Creative Optimization

Overview

Creative optimization allows you to automatically serve the best-performing creatives in a campaign more frequently, based on either CTR or Conversion Rate (CR). To activate this feature, your campaign must have at least two auto_storiesCreatives.

To enable creative optimization, head to the Creatives tab inside a auto_storiesCampaign and click the 'Optimize' icon at the top right.

How It Works

The optimization algorithm manages the creative weights, directly influencing how often each creative is shown when the campaign is served. These weights are adjusted every 5 minutes based on the last 30 days' performance of the creative, with a burn-in threshold of 1,000 impressions to gather enough data before making adjustments.

Optimize by CTR or CR

You can either optimize creatives by CTR or by Conversion Rate (CR). If you choose to optimize by CR, be cautious. While possible, optimizing creatives by looking at how many conversions they have triggered can be tricky, as it reflects the performance of your landing page rather than the creative itself. CTR is typically the preferred metric for creative optimization because without a click, there can be no conversion. Optimizing for CTR often leads to higher conversions indirectly.

Smart Rotation

Smart Rotation adds an additional layer of decision-making to creative selection. It works alongside your chosen optimization algorithm to improve creative distribution and reduce ad fatigue. When enabled, Smart Rotation ensures that a visitor is shown creatives they have not seen recently before the same creative is displayed again. This helps increase creative variety, reduce banner blindness, and improve overall campaign performance.

Without Smart Rotation

The optimization algorithm selects the creative with the highest predicted likelihood of generating a click or conversion for the visitor. Because creatives are selected using weighted probabilities, the same creative may be shown multiple times within a short period, even when other eligible creatives are available.

Creative A
Creative A
Creative B
Creative A
Creative C
Creative A

With Smart Rotation

The optimization algorithm still selects creatives based on their predicted performance. However, if a visitor has already seen a selected creative within the last 30 minutes, that creative becomes temporarily ineligible and another eligible creative is selected instead.

This encourages the decision engine to rotate through all available creatives before repeating one that the visitor has recently seen.

Creative A
Creative B
Creative C
Creative D
Creative A
Creative B

By increasing creative variety, Smart Rotation helps combat banner blindness while still allowing the optimization algorithm to prioritize high-performing creatives. A simple approach with high impact.

Configuration

Smart Rotation can be enabled when configuring an optimization algorithm on the Settings page. The feature is enabled by default and is recommended for most campaigns.

The Problem with Manual Elimination

A common optimization strategy is to launch a campaign with 10-20 creatives, review the results after a few days, and continue running only the three creatives with the highest CTR or conversion rate.

While this approach may appear logical, it can unintentionally reduce campaign performance over time. Why? A creative that performs poorly overall may perform exceptionally well for a specific audience segment, such as:

• Mobile Users
• Visitors from a particular country or region
• Specific publishers or placements
• Certain languages

When a creative is disabled based solely on its overall performance, the campaign loses the ability to show that creative to the audience segments where it may have been the strongest performer.

Why more creatives is desirable

Reducing the number of active creatives also increases the likelihood of creative fatigue. When visitors are repeatedly exposed to the same small set of ads, engagement often declines over time due to banner blindness and message saturation.

A larger creative pool allows the campaign to maintain freshness while giving the optimization engine more opportunities to match the right creative to the right audience.

Let the Algorithm Find the Best Match

Optimization algorithms are not about finding a single "winning" creative. It is about finding the best creative for each visitor in its context.

AdGlare's optimization engine continuously evaluates performance signals and audience characteristics to determine which creative is most likely to generate a click or conversion for a particular visitor. They perform best when they have access to a diverse set of creatives.

In many cases, maintaining a larger pool of active creatives produces better long-term results than aggressively narrowing the campaign to only a few perceived winners.

Best Practice

Rather than manually pausing most creatives after an initial testing period, AdGlare recommends keeping a broad range of high-quality creative variations active whenever possible.

A larger creative pool gives the optimization engine more flexibility, reduces creative fatigue, and helps uncover audience-specific performance patterns that might otherwise remain hidden.