What is creative automation?

Creative automation refers to the use of software to automate repetitive operations in content creation. It enables marketers and creative professionals to scale content production by launching high volumes of creative assets in shorter production cycles.

With creative automation, teams can spend more time on creative thinking and campaign ideation rather than just copy-pasting content to create design variations. Creative automation thus helps companies use their creatives to positively impact business metrics like conversion rates, CTRs, engagement times, etc.

For example, an e-commerce brand selling footwear can create the following variations to test different dimensions, colors and localized messaging using creative automation in minutes.

Who needs creative automation?

Marketers & creative professionals in companies of all sizes can benefit immensely from creative automation since it improves their ability to scale campaigns, personalize content for different audiences, and maintain brand consistency across thousands of creatives. Here are some common challenges faced by marketers and creative professionals that can be solved by creative automation:

Managing large volumes of creative production manually

Creative personalization and experimentation generate thousands of creatives with minor tweaks in text, CTAs, colors etc. Managing such a volume of creative production manually needs weeks of effort, even for a 10-person design team.

Designers waste time on repetitive tasks

Less creative aspects of graphic design lead to inefficient usage of designers’ time. Tasks like changing the dimensions of creatives for different channels, updating pricing or promotional discounts, and recreating similar designs from scratch can be managed with minimal human effort.

Limited growth and experimentation opportunities

Many businesses run with small in-house design teams or they outsource design work to external agencies. Producing a large number of creatives often means increased expenses, either by hiring additional team members or by paying significant agency fees. This burden limits marketers’ ability to experiment with new ideas.

Human errors leading to inconsistent branding

When a large volume of creative production is handled manually, it can lead to confusion about the latest version of brand elements, the most recent discount offer, approved images or videos, etc. This confusion among team members leads to inconsistent branding and gaps in brand communication.

What are the benefits of creative automation?

Faster time-to-market

By reducing the production cycle, creative automation enables businesses to respond quickly to market trends and launch new products or campaigns faster.

For example, a Christmas sale campaign that previously took a month of preparation and 100s of designer hours can now be designed in days by using templates, automated localization, and bulk updates.

Cost efficiency and resource optimization

Creative automation allows businesses to scale content production without the need for extra human resources, saving costs on employee salaries and agency fees.

Streamlined creative testing

Creative elements like color, CTAs, localized text, and product images have a huge impact on CTRs and conversion rates for any campaign. Creative automation allows rapid A/B testing of different variations, increasing the ROI.

For example, an e-commerce brand can A/B test one new variation of landing page design every week to find the best converting design. With creative automation, such variations can be generated in minutes, while the process could drag on for weeks without automation, slowing down optimization.

Consistent branding

Creative automation offers templates, saved brand elements (like logos, colors & fonts), centralized feedback, versioning and access control, allowing you to produce creatives that have consistent branding and distribute the latest versions that are approved by stakeholders.

Tailored content for regional audiences

Successful brands understand the importance of relevance in their marketing campaigns. Creative automation enables the creation of culturally relevant and engaging content for local audiences, improving conversion rates and crafting memorable user experiences.

For example, an e-commerce clothing brand can launch region-specific campaigns with local influencers, dressing styles, language, etc., and all such variations can be created in minutes using creative automation.

What are some common creative automation tools?

You can find a variety of creative automation tools in the market based on your specific needs. For example, marketing and creative teams working on a high volume of digital advertising campaigns would benefit from tools like Adcreative.ai, Bannerflow, or Celtra. If you are a small business looking to automate basic creative workflows with templates, post scheduling for social media, storing brand guidelines etc., you can checkout Canva.

If you are looking for a solution that enables you to produce creative variations at scale, check out ImageKit, which offers real-time transformations and dynamic overlays using the Layers API. ImageKit allows you to programmatically create templates using URL parameters, and by leveraging these templates, you can generate variations for thousands of creatives in minutes.

For example, the image on the right here is generated using a template URL structure, which can be replicated for multiple images.

You can use the transformations and overlays to add branding elements, launch A/B tests, personalize creatives for each user, and deliver responsive images and videos across all channels.

Wrapping up

Creative automation increases the efficiency of creative production and streamlines creative personalization, resulting in improved conversion rates, saved costs, and delightful user experiences across all touchpoints.

ImageKit offers real-time media personalization to automate creative variations and provides a centralized storage to manage the complete lifecycle of such creative assets with its Digital Asset Management (DAM) platform.

Want to learn more about ImageKit? Visit ImageKit.io