As technology and advertising continue to evolve, mobile-first creative is no longer a nice-to-have, it’s a necessity. Our recently launched Mobile Fitness Score Generator employs AI technology to automatically create (free!) reports that tell marketers how well their creative follows mobile-first platform best practices. And while learning how your existing creative fits into said mobile-first best practices so you can optimize accordingly, applying the knowledge to new creative will help your next campaign start off even stronger than your last.

Conceptualize Your Mobile-First Media
Make Your Messaging Impactful But Digestible
First and foremost, design your creative with the assumption that it will be viewed in a sound-off environment (one possible exception of note being TikTok). Include on-screen text, starting between seconds 2-5, to enable your audience to digest the ad without sound. Keep your wording simple and give your message its moment to shine by placing it in the center of the frame. Make your message easy to understand by utilizing simple fonts on a contrasting background.
Aim To Keep Your Creative Between 6-12 Seconds
Creative duration best practices can vary depending on the brand, audience, platform, and other factors. But, generally speaking, 6-12 seconds is the sweet spot. If you don’t think you can meet the minimum, bulk up your content using additional footage or motion graphics, depending on the asset. If your existing ad or new creative concept is too long, determine your priority message and refocus your content so it can be communicated within that 6-12 second space. By refining your message and call-to-action, you’ll make a stronger impact.
Display Your Branding Clearly, At The Appropriate Time
To maximize awareness, display your branding prominently within the first 3 seconds on a background that makes it easy to read or identify. Optimize for your audience, testing where your brand name is placed, and playing with sizing and time on screen.
Focus on Provoking Key Visuals
When designing your visuals, create and highlight singular focal points so that viewers know exactly where to look. Captivating visuals don’t need to take over the frame. When designing and editing, focus on cleaning any clutter: reducing the number of visuals, scenes and cuts can help your audience get more out of your ad.
Need Help Getting Started?
Use our Mobile Fitness Score Generator to give you a baseline of how well your existing or previously utilized creative follows mobile-first best practices. Then, use the AI driven information in the report to optimize your ads or design new creatives with the new learnings in mind.