Creative Library Overview

Overview

The Creative Library is the account-level home for creatives. A creative is created once, in the library, and can then be assigned to as many campaigns as needed. Each assignment creates an ad in that campaign. Editing the creative updates every ad created from it.

This decouples creative work from campaign work: creatives can be prepared before any campaign exists, and the same creative can run in many campaigns without being uploaded again.

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Creative vs. ad

A creative is the reusable asset in the library. It is not tied to a campaign, does not serve, and is not reviewed.

An ad is a creative assigned to one campaign. It is a regular campaign item: it serves, it is reviewed, and it has its own item status. An ad carries a creative_id that points back to the creative it was created from.

One creative can back many ads, in many campaigns. A creative can be assigned to a given campaign only once.

Quick reference

Creative endpoints (prefix: /backstage/api/1.0):

Description	Method	Path
Get all creatives	GET	/`account_id`/creatives
Get a creative	GET	/`account_id`/creatives/`creative_id`
Create a creative	POST	/`account_id`/creatives
Update a creative	POST, PUT	/`account_id`/creatives/`creative_id`
Delete a creative	DELETE	/`account_id`/creatives/`creative_id`
Bulk create creatives	POST	/`account_id`/creatives/bulk
Bulk upsert creatives	POST	/creatives/bulk?is_atomic=false
Bulk delete creatives	DELETE	/creatives/bulk?is_atomic=true

Ads are created and removed through the existing campaign item endpoints:

Description	Method	Path
Assign a creative to a campaign (creates an ad)	POST	/`account_id`/campaigns/`campaign_id`/items
Remove an ad from a campaign	DELETE	/`account_id`/campaigns/`campaign_id`/items/`item_id`

Typical flow

Create a creative in the library. It is stored with status = ACTIVE and is not assigned to any campaign.
Assign it to campaigns by creating a campaign item with creative_id. One ad is created per campaign.
Update the creative when the content changes. The change reaches every ad created from it.
Delete the creative when it is no longer needed. Every ad created from it stops.

Supported creative types

`creative_type`	Description
`STATIC_IMAGE`	A native image ad: image, title, optional description and CTA.
`PERFORMANCE_VIDEO`	A native motion ad: video with a fallback image, a title and the other native fields. Runs in native campaigns.
`DISPLAY`	A display ad: a hosted asset or a third-party tag, with fixed dimensions.

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Motion ads vs. Performance video campaigns
Despite its name, PERFORMANCE_VIDEO is the creative type for native motion ads. It is not used for Performance video campaigns (HAS_NO_ITEMS_PERFORMANCE_DISPLAY_VIDEO). Those campaigns take DISPLAY creatives whose asset is a video (display_ad_type = HOSTED_VIDEO or VAST_VIDEO).

Carousel and RSS ads are not part of the Creative Library. They continue to be created directly in the campaign, and have no creative in the library.

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Creative Library must be enabled for the account
The creative endpoints are available only for accounts on which the Creative Library is enabled. For any other account they return 403 with the message Creative library is not enabled for this account, and creative_id is not accepted on campaign items. The Creative Library is enabled by default on new accounts. For an existing account where it is not enabled, contact your account manager.

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See also

Creative fields - the creative object.

Creative statuses

Bulk creative operations

Help Center: Creative Library - the user-facing guide to the same feature in Realize.