Creative 2.0

The backdrop

Chrome was going to drop third-party cookies

Google’s planned deprecation of third-party cookies in Chrome meant Adobe’s tracking and dynamic ad targeting would stop working. Google set its timeline in 2023. Our deadline to have a product ready was 2024.

The backstory

DCO came in through an acquisition

DCO serves HTML ads that change their message for each viewer. It ran on its own tool stack, outside Adobe Advertising DSP. The UI was archaic and the UX was arcane.

DSP business models

Every dynamic campaign joined the DCO queue, which capped how many dynamic campaigns the business could take on. Creative 2.0 had to work for both models: ACS teams running campaigns for many advertisers, and self-serve clients running their own.

The plumbing

The multi-hyphenated workflow of DCO creatives

A specialist built every dynamic HTML ad template by hand, starting from a spreadsheet.

01 Feed file

A spreadsheet row for every market, audience, and ad size.

A single campaign for one advertiser can run to 1,440 rows, one tab per market.

02 HTML template and 03 Map and generate

A hand-coded ad with placeholders for image, copy, price, and CTA. Feed columns were then mapped to those placeholders in JSON.

<div class="ad" id="af1_300x250">
  <img class="ad-img" src="{{IMG}}" alt="">
  <h1 class="ad-h">{{HEADLINE}}</h1>
  <p class="ad-sub">{{SUBHEAD}}</p>
  <span class="ad-price">{{PRICE}}</span>
  <a class="ad-cta" href="{{CLICK}}">{{CTA}}</a>
</div>
<style>
  .ad{width:300px;height:250px;overflow:hidden}
  .ad-img{animation:slide .6s ease-out}
  .ad-cta{animation:pulse 1.2s 2s 3}
  @keyframes slide{from{transform:translateX(-40px);opacity:0}}
  @keyframes pulse{50%{transform:scale(1.08)}}
</style>
<script>
  // rotate frames every 3s, stop after 15s (IAB limit)
  var f=0,t=setInterval(next,3000);
  setTimeout(function(){clearInterval(t)},15000);
</script>

{
  "template": "af1_holiday_300x250",
  "feed": "nike_holiday_master.csv",
  "map": {
    "{{HEADLINE}}": "Hero text",
    "{{SUBHEAD}}":  "Secondary text",
    "{{IMG}}":      "Image URL",
    "{{PRICE}}":    "Price",
    "{{CTA}}":      "CTA",
    "{{CLICK}}":    "Click_URL"
  }
}

<?php
// dco_build.php - one run per strategy, per template
$tpl  = file_get_contents('templates/af1_holiday_300x250.html'); // exported from the design tool
$csv  = fopen('feeds/nike_holiday_master.csv', 'r');
$tags = fopen('out/tags.txt', 'w');
$head = fgetcsv($csv);            // Row, Country, Region, ... Hero text, Image URL, Price, CTA

// placeholder => CSV header, hand-typed as JSON for every template
$cfg = json_decode(file_get_contents('mapping.json'), true);
$map = $cfg['map'];

while (($row = fgetcsv($csv)) !== false) {
  $r    = array_combine($head, $row);
  $html = $tpl;
  foreach ($map as $ph => $col) {
    $html = str_replace($ph, $r[$col], $html);   // a missing column renders blank, silently
  }
  $id = $r['Country'] . '_' . $r['Language'] . '_' . $r['Size'];
  file_put_contents("out/$id.html", $html);
  fwrite($tags, "<script src=\"https://dco.example.net/serve/$id.js\"></script>\n");
}
// out/tags.txt is emailed to ACS, who attach each tag to its placement by hand

04 Hand off

Tags, the code a placement uses to serve the ad, went to Adobe Advertising DSP and were attached by hand.

The kink

tl;dr - The DCO had to work without cookies

We had to figure out how to keep serving HTML-based dynamic ads, so existing clients could stay on dynamic creative optimization without their workflows being interrupted.

Research and documentation

DCO had to fit into Adobe Advertising DSP

First I had to understand how DCO was set up and how its pieces would map if integrated into the DSP. I researched with Adobe’s ACS team, campaign managers, account managers, and the support team.

Methods

• Observed ACS setting up dynamic (DCO) and static ads, end to end
• Shadowed planning with campaign and account managers: media brief, then tactical spend plans, then the build plan of placements and targeting line items
• Sized the mapping needed for the right permutation of creatives to reach the right audience
• Traced the spreadsheet into key:value pairs that could be uploaded (to keep legacy workflows), synced, or built in the DSP
• Benchmarked dynamic creative and ad serving tools, and ran heuristic reviews and usability studies to map mental models: what transfers, and what’s net new

Findings

1. Compress the journeyPlans moved from media brief to spend plans to build plan, across different surfaces. Account managers could set up the plan directly in the product, instead of trawling through CSV sheets.
2. Fit net-new conceptsBundles, experiences, and decision trees were net new, so each had to fit users’ existing understanding of how placements and ad tags come together.
3. Carry the know-howThe DCO sheet had unwritten rules. The product had to carry them: validation, a fallback bundle, and preview at every step.
4. Make it backward compatibleThe spreadsheet wasn’t going away overnight. Legacy DCO sheets import into Catalogs as feed files, next to uploads, synced sources, and catalogs built in the DSP.

Personas to build for

The people who build creative, set up campaigns, and support them, in ACS and in clients’ own teams.

The core requirement for self-serve: rich customization, and the freedom to build any targeting funnel.

The handshake

The DSP object model that the DCO would have to comply with

Options considered

MVP scope

Creative 2.0 only had utility once every pillar was in place. Libraries without experiences, or experiences without tags, would still have sent teams back to DCO for the rest of the job. So the MVP shipped the whole loop - creative libraries, bundles, ad templates with catalogs, experiences with the decision tree, tags, validation, and reporting - while keeping each pillar lean. Building targeting natively let the decision tree weight signals that would survive the loss of cookies: geo, first-party audiences, profile data, and data pass key-values from publishers.

Tradeoff: a bigger first release that took longer to ship. A partial product would have forced teams to split their workflow across multiple tools.

To recap

Reconciling the new model with the DSP’s schema

The same dynamic ad, made two ways: before and after Creative 2.0.

The blueprint

The DCO information architecture

Files and feeds land in Creative 2.0, and an experience decides what the DSP serves.

The new branch

Where Creative 2.0 sits in the DSP

The hard parts

Challenges

From the IA to porting the DCO workflows into the existing DSP, at every altitude.

1. Where Creative lives 10,000 ftA side nav item, or a menu in the header beside DSP? In the side nav: a submenu, an accordion, or always open?
2. Processing catalogs and templates 1,000 ftA catalog turns feed files into product rows. An ad template is the HTML boilerplate ad with slots for that data.
3. Creating and managing assets 100 ftStatic ads, and dynamic ads that pour catalog data into a template’s slots, grouped into bundles.
4. Building experiences 10 ftTargeting layers that form a funnel, directing each viewer to the right ad.
5. Closing the loopReading how each branch, region, device, and creative performs, and reporting it back to the client.

Challenge 01 | Ingress

Where Creative lives

A side nav item, or a menu in the header beside DSP? In the side nav: a submenu, an accordion, or always open?

Making the house a home for Creative 2.0

What would be the ideal entry point for a persona working on any of the creative or targeting tools?

Why Creative lives in the side nav

Option 01: Creative tooling as a subsection of the primary menu.

Challenge 02 | Catalogs and templates

Processing catalogs and templates

A catalog turns feed files into product rows. An ad template is the HTML boilerplate ad with slots for that data.

Challenge 03 | Assets

Creating and managing assets

Static ads, and dynamic ads that pour catalog data into a template’s slots, grouped into bundles.

Challenge 04 | Experiences

Building experiences

Targeting layers that form a funnel, directing each viewer to the right ad.

Six ways to build decision logic

Experience Manager needed a simple way to decide which bundle each viewer sees.

The decisioning funnel - Experience Manager

A top-down decision tree. Each horizontal layer either targets viewers or attaches media.

Review every experience in one list

Challenge 05 | Reporting

Closing the loop

Understanding performance and enabling reporting.

Outcome

Creative 2.0 stood the test of time

Google dropped its plan to deprecate cookies in Chrome in July 2024, but a self-serve product with less dependence on cookies set Adobe Advertising up for success. Safari and Firefox already sideline third-party cookies with their privacy rules. (Adobe Advertising Creative documentation)

Measuring success

Looking back

Reflections