An ad creative is everything a person sees in an ad: the image or video, the headline, the text and the button. A creative works when it shows the product and its benefit in a second, comes in the size the platform expects and has won a test against other versions. Whether it pays off is simple arithmetic: profit per order × site conversion rate × the creative's CTR × 1,000 is the most you can afford to pay for a thousand impressions.
Creatives are usually judged on taste: "looks good" or "doesn't". The ad platform judges something else, how many people stopped and clicked, and that is what decides whether the impressions earn money. Below: the four parts of a creative, Meta and Google sizes with the date they were checked, a step-by-step process, the payback math, testing and the mistakes that waste budget.
When people search for how to make ad creatives
Usually the ads are already running: money is being spent, clicks are few or orders do not come. The store owner or a media buyer searches for "what is an ad creative", "ad creative examples", "Instagram ad sizes" and "how many creatives to test".
"How do I make a beautiful creative" is the wrong question here. The right one is "which of my three versions brings an order for less". A calculation and a test answer it, not design.
What an ad creative is made of
A creative has four parts: a hook, the product with its benefit, proof and a call to action. Leave one out and people either scroll past or click and do not buy.
| Part | What it does | Example for a travel mug |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Hook | Stops the scroll: the headline or the first seconds of a video | "Hot coffee for 6 hours" |
| 2. Product and benefit | Shows what you sell and what the buyer gets from it | The mug in close-up, a lid that does not leak |
| 3. Proof | Removes doubt: a review, a rating, a test, a guarantee | Customer rating, a video of the upside-down leak test |
| 4. Call to action | Says what to do next | A "Shop now" button, the price, delivery terms |
By format, creatives are static (one image), carousels (several cards), videos and catalog ads, where the platform builds the ad itself from the product photo and price in your feed. For a store with a large range, catalog creatives are often the cheapest to prepare; more on them in the section on catalog ads.
Ad creative sizes for Meta and Google
Pick the size for the placement: 4:5 portrait for the Facebook and Instagram feed, 9:16 for Stories and Reels, 1.91:1 landscape and 1:1 square for the Google Display Network. A creative in the wrong format gets cropped or shown with bars around it.
| Placement | Ratio | Recommended | Minimum and file |
|---|---|---|---|
| Facebook feed (Meta) | 4:5 | 1440 × 1800 px | width from 600 px; JPG or PNG up to 30 MB |
| Instagram Stories (Meta) | 9:16 | 1440 × 2560 px | width from 500 px; JPG or PNG up to 30 MB |
| Google responsive display ad, landscape | 1.91:1 | 1200 × 628 px | from 600 × 314 px; up to 5,120 KB |
| Google responsive display ad, square | 1:1 | 1200 × 1200 px | from 300 × 300 px; up to 5,120 KB |
Three more rules from the platforms' help pages, where impressions are lost most often:
- Stories safe zone. Meta advises keeping roughly 14% of the height at the top, 35% at the bottom and 6% on each side free of text and logos: the interface covers those areas.
- Meta ad text. For the feed, Meta recommends 50–150 characters of primary text and a headline of up to 27 characters; for Stories, primary text of up to 125 characters.
- Google headlines. A responsive display ad takes up to five short headlines of 30 characters and one long headline of up to 90. How to write headlines that stop the scroll is covered in ad headline formulas and examples.
Platforms change their requirements, so check the help pages listed under "Sources" before a large launch.
How to make an ad creative in six steps
Start not with the picture but with one offer for one audience, and make three versions straight away, not one.
- Audience and its problem. One sentence: who buys and what bothers them. "A commuter whose coffee goes cold half an hour into the drive." Check: the sentence would not fit just any product.
- One offer. The benefit, price or condition you show first. Two messages in one creative read as none.
- Product visual. The product fills most of the frame, and its key detail is visible. Check: shrink the creative to a thumbnail on a phone; the product should still be recognisable.
- Text on the image. The hook in a few words, large. Everything else goes into the ad text, not onto the picture.
- Format and safe zones. Export 4:5, 9:16 and 1:1 versions from one layout; make sure no text sits under the Stories interface.
- Three versions for a test. Same product and offer, one difference: the hook, the main photo or the proof.
How much you can pay per impression: the payback math
A creative pays off when the cost per thousand impressions (CPM) does not exceed what those impressions earn. You can calculate that limit before launch.
Illustrative example for the arithmetic; the numbers are not market prices. One travel mug order leaves €15 of profit after the product cost, shipping and fees. The site turns 2% of visitors into orders, and the creative has a 1% CTR.
- 10,000 impressions × 1% = 100 clicks.
- 100 clicks × 2% = 2 orders.
- 2 orders × €15 = €30 of profit.
- So you can pay up to €30 for 10,000 impressions, a CPM of up to €3. The maximum cost per click is €15 × 2% = €0.30.
This is why CTR matters. The same product with a creative at a 1.5% CTR gets 150 clicks and 3 orders from 10,000 impressions, and the affordable CPM rises to €4.50. A better creative lets you pay more per impression and still make money. Work out profit per order with the markup and margin calculator, not from the selling price: otherwise your CPM limit will be too high.
How to test ad creatives
Test three versions that differ in one detail, with the same budget and audience, and compare cost per order, not the number of likes.
- One change. If version B has both a different photo and a different headline, you will not know which one worked.
- Enough impressions. At a 1% CTR, a thousand impressions is 10 clicks, and a two-click difference between versions is chance. In our illustrative example, 10,000 impressions per version give 100 clicks each, which is enough to compare.
- Test budget. Three versions × 10,000 impressions × €3 per thousand = €90 (illustrative CPM). Work this out before launch so you do not stop the test halfway.
- Decision metric. First CTR (does it stop people), then cost per order. A creative with a high CTR and no orders promises something the site does not show.
A winning creative wears out over time: the same people see it a second and third time, CTR falls and the cost per click rises. This is ad fatigue. When the winner's CTR has dropped to the level of the old weak versions, run a new test with the same offer and a new hook.
Mistakes that stop a creative from paying off
| Mistake | Consequence |
|---|---|
| Several offers in one creative | People take in none of them, CTR drops |
| The product is small, the background or model dominates | On a phone nobody can see what you sell |
| Text in the bottom third of a Story | The button and caption cover it, the hook goes unread |
| The creative promises a price or sale the site no longer has | Clicks but no orders, the money is spent |
| Deciding after the first few hundred impressions | You switch off a version that could have won |
| Judging by likes instead of cost per order | You scale a creative that collects reactions, not sales |
Why people stop noticing ads at all, and what to do about it, is covered in the article on banner blindness.
When you sell hundreds of products: creatives from your catalog
Making a separate creative for every product in a store with thousands of items is not realistic. That is what catalog ads are for: Google Shopping and the Meta catalog for Facebook and Instagram build the ad themselves from the photo, title and price in your product feed. The "creative" of each product is then its main photo and current price, and a feed error (an old price, an item out of stock) is the same mistake as in the table above, only repeated across thousands of ads.
In Elbuz, feeds for Google Merchant Center, the Meta catalog and TikTok are built from the same catalog where you keep prices and stock, so the ads show what the site has right now. How it works is on the product feeds for Google Shopping, Meta and TikTok page. The honest limit: a feed does not replace a brand creative or a video for a new audience; you still make and test those with the steps above.
Ad feeds from your Elbuz catalogGoogle Merchant, Meta catalog and TikTok with current prices
Frequently asked questions
What are ad creatives?
Everything a person sees in an ad: the image or video, the headline, the text and the button. The creative decides whether people stop and click, and so how much each order costs you.
What types of ad creatives are there?
Static images, carousels, videos and catalog ads that the platform builds from the product photo and price in your feed. Stores with a large range usually combine catalog ads with a few brand creatives.
How do you make an ad creative?
Define the audience and one offer, show the product large, add a hook, proof and a call to action, export it in the platform's sizes and make three versions for a test. Step by step: see the six steps.
What size should an Instagram ad be?
For the feed, Meta recommends 4:5 at 1440 × 1800 px; for Stories, 9:16 at 1440 × 2560 px; JPG or PNG up to 30 MB. In Stories, keep about 14% at the top and 35% at the bottom free of text.
How many ad creatives should you test?
Usually three versions with one difference and the same budget. More versions split the budget into small pieces, and none of them gets enough impressions for a conclusion.
How do you know an ad creative is fatigued?
CTR keeps falling and the cost per click keeps rising with the same audience and bid. When the winner's numbers drop to the level of the weak versions, start a new test with a new hook.
Sources
- Meta Ads Guide — Facebook feed image ads.
- Meta Ads Guide — Instagram Stories image ads.
- Google Ads Help — Create a responsive display ad.
Checked on October 31, 2026. All other numbers in the article are illustrative examples for the arithmetic.
John Smith
What tips can you give for creating effective advertising creative?