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LINE Ads: How to prepare the perfect creative – basics of creative design | still images & video formats
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Designing creatives that make people want to click your ad is crucial to improving your LINE Ads campaigns and generating better results. This blog is dedicated to those who have little experience in design and creative production. We will cover the basics of ad creatives, the differences between still images and video formats, and go through the pros and cons of each format.
Preparing multiple variations
Creatives that advertise a brand’s products and services are usually divided into 3 elements: creative, title, and description.
When preparing an ad creative, it is important to fully understand the possible ad placements across LINE and its wide network of services.
LINE, alongside its other services, is a mobile app that can be accessed using a smartphone. As people view ads on small screens, it is crucial to prepare highly visible designs and layouts that catch users’ attention while scrolling through the app. Be careful not to include too many details about your brand or services, as this can make the creative unclear.
Left: too much information, small font size and product images make the creative difficult to read.
Right: layout is not eye-catching, as all design elements are of the same size.
There are 9 ad distribution placements within LINE, such as LINE News, LINE Manga, etc (as of March 2020). It is not possible, however, to run ads on only one selected channel. Each placement supports a different ad format, so it’s important to prepare multiple sizes and variations of each creative, and then analyse them to see which are most effective.
LINE Ads run across a large network of services and are able to reach a wide range of demographics (across age, interests, etc). Good creatives should vary not only in size but also focus on different points of appeal.
Example of a creative advertising the same product, with emphasis on different points of appeal.
You can use both still images and video ads across almost all LINE Ads placements. The following are the advantages and disadvantages of each format:
Pros:
Cons:
Pros:
Cons:
Running A/B tests on creatives will help determine which ads perform better, and which elements worsen performance. .
In case of still images, you can analyse what works best by switching up specific elements.
You can determine the ‘winning design’ by preparing multiple versions of the same creative, changing selected elements (text, image, etc), and comparing the performance.
Videos, on the other hand, have a higher chance of success if they pass the ‘3-second rule’ test (if a user views the first 3 seconds of your video, they are more likely to watch the rest).
When preparing video ads, it is worth creating multiple versions of the opening shot. By analysing which ads hit the 3-second mark, you will be able to understand what grasps the users’ attention and lower the production costs.
If the budget allows, is it also worth testing out ads with different middle and end scenes, and further analysing their performance.
So far we have introduced various ad placements, formats, and points of appeal. Taking this into consideration, it is clear that the cycle of designing multiple ad variations and repeatedly evaluating their performance is critical in optimising LINE Ads campaigns.
We hope this article highlighted the basics of LINE Ads creatives and you will be able to use this knowledge to improve your LINE campaigns.
Need more support? At DMFA, we provide account management services for LINE Official Accounts and LINE Ads.
If you would like to promote your business on LINE, contact our Japanese PPC experts for further information.
