LINE Ads: How to prepare the perfect creative – basics of creative design | still images & video formats

Designing creatives that make people want to click your ad is crucial to improving your LINE Ads campaigns and generating better results. This blog is dedicated to those who have little experience in design and creative production. We will cover the basics of ad creatives, the differences between still images and video formats, and go through the pros and cons of each format.

Table of contents

1. The basics of LINE Ads creatives:

• Mobile-friendly ad formats ensure visibility
• Characteristics of different ad placements
• Preparing creatives that appeal to many

2. Ad formats:

• Pros and cons of still images and videos
• Ad performance analysis

Preparing multiple variations

The basics of LINE Ads creatives

Creatives that advertise a brand’s products and services are usually divided into 3 elements: creative, title, and description.

When preparing an ad creative, it is important to fully understand the possible ad placements across LINE and its wide network of services. 

Mobile-friendly ad formats ensure visibility

LINE, alongside its other services, is a mobile app that can be accessed using a smartphone. As people view ads on small screens, it is crucial to prepare highly visible designs and layouts that catch users’ attention while scrolling through the app. Be careful not to include too many details about your brand or services, as this can make the creative unclear.

Left: too much information, small font size and product images make the creative difficult to read.

Right: layout is not eye-catching, as all design elements are of the same size.

Characteristics of different LINE Ads placements

There are 9 ad distribution placements within LINE, such as LINE News, LINE Manga, etc (as of March 2020). It is not possible, however, to run ads on only one selected channel. Each placement supports a different ad format, so it’s important to prepare multiple sizes and variations of each creative, and then analyse them to see which are most effective.

Important points:

• Create highly visible mobile friendly creatives with a well-designed, eye-catching layout.
• Prepare multiple ad formats to be able to run ads across different placements.

Preparing creatives that appeal to many

LINE Ads run across a large network of services and are able to reach a wide range of demographics (across age, interests, etc). Good creatives should vary not only in size but also focus on different points of appeal.

Point of appeal examples:

• Effectiveness & efficiency
• Practicability and ease of use
• Price
• Limited-time sale
• Real results & achievements
• Other users’ reviews

Example of a creative advertising the same product, with emphasis on different points of appeal.

Ad formats

You can use both still images and video ads across almost all LINE Ads placements. The following are the advantages and disadvantages of each format:

Still Images

Pros:

• Lower production costs
• Due to limited space, easier to design by focusing on one point of appeal
• Your message will always be displayed (as there are no transitions or cuts)

Cons:

• Can only display a limited amount of information
• It may be difficult to fully convey the message if the placement’s size is small

Videos

Pros:

• Can include more information
• Capture the user’s attention
• The user’s interest grows as the video plays
• More freedom of expression and design as there are no rules or restrictions in terms of the amount of text
• It’s easier to convey the message  as videos are frequently displayed in full-screen mode

Cons:

• Higher production costs
• Longer production time (depending on the complexity of the video)
• More difficult to produce multiple variations

Ad performance analysis

Running A/B tests on creatives will help determine which ads perform better, and which elements worsen performance.  .

In case of still images, you can analyse what works best by switching up specific elements.

You can determine the ‘winning design’ by preparing multiple versions of the same creative, changing selected elements (text, image, etc), and comparing the performance.

Videos, on the other hand, have a higher chance of success if they pass the ‘3-second rule’ test (if a user views the first 3 seconds of your video, they are more likely to watch the rest).

When preparing video ads, it is worth creating multiple versions of the opening shot. By analysing which ads hit the 3-second mark, you will be able to understand what grasps the users’ attention and lower the production costs.

If the budget allows, is it also worth testing out ads with different middle and end scenes, and further analysing their performance.

Increasing the number of creatives

So far we have introduced various ad placements, formats, and points of appeal. Taking this into consideration, it is clear that the cycle of designing multiple ad variations and repeatedly evaluating their performance is critical in optimising LINE Ads campaigns.

We hope this article highlighted the basics of LINE Ads creatives and you will be able to use this knowledge to improve your LINE campaigns.
Need more support? At DMFA, we provide account management services for LINE Official Accounts and LINE Ads.

If you would like to promote your business on LINE, contact our Japanese PPC experts for further information.