles, which saves time and therefore keeps costs low (not to mention reducing your dependency on agencies).
- Better brand consistency: Automated ads can be templated to match your brand guidelines, ensuring that every ad that goes out meets your standards.
- More scalable: As your business grows, you can quickly and easily scale your ad campaigns to reach more people without having to increase your team’s headcount.
- Easier marketing localization: If you’re running campaigns in multiple countries, creative automation can help you customize your ads for each market while still maintaining brand consistency.
- Easier A/B testing: A/B testing is famously time-consuming. With creative automation, you can test multiple versions of an ad—from banner ads to Facebook ads—to concurrently and quickly gather insights to inform your next round of tests.
5 Ways to get started with creative automation
If you’re convinced that creative automation is right for your business but you’re not sure where to begin, here are a few tips to help you get started.
1. Define your goals
What do you want to achieve? Do you want to save time on ad creation? Improve campaign performance? Collect data? All three? Be sure to establish some clear goals before you start shopping for a solution.
2. Do your research
Not all platforms are created equal. Spend some time researching your options to find the one that best meets your needs.
3. Consider your team’s needs
What does your team need from a creative automation platform? Make sure to take their input into account before making a final decision. Things like a user-friendly interface and good tech support are a must.
4. Compare features
Once you’ve narrowed down your options, it’s time to start comparing features. Which platform offers the features you need at a price that fits your budget? Create a shortlist.
5. Test it out
Don’t forget to test out the platform before committing to it. Most providers offer free trials so you can explore the features and see if it’s a good fit for your needs.
Discover Marin, the all-in-one advertising platform
Once you've determined the right tool for automating your creative assets, you can then save time with a tool for automating the distribution of those assets. Paid media management puts all your ads in one centralized campaign manager, from TikTok to Facebook to Google Ads…so you can see what creatives perform well on multiple platforms and what creatives will need to go back to the drawing board.
Marin is the most versatile PPC management tool on the market. It makes it easy to plan, buy, optimize, and report on all your campaigns. Plus, with our automation insights feature, you can easily uncover opportunities for reducing spend, make the most of high-performing areas, and analyze data across your channels to improve your campaigns with ease.
Request a demo today to see how we can help you streamline your ad creation process and improve your campaign performance.
