Overview
Creatives are promotional material that you can share with your partners to help drive sales.
Awin offers the ability to provide creatives to partners through a creative bank, under My creatives. This repository can be used to enhance campaigns and partners performance by enabling them to access approved creative assets to support promotional placements.
Entries to this repository can be hidden or tagged, and have a description and ID for easy identification.
Assets can also be made visible to only certain partners, if you have a creative that features a specific partner-reference/campaign focus/attributable coupon code.
The Awin platform supports the following types of creative:
Banners and images
Email templates
Forms
HTML 5 banners
Search widgets
Text links
Other, such as application forms, top picks, active scrollers, and surveys
Banner and image creatives
Banners are key in digital advertising, helping with branding and increasing engagement. A well-designed banner can help you boost sales.
For banners and images, we recommend that you add at least one promotional creative and one generic creative to your program.
Choosing the right size
Choosing the right banner size ensures that your ads display properly across various platforms.
Here are the recommended sizes for both standard and mobile formats:
Standard format | Dimensions (px) |
|---|---|
Banner | 468×60 |
Leaderboard | 728×90 |
Medium rectangle | 300×250 |
Wide skyscraper | 160×600 |
Skyscraper | 120×600 |
Small square | 200×200 |
Square | 250×250 |
Half page | 300×600 |
Mobile format | Dimensions (px) |
|---|---|
Smartphone wide banner | 320×50 |
Smartphone static banner | 300×50 |
Medium rectangle | 300×250 |
Smartphone large banner | 320×100 |
Feature phone small banner | 120×20 |
Feature phone medium banner | 168×28 |
Feature phone large banner | 216×36 |
Designing your banner
Creating an appealing banner requires careful attention to several design elements to make sure it gets noticed and encourages engagement.
Here’s how to get it right:
File size: Keep your banner file size under 488 KB. Smaller files load faster and improve user experience, reducing the chance that viewers will leave because of slow loading times. We support GIF, JPG/JPEG and PNG files, or you can also create HTML5 banners or dynamic banners.
Animation: Animated banners can be more engaging than static ones, but they need to be balanced. Ensure the animation is smooth and not too fast or slow. The goal is to attract attention without causing distraction or making the content difficult to follow.
Copy: The text should be clear, concise, and compelling. Focus on the benefits your product or service offers rather than just listing features. Emphasize how your product will improve the user’s life, and keep your wording brief and impactful.
Call to Action (CTA): A strong CTA is crucial for driving clicks. Your CTA should be direct and specific, such as Click here, Shop now, Learn more, or Get started. Ensure it stands out visually and guides users towards the desired action.
Brand consistency: Match your banner’s colors with your brand’s palette to reinforce brand identity. Consistent branding makes your ads more recognizable.
Images: Use high-quality images that resonate with your audience and accurately represent your product or service. Avoid generic stock photos when possible, as unique images are more likely to draw attention.
Logo: Consider including your brand’s logo on your banner. This helps build brand recognition and ensures that users associate the banner with your brand.
Text link creatives
Text links are a great way of promoting your products and are frequently used by all partner types.
Text links allow you to predefine the alt text and messages that appear as part of the text link.
For example:
Click here for Books and Magazines!
If you are looking for lawnmowers you should check out B&Q. Click here for more info.
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HTML creatives
For the following banner types, use HTML:
Email templates
Forms
Search widgets
Other, such as application forms, top picks, active scrollers, and surveys
Adding a creative to your program
In the platform, navigate to Campaigns > My creatives.
Click + Add creative.
At the top of the panel, select the type of creative you want to add:
Image for banners and image creatives.
HTML for text links, email templates, forms, HTML5 banners, search widgets, and other creative types.
In the Creative details section, complete the following fields:
Title: Enter a name to help partners search for your creative.
Description: Include relevant keywords to help partners identify your creative.
Tag: Select or create a tag to group your creative (for example: New collection). This field is required.
Under Visible to, select one of the following:
All Publishers to make the creative available to all partners. This is selected by default.
Some publishers to restrict access to specific partners only.
Complete the remaining fields based on the tab you selected in step 3:
Image
In the Image section, choose how you’d like to add your creative:
Select Upload your creative, then click Choose file to upload an image from your computer.
Select Provide creative source URL to link to an image hosted online.
Note
We support GIF, JPG/JPEG and PNG files. Maximum file size is 488 KB. We strongly recommend uploading a file directly from your computer. Files uploaded to Awin are hosted on our platform, giving partners greater protection if the source image is ever changed or removed.
Then complete the following fields:
Destination URL: Enter the URL users will be directed to when they click the banner. The URL must include a protocol and domain.
Alt Text: Enter a short description that appears on mouseover or if the creative isn’t displayed. This field is optional.
HTML
From the Type dropdown, select one of the following:
Text Link
Email Template
Form
HTML 5 Banner
Search Widget
Other
If you selected Text Link, complete the Link details section:
Link text: Enter the text you want users to see, for example: Shop now.
Destination URL: Enter the URL users will be directed to when they click the link.
For all other HTML types, enter the HTML for your creative and select the appropriate dimensions.
Click Save.
Batch uploading creatives
The Batch upload creatives option allows you to add or update image banners and text link creatives in bulk using a CSV file.
Note
Batch upload works for banners and text links only.
If you only want to remove creatives, you should download a CSV of your list of creatives, make the appropriate changes, and then upload the updated CSV. This avoids unnecessary or unwanted updates to all other existing banners and text links.
In the platform navigate to Campaigns > My creatives.
Click Batch upload creatives.
In the panel that opens, click the CSV file link to export a file containing your current image banners and text links.
Open the CSV in your preferred editing software and make your required changes. You can edit the following fields:
status: The status for the creative. 0 means the creative is hidden and 1 that it is active.
creative type: The type of asset. Add 3 for an image banner and 5 for a text link.
creative title: The title displayed to partners in the My creatives directory.
creative description: The description displayed to partners in the My creatives directory. Include relevant keywords for better visibility in searches.
creative tag: A tag to group creatives. Tags can only be set when adding a new creative via batch upload and cannot be amended.
visible to publishers: The visibility of the creative for specific partners. To make the creative visible to all partners leave this field blank. To make the creative visible to specific partners add each corresponding Publisher ID, separated by commas, e.g., 12345,23456,34567.
link text: Specific to the text link creative type.
destination URL: The URL where users will be directed.
alt text: A short description appearing on mouseover or when the image is not displayed. This field is specific to image banners.
image source: URL of the hosted image or the filename and extension if saved locally.
Important
The ID field can’t be edited and is automatically populated with the ID for the existing creative. If you are adding a new creative, leave this field blank.
When updating existing creatives, all images must have the same dimensions as the original.
If your image is locally saved, you can find the image source filename and extension within the folder settings.
Once a tag has been added to a creative, it can’t be changed via batch upload or within the platform. To update a creative’s tag, you’ll need to re-upload the creative with the correct tag applied.
Under Upload CSV file, click Choose File, select your updated CSV, and upload it to Awin for processing.
Uploading locally stored images
If uploading locally saved images:
After uploading the CSV, you’ll be prompted to upload the image files.
Click Browse and select multiple images at once.
Confirm and save your creative.
Verifying upload status
Successful updates will appear in the creative directory.
Failed updates will generate an error message and a downloadable CSV file with errors.
Correct any errors in the CSV file and re-upload it.
Searching for an existing creative
To find a creative in your library, navigate to Campaigns > My creatives. Your creatives are listed in the table with the following details: asset preview, tags, publisher visibility, last modified date, and available actions.
You can search and filter your creatives using the following options:
Search bar: Enter a creative ID to find a specific creative directly.
Active: Filter by the status of your creatives - active or hidden.
Type: Filter by creative type, such as image banner, text link, form, or HTML5 banner.
Tag: Filter by tag to group and view creatives by campaign or category.
Dimension: Filter by size to find creatives that match a specific format.
Editing and hiding creative
To edit a creative, click the pencil icon in the Actions column.
If you want to remove an old creative so that it’s no longer visible to your partners, you need to hide it. To change the visibility of a creative, click the eye icon.
Hiding a creative won’t remove it from your partners websites. If you want them to stop using a creative, let them know by publishing a communication through our Communication Center.
Tip
Where possible we recommend replacing an active creative by editing it, instead of removing. This will ensure that partners using this creative will automatically refresh. However, both creatives need to be the same size for this to be possible.