Version control for creatives

Once you have the recommendations for a creative, the next step is to make the changes and test the revised version. Each version you upload is analysed separately and keeps its own scores, so you build up a record of how the creative has developed across rounds. This article explains that loop and how to read a revised version against the original.

REVISING THE CREATIVE

The Design Recommendations Report gives you specific changes to make, each covering one aspect of the design such as Primary Focus, Color Adjustment, Visual Hierarchy, Reduce Clutter or Call to Action. See Prescriptive guidance.

Use the report to brief the design team on the revision. Before you do, check each recommendation against the visual view so you can show the evidence behind it. Switch to Heatmap for recommendations about where attention is going, and to Fogmap for recommendations about an element not being noticed.

UPLOADING THE REVISED VERSION

Upload the revised creative and run the analysis on it. You can keep all versions of a creative in the same study, or run a revision as its own study if you prefer to keep rounds separate. Either way each version is analysed independently and keeps its own scores, so the original results stay available.

Assess the revised version against the same objective as the original, and mark the same elements as areas of interest using the same AOI types. Without this the two sets of scores will not line up and the comparison will not hold.

HOW TO READ IT

Compare the revised version against the original on the specific measures the recommendations were meant to improve.

If the recommendation concerned where attention was going, check Focus. If it concerned how easily the message reads, check Clarity. If it concerned an element being missed, check that element's Time to Discover and Attention values, and confirm it now sits in a clear area of the fogmap.

Check the Decode Score against the benchmark as well, but read it alongside the individual metrics. A revision can lift the metric it targeted while pulling another one down, which the overall score alone will not show you.

WORKING THROUGH SEVERAL ROUNDS

Change one thing at a time where you can. A version with three changes made at once will tell you whether it improved, but not which change was responsible.

Keep the objective, the areas of interest and the AOI types consistent across every round. As long as those stay fixed, each version's scores can be read against every earlier version, and you can see whether the creative has improved on the measure you set out to fix.