Creative text is the text in your ads on the Search Provider sites. Managing the creative text allows you to do the following.

• Manage creative ad text for multiple providers on a single screen.
• Edit or change the status of existing ad copy.
• Bulk upload new creative and edit existing creative with Creative Scheduling. You can also schedule these changes for some point in the future.

Tasks Related to Advertising Creatives

• How to Add New Creatives
• How to Edit Creatives
• How to Add Creatives in Bulk
• How to Upload the Creatives File
• How to Troubleshoot Errors and Determine Status

How to Add New Creatives

1. From Campaign > Creatives, select New Creative .
2. Select Provider, Account, Campaign and Ad Group from the drop-down menus.
3. Under Creative Details , enter the Ad Group Creative including
   
   • Headline (Google & Bing: 25 character limit)
   • Description (Google: 35 characters; Bing: 70 characters)
   • Description (line 2) (Google: 35 characters; Bing: blank)
   • Display URL 
   • Destination URL 
4. Save .

How to Edit Creatives

To change the status of individual ads:

1. From Campaign > Creatives , select Filter to narrow the creatives displayed.
2. Select Edit next to the creative to change the status to Active, Paused, or Deleted.
3. Save .

To edit the creative text:

1. From Campaigns Ad Groups, select the ad group to edit. The creatives are at the top.
2. Select  Edit under the creative you want to change and in the new window, make your changes.

How to Upload Creatives in Bulk

ChannelAdvisor's Creative Upload allows you to add new creatives in bulk and update the status of existing creatives in bulk. This can be very useful:

• when you have created a new campaign or new ad groups, and want to upload a lot of creatives at once instead of entering them one by one.
• when  you want to run temporary creative for a holiday or special promotion.
• when you want to set up all of your changes up front and let the system take care of the status changes at some point in the future.

To create the file:

1. Download  upload template
2. Fill in the details  The upload file must have eight columns with the labels "Creative ID", "Headline", "Description Line 1", "Description Line 2", "Display URL", "Destination URL", "Ad Group ID", and "Status". The column names must not be changed or deleted.
3. Save as a Tab Separated file.

To update the status of an existing creative, there are two ways to tell ChannelAdvisor which creatives to update.

1. You can identify the creative using the Creative ID found on the Creatives page
2. You can fill in the combination of the Ad Group ID, Headline, and Description found on the Ad Groups page. Only the status on the creative will be updated. Valid status values are "Active", "Resume", "Pause", and "Delete".

The table below lists the fields on the upload file and if a value is required or not depending on the update type. The last column outlines the valid values for each field.

You can prepare the upload file in Excel but it must be saved as a tab delimited file. To do this in Excel, choose Save As, and select "Text (Tab delimited)" as the file type. We recommend that you keep your upload files small separating them by Campaign or Ad Group for two reasons. First, if you want to schedule the file, the entire file is scheduled not the individual creatives. Second, if a single creative in the file fails validation or upload then the entire file fails. We do this because we can't assume that the creatives are independant of one another. For example, if a new creative that needs to be activated fails validation we would not want to pause the other creatives possibly leaving an Ad Group with no active creatives.

How to Upload the Creative File

To upload your creative file:

1. From Paid Search > Campaigns > Creatives, select Upload.
2. Click Upload > Creatives
3. Select a file to upload.
4. Select to run upload now or schedule at a later time. By selecting now, the file will be uploaded and changes will take effect within minutes of upload. By selecting at specific date and time you will be presented with new fields to schedule the upload.  
5. Scheduled uploads will be validated immediately with the provider and new creatives created in a paused state so they can get through the provider's editorial review process. However, the status indicated in your file will not take effect until the scheduled time. Files will only be scheduled for upload if they pass validation with ChannelAdvisor and the provider. If the file passes validation, the creatives will be created in a paused state with the provider immediately. At the scheduled time, the status will be updated to match the status provided in the file. For example, if a file with 3 new active creatives is uploaded today and scheduled for upload in one week then the 3 creatives will be created in a paused state today. In one week, the status will automatically be flipped to active. If there is an issue changing the status, then you will receive an alert in ChannelAdvisor that there was a problem with processing your file. Examples of validation errors are:

• If there is a creative for a Google Ad Group and there is no Description2, the file fails.
• If there is a creative for an MSN or Yahoo! Ad Group and there is a Description2, the file fails.
• If there is a creative for a Google Ad Group and the Headline is more than 25 characters, the file fails.
• If the Destination or Display URL is not a valid URL, the file fails.
• If the domain in the Display URL does not match one of the client's domains, the file fails.
• Invalid value for Status
• Invalid AdGroupID - If the AdGroupID is included in the file but a match is not found, the file fails.
• Invalid CreativeID - If a CreativeID is included in the file but a match is not found the file fails.
• Keyword Insertion causes the Description to be too long, the file fails.

Trouble Shooting Upload Errors & Status

To view the status of the files select Paid Search > Campaigns > Scheduled Uploads. This page lists all Creative uploads in either a Pending, Scheduled, In Process, Error, or Complete status. In this view, you can see the number of creatives uploaded and the number of creatives errored.

To view error details select Paid Search > Settings > Event Errors. Files in a Scheduled status are files that have been scheduled for upload at a later date. You have the option to delete the file on this page so that the upload changes do not take affect (the scheduled upload does not occur). If a scheduled file with new creatives is deleted, the creatives will remain in ChannelAdvisor in a paused state but the scheduled status change will never happen.