CREATIVE EDITOR

Ad Creative Elements – Widgets

Widgets serve as the building blocks of your ad content and are categorized into 5 types:

• Basic Elements

• Data Placeholders

• General Icons

• Lines & Patterns

• Social Media Logos

Widget Inspector

Adding widgets to your template is straightforward – simply drag and drop them onto your template. When it’s time to make tweaks, click on the media (image, videos, or GIFs) or text within the template, and you can easily adjust widget settings and styling using the user-friendly widget inspector on the right.

Scheduling Ad Creatives (Themes)

Schedule different ad creatives (Themes) within a campaign to switch seamlessly and efficiently:

• Add multiple ad creatives (Themes) to a campaign and schedule the start and end date of each creative.
• Each creative will be active from the start of the scheduled start date and end at the end of the scheduled end date. 
• NOTE:
  • No blank ads are served, even if the creative end date has passed or if there is only one theme that hasn’t started yet. Ads will continue to run using the latest creative as long as the campaign is active.
  • In cases where multiple creatives share the same or overlapping schedules, each requested ad will randomly select one of the scheduled creatives for display.

Widgets

Widgets are versatile elements that enhance your ad’s visual appeal and functionality.

Basic Elements

Basic elements are static creative elements that do not depend on dynamic product data.

Text

• Add static messages like headlines and promotional text.
• Customize font style, size, color, line height, and emphasis (bold, italic, underline, strikethrough).
• Adjust text justification (left/center/right/block) and alignment (top/middle/bottom).
• Utilize copy/paste and undo/redo functions.
• Insert horizontal lines.
• Add background color with adjustable opacity and rounding.

Image / Image Library / Icon Library

• Add or replace static images (e.g., background) up to 10 MB (4 MB for GIF files).

Upload Options

• Direct upload: Drag and drop image files, or click to browse your files.

• Image Library: Select images from the ‘Free-to-use Image Library.

• Icon Library: Choose icons from the ‘Free-to-use Icon Library.’

• URL: Enter a valid image URL for download.

• Quick Image: Schedule automatic image refresh with a valid image URL.

Image Editing

• Customize image dimensions, alignment, opacity, and orientation.
• Modify image background and border settings.
• Adjust image rounding.
• NOTE: Image modification features are consistent across all image widgets in the Creative Editor (e.g., Image, Product Image, Company Logo, and CTA Image Button).

Video

• Enhance your ads with video content alongside images, text, and product data.
• Allow users to control default video settings (play, pause, mute, replay).
• Videos are limited to 3.8 MB in MP4 and WEBM formats.

Navigation

• Improve user experience with dot and step navigation for multi-frame ads.
• Enable users to navigate directly to specific frames or products.
• Dot navigation automatically adjusts based on the number of added templates.

Data Placeholders

• Utilize data placeholders to dynamically display product data (e.g., product titles, product images, etc.).
• Requires product data generated from data feeds, except for ‘Common Placeholders (Non-Product Data).’
• Common and business type-specific data placeholders are available.
• Automatically populate with product data if available; otherwise, the template’s default content is displayed.
• Available (mapped) product data for use in the template is highlighted in green.

Common Placeholders (Non-Product Data)

• Applicable for both static and dynamic ads.
• Available across all business types defined in the Adacado system (Retail, Auto, Real Estate, Hotel, and Service).
• Includes placeholders for: 
  • Image: Company Logo and CTA Image Button.
  • Text: CTA Button, Promotion Text, Advertiser Address, Advertiser Name, Advertiser DBA Name, Advertiser Email, and Advertiser Phone. Advertiser data is populated when entered into the Adacado system.

Common Data Placeholders

• Applicable exclusively for dynamic ads.
• Available across all business types defined in the Adacado system (Retail, Auto, Real Estate, Hotel, and Service).
• Includes placeholders for:
  • Image: Product Image.
  • Text: Advanced Text, Product Title, Product Description, Product Price.
  • You can apply the ‘Advanced Text’ to mapped product data through the ‘Rich Text Placeholder’ option in the widget inspector for full editing capabilities, including strikethrough, ordered/unordered lists, and horizontal rules. This widget can be useful when combining static text with dynamic product data to automatically align the text.
  • Example of Using ‘Advanced Text’:

Business Type-Specific Data Placeholders

• Tailored to the selected advertiser’s business type.
• Examples of available data placeholders for various business types:
  • Retail: Sale Price, Availability, Condition, Material, Address, City, etc.
  • Auto:  VIN, Make, Model, Year, Condition, Mileage, Dealer City, etc
  • Real Estate: Bedrooms, Bathrooms, Property Type, Address, City, etc.
  • Hotel: City, Region, Brand, Star Rating, Room Service, Free Parking, etc.
  • Service: Sale Price, Age Group, Address, City, Region, etc.

3D Animation Cube Widget

• Animate product data for a maximum of  6 products, including product images, product titles, and product links.
• Allow users to reposition the cube widget, but its dimensions remain fixed.
• Allow users to modify the default values of Product Images, Product Titles, and Product Links in the widget inspector.
• Allow users to conveniently navigate between products using the navigation bar, with automatic rotation on initial load and mouse exit.

Widget Context Menu (Right-click options)

• Access various widget actions by right-clicking the widgets:
  • Copy / Cut / Paste
  • Duplicate (Only within the same template)
  • Layering (Bring to Front, Bring Forward, Push Backward, Push to Back)
  • Copy widget style (Only within the same template)
  • Add Comment
  • Lock
  • Remove

Others (Shapes, Checks, Badges, Arrows, Sunbursts, and Frames)

• Enhance your ad design with these static widgets to add style and emphasis to text or images.

Additional Features

Layer Panel

The Layer Panel provides an overview of the widget layers within the selected template:

• Layer Order: Widgets are listed from top to bottom. The top layer contains the widget placed at the front or the most recently added one. The bottom layer is the widget placed at the back of the template.
• Details: It displays widget names, a thumbnail of their assets, and animation timelines.
• Animation Management: Add, customize, or remove animations for individual widgets.
• Layer Management: Reorder, hide, or delete layers.
• Hide/Show Widget: Easily select and edit widgets placed behind others or hidden in the template. This feature is particularly helpful for identifying and managing any unnecessary hidden widgets.

Widget Animation

• Add single or multiple animations to individual widgets by opening the ‘Layer Panel’ and right-clicking a desired layer to choose animation types.
• Configure animation settings of the selected animation type, including delay, duration, repetition, and smoothness.
• Right-click on the layer bar for a menu to edit existing animations or add a new one.
• Drag the edges of transition in and out times to increase/decrease transition time.
• Adjust the edges of animation times to increase/decrease animation duration.
• Drag the animation bar to change the start time of the animation
• If animation timing exceeds template transition timing boundaries, individual widget bars on the timeline turn red, with a tooltip describing the issue.
• Different types of animation applied in a single widget can overlap in timing.

Animation Types

Movement

• Drag and drop the ‘start’ and ‘end’ circles to adjust the starting/ending point of the movement animation.
• Allows for multiple move animations for a single widget

Transition

• Transition animation options include: 
  • Background
  • Opacity
  • Border color
  • Border width
  • Border radius
  • Font size
  • Line height
  • Color
• You can apply multiple animations of the same transition (with no overlap in timing) to a single widget. 
• Multiple animations of different transition types are allowed to overlap in timing.

Rotation

• Configure the degree of rotation at the start/end.
• Horizontal and vertical flips are available.

Resize

• Adjust the size of the widget for the start/end of the animation by dragging and dropping the resize start/end circle over the widget in the template. 
• You can also modify the size in the animation settings.

Selective Display of Product Data and Creative Elements

• Available only with dynamic ads using product data feeds only in CSV format.
• Use the ‘When to show this element’ feature in the individual widget inspector to conditionally display certain ad content based on the presence of specific product data.
• Works with Basic Elements, Data Placeholders, General Icons, Lines & Patterns, and Social Media Logos.
• Learn more about this feature.

Maximum Character for Text

• Useful for text widgets displaying dynamic text from data feeds (e.g., product title or product description) with varying lengths.
• ‘Max Chars’ value determines when the text gets truncated, with excess text ending in three dots (ellipses).
• If text is still being cut off, simply lower the ‘Max Chars’ value.

Multiple Widget Selection

• Select multiple widgets by holding ‘Shift’ and clicking on them.
• To select the entire template, drag from outside of the template boundaries, then use copy/paste in the context menu or shortcut keys (Ctrl+V, Ctrl+C)
• Enable grid snap by pressing ‘Ctrl’ for 10-px increments or ‘Alt’ for 50-px increments.

Floating Campaign Analytics Bar

• Display key metrics of campaign performance over the last 7 days. 
• Select different time periods (e.g., yesterday, last 30 days, and last 90 days) and view in-depth analytics by clicking on metrics.

Footer Toolbar

• Provide tips and hotkeys for using the Creative Editor.
• Access tutorial videos on the Adacado platform. 
• Show/hide the floating campaign analytics bar.
• Toggle display/hide movement path for widget animations.
• Use ‘Best Fit’ to display templates for all ad formats at once.
• Zoom options for adjusting display zooming.
• Show/Hide layers.
• Toggle snap to align widgets with precision. Hold down the  ‘Ctrl’ key for precise 10-px increments and ‘Alt’ for 50-pixel increments while positioning or resizing widgets.

If you’re still having trouble or have questions, feel free to reach out to us anytime at support@adacado.com