Types of Display creatives

Types of Display creatives

Each creative type serves a different purpose for advertisers. Let’s take a look at the different Display creative types available and how to use them.

Image creatives

An image creative is an image file that uses the GIF, JPG, or PNG format.

This is the most basic and commonly used type of asset, requiring the least amount of work to upload and manage. Image creatives render on the page relatively quickly, and Ad Manager allows you to upload a standard image file or specify URLs of creatives hosted on third-party ad servers.

HTML5 creatives

HTML5 creatives are zip files that contain the HTML code and all the assets (or links to assets, if they’re hosted elsewhere).

They are useful for interactive ads because they let advertisers create richer ad experiences and can render on almost any device, in almost every browser.

Third-party creatives

Third-party creatives are hosted on a separate, third-party server. A code snippet, used in Ad Manager, calls the server to deliver the creative to the page. Third-party creatives are essential if you’re running a third-party ad network. Use third-party tags if you or the advertiser are leveraging a third-party tracking service such as MOAT, Nielsen, or IAS.

Campaign Manager

A Campaign Manager tag (sometimes called an “internal redirect”) is a creative that is hosted by Campaign Manager. Similar to third-party creatives, a Campaign Manager tag is used to retrieve a creative asset; however, they’re processed internally within Campaign Manager and Ad Manager systems, not sent to the user’s browser.

Native format

Native ads are component-based ads that match the look and feel of your site or app to provide a better user experience for visitors. Native ads are customizable, use high quality ad elements such as high resolution images, and are styled by the publisher instead of the advertiser. Ad Manager offers users both standard and custom native formats.

Custom creatives

Ad Manager’s custom creative format allows you to supply your own code to develop custom ad serving solutions that creative templates or other display creative types can’t provide. To create new custom creatives, you or a technical resource needs to know the ad serving goal required and have the necessary technical and coding skills to develop the solution.

Standard creative template

Standard creative template is included in Ad Manager by default. They support some common ad experiences or other useful applications, such as adding third-party tracking pixels. 

Custom creative template

Custom creative templates are created specifically for your Ad Manager network by an administrator or other technical resource. They include custom code that defines how a creative looks, behaves, or serves, and can do something as simple as restrict the type of image file you can upload or something as complex as enforce a time limit to how long a video creative can play.