Your creative approach can make all the difference to your performance. Let’s go through the tips and best practices to help you harness the full potential of your creatives and expedite your user base growth.
1. Creative Types
Let’s begin by understanding the core creative types available for your campaigns:
| Creative Type | Description |
| Video & Carousel | Video followed by a carousel end card |
| Video & Full Screen | Video followed by a full-screen end card |
| Video & Interactive End Card | Video followed by an interactive end card |
| Playable | Standalone playable ad |
2. Media Requirements
When preparing your media assets, adhere to the following specifications:
Carousel Images & Full-Screen Images:
| Aspect | Requirements |
| File Format | png, jpg, jpeg, gif |
| Max File Size | 2MB |
| Min Dimension | 320px |
| Max Dimension | 3,840px |
| Phone Portrait | Ratio: 9:16 |
| Phone Landscape | Ratio: 16:9 |
| Tablet Portrait | Ratio: 3:4 |
| Tablet Landscape | Ratio: 4:3 |
Video:
| Aspect | Requirements |
| File Format | mp4 |
| Max File Size | 100MB |
| Max Duration | 60 seconds (Videos > 30 sec may have limited traffic) |
| Video Ratio | Anything from 1:2 to 2:1 |
Interactive End card:
| Aspect | Requirements |
| File Format | Inline HTML |
| Max File Size | 5MB |
| Support | ironSource DAPI.js |
To ensure HTML assets meet ironSource’s quality assurance standards, adhere to these key guidelines:
- Loading Speed: Ensure that the creative loads in under 10 seconds.
- Interactivity: Make the creatives responsive to all user interactions, aligned with gameplay or tutorials.
- Functionality: Verify that ironSource’s ad unit info button and X-button perform their intended functions.
- Seamless Navigation: Guarantee that users can easily access the store from the creative.
Playable:
| Aspect | Requirements |
| File Format | html, htm |
| Max File Size | 5MB |
Let’s also briefly dive into the key ad placements where your ads will run so you are aware of the user experience:
- Interstitial Ads:
These full-screen dynamic ads come in various formats, offering minimal user disruption and high revenue potential, especially in top-tier countries.
- Rewarded Video Ads:
User-favorite ads offer in-app rewards, boosting revenue, driving in-app purchases, enhancing engagement, and increasing retention.
- Banner/MREC Ads:
Cost-effective rectangular ads displayed at the top or bottom of the screen, adaptable to different devices for effective brand promotion.
- Offerwall:
A user-initiated mini-store with multiple offers for in-app rewards, appealing to users who prefer time investment overspending, benefiting both users and publishers.
3. Creative Length
In general, longer videos tend to outperform shorter ones in both rewarded video and interstitial ads. Incorporate at least one 25-30-second video per campaign. However, it’s vital to continuously test various video lengths, as some genres may show better performance with shorter videos.
4. Creative Concepts
To attract high-quality users, include creatives showcasing actual gameplay in all your campaigns. Once a successful concept is identified, test different variations to enhance performance and extend the ad’s lifespan.
Pro tip: Explore meta-game elements from your app, such as intriguing characters, mini-games, or social features, to attract new players and keep them engaged.
5. Creative Orientation
To cater to various device orientations (portrait and landscape), design creatives for both orientations. Run them concurrently, utilizing the same end card, to determine which performs better.
6. Creative Types
Consider diversifying your creative types for user acquisition (UA) campaigns. Start with a video and end card combination, which is relatively quick to produce. For enhanced user engagement, pair videos with interactive end cards (IECs). Additionally, running playable ads alongside videos provides a distinct user experience and widens your audience reach.
Although you should note that playable ads can be relatively expensive to produce(as compared to videos) – so it’s best to incorporate these once you see some traction with videos alone.
Quality metrics, including user retention and ROAS, play a vital role, but they sometimes compete with IPM. Authentic gameplay-oriented advertisements tend to attract high-quality users, albeit potentially impacting IPM negatively. Therefore, it’s essential to continuously experiment to strike the right balance.
