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Adapting assets for different touchpoints

23rd September 2020
Reading time 3 min
Adapting assets for different touchpoints

The variety of advertising touchpoints available today is broader than it has ever been. The average consumer uses four devices everyday to consume content. The content on these devices vary in format, file size allowance, display ratio, colour and many more. Some may allow sound some many not. Some may allow video, some only static images. The variations are endless.

Video and images are the most popular form of marketing content with video being increasingly more popular and effective offering higher retention and engagement than images. In order to maximise the engagement of the viewers it is crucial to adapt your assets to the touchpoint they will be viewed on. To whichever website, social media, device display, OOH space or otherwise, if your assets are not individually adapted to each you risk losing part of you message whether it be cropped out due to incorrect size or cut off due to incorrect length. There are many ways in which assets are adapted correctly to match their desired touchpoint. If your assets are not adapted correctly it can have a multitude of knock on effects that will ultimately hurt the efficacy of your campaign.

”In order to maximise the engagement of the viewers it is crucial to adapt your assets to the touchpoint they will be viewed on.”

File size

Also known as file weight this is the measurement of how much storage or bandwidth your assets will take. If your files are too big/heavy this can be devastating to your campaign. Often web based platforms will have very strict file size limitations and for good reason. All online assets must be stored somewhere, this is called hosting. It must then be served to the user who will download the asset upon viewing it. These services are not free and can rack up huge costs for advertisers with large websites. In an increasingly content filled world websites are now often up to two thirds content base. Therefore the smaller the file sizes the lower the costs of hosting your content and supplying it to your consumers. File size specifications need to be clearly stated before adapting your assets otherwise you run the risk of having your content rejected by the platform at the last minute or displaying incorrectly forcing a duplication of work.

Loading times on websites are the largest contributor to high bounce rates. Consumers are unlikely to wait even more than three seconds before continuing their search elsewhere. Images and videos that are not optimised for web use can lead to slow loading times and ultimately lose you customers.

Image Ratio

The image ratio including for video is crucial to get right when adapting your images to a new display. The ratio of a smart phone display is completely different to that of a laptop so you cannot expect the same image to work over both without adapting. Cropping your image isn’t going to cut it as you will likely lose important elements or the composition of the image will be off. When composing the master image a lot of thought goes into where the eye is drawn to in the image. When adapting individual elements of the ad should be rearranged to be ideally placed for the new touchpoint. If you are showing a landscape banner ad for example on a desktop your CTA may be most effective placed to the far right. However adapting this to a horizontal mobile banner ad you may find moving the CTA to the bottom will give the best results. Other elements like the product, logos, slogan, prices etc. also should be rearranged to suit the new layout.

Display

This applies mostly to video however has some relevance to images also. The way an image is shown on one display vs another can vary drastically. Between different types of displays, LED vs projector for example and even between different manufacturers of displays. When creating content for online use it is nearly impossible to adapt your contact for each type of display as you will never know what display the viewer is using. However if you are advertising on a large OOH display, for example a large display in Time Square, request the technical specifications of the display before exporting the video as this will give you an idea of the limitations and requirements on your files.

There are a number of automation tools that can assist you in adapting these assets which can be particularly useful at volume. You can read more about Dynamic Creative Optimisation here.

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