Hmm, when i click "get instant activation link" i get the following error:
http://www.image-hosting-on.net/view.php?filename=50adimage_works_2009_08_.jpg

what to do?

Jack

Getting an error when trying to get instant activation link. The error message states that the software "could not find a valid license for using IP*Works! V8 on this system."

Failed registration looking for something called IP*Works! V8 (nsoftware.IPWorks.Htmlmailer) component.

Do I need to download something or was it suppose to be apart of the package?

Matt,

Same as above and:

To obtain a trial license visit…nsoftware.com

I'm running Vista. May be an issue with Vista or???

Thanks!

Dan

OK I actually went and downloaded every single file from nsoftware.com and I was hoping to have some good news but none of the libs I downloaded seemed to work. I'm running vista64 as well. I'm restarting my computer to see if it works…

It's my server… not the software. I need to get my commercial licenses installed on my server. Should be quick.

You won't have to re-download anything… just wait until you don't get the error anymore.

*Sigh* So much for my nap

Hi Matt..

Downloaded biut won't allow access…similar probs to above

Graham

Hi Matt!

I have downloaded the software and tried to get the key, but it returns me the following error: "Your software could not be registered at this time. The reason given was: "IP*Works! V8 (nsoftware.IPWorks.Htmlmailer component). Could not find a valid license for using IP*Works! V8 on this system. To obtain a trial license, please visit www.nsoftware.com or email support@nsoftare.com [code: G nodeid: H68YRBWC].

I hope you can help me… thanks!
Eduardo Pizano
Internet Marketing
MEXICO

Oh.. I see that you have the answer for that.

Okay… back up.

You should be able to just click the activate button again.

Thanks for the heads-up.

Hello Matt,

Tried to register but got a message saying: Your Software could not be registered at this time. The reason given was: "IP*Works! V8 (nsoftware.IPWorks.Htmlmailer component). Could not find a valid license for using IP*Works! V8 on this system. To obtain a trial license, please visit www.nsoftware.com or email support@nsoftware.com [code: Ge nodeid: H68YRBWC]."

As I was typing this I thought of trying again to copy and paste the message, if at all possible, this time it worked. I got a message titled "Check Your Email Inbox".

Got the email and the software is activated.

Thanks!

When I refresh the blog within the application I get an error message titled "Webpage Error":

Line: 28
Error: Object expected

I am using Win 7 RC.

Hey Matt,

You can probably tell by the silence now, but since nobody posted, I thought I would say…

IT WORKS FOR ME!

Thanks,
Rex Turner

Hey Matt:

I downloaded and unzipped ok.

There is no help with IAB, so I'm winging it per the video. Please add basic help.

When trying to create an ad, nothing happens. The system does ask where to save the the image ads when pressing the Build Image Ads, but nothing else happens.

I'm aware there is no help yet. Hence the term "beta" Don't expect full-blown docs on this. It will probably never see a commercial release. I'm *much* more interested in getting it working and powerful.

If you're not comfortable playing around a bit then you probably ought to wait for awhile until it's a little more production-ready… by which point it will probably mysteriously disappear.

I'll work on some vids. First up will be a very basic walkthrough and then some in-depth vids on the templates, since that's where I'd like to see significant focus.

Thanks Matt. That would be helpful.

I had to restart the application after registration to load the template, but after that I was able to create the first test images, so that is working fine on my side.
Now I have to figure out how those templates work. Looks doable.

Ok. A couple of problems.

First, when I reload the app and Open Ads Template using your sample adsTemplate.html, I get a blank screen after pressing the Build Image Ads button.

I tried using the ads.html (just testing) and I got an unformatted result (not readable).

Second, since I use XSitePro to create web pages, it is not going to be simple to create the html code needed by IAB. What tool are you using, or would recommend so I can create the needed templates?

Thanks,
Ron

Btw, all of my png files are zero bytes (empty)

Same as Phil. I had to restart the the app after registration before any templates would load.

The template system looks simple enough. Any ideas for some templates? I'm ready to starting making a few.

As for first impressions this is vary good. It used to take me 50% longer or more to create half the images.

Ron - The easiest way to create templates is to make a copy of the original ads.html then modify that. I don't know about XSitePro but if you open the ads.html you should be able to edit then save it just fine. Are you trying to use the layout editor or actually looking at the code?

If you are looking at the code use a notepad++ or any editor you want.

Hey Bobcat:

I appreciate the feedback.

Yes, I can see the source, but not the ads in the Preview mode. I unzipped in a subdirectory (not sure if this matters), and I noticed the png files are zero size.

I plan to modify the source, and I'm sure I can work it out in the template once Preview is working.

I'm using Vista 64, if that helps.

Again, my problem now is no Preview.

Thanks,
Ron

I have my first campaign up. The tool worked perfectly with the template you made. I needed to restart the app after registration to get the preview to work.

I wanted to test it out and get something up there. I put it up against a currently successful content campaign. Now, of course, I am now waiting for Google to approve the ads… I will work on some templates tomorrow.

Thank you for putting it out there. I am looking forward to cashing in!

OK. Just a quick update.

I reinstalled the app and now everything is working.

Now I can move forward and modify the template.

Btw, for those having the same problem, when pressing Open Ads Template button, select the ads.html in the Basic folder(not adsTemplate in the Templates folder).

Ron

In case there was EVER any doubt, you are the man!

Hi Matt,

I just downloaded the image ad builder- Great program!
Just a suggestion- you may want to start a small community of people designing different image ad templates or png graphics for these people to share around.

Also, it is possible to integrate a basic WYSIWYG graphical editor interface into the program so you can basically insert graphics and text on the banners directly?

Matt,

I am going to see what I can do with this tool and will record what happens as a testimonial - good or bad.

The site I am going to promote is brand new and has not even been spidered by Google yet.

What it really needs is a bunch of low cost, high converting traffic to make it viable (don't they all?), since there are some very big, high spending competitors in this niche, and this kind of targeted approach is exactly what is needed to try and come in 'under the radar'.

I also intend to set up two PPC campaigns at the same time; one using the same keywords as the targeted CPM traffic, and the other a geo-targeted campaign that should be very cool with Google's quality scoring.

I will write it all up and post it here as it develops.

And thanks again for sharing this with us.

Had a chance to play with this, and I have a few suggestions.

First, since I load multiple ads (100s), it would be very convenient to be able to sequence thru each in Preview to see how the ads will display.

The only way to see that now is to Build the ads, which is not the most efficient way to review.

And second, when I make changes in the Ads Template Source, can we have a Save function that will allow saving the changes. Currently, I have to copy the source and save it separately. A minor annoyance.

And third, when Importing Ads and when Building Ads, there should be a Cancel function to avoid having to kill the program to stop the process (which could be very long when handling a large number of ads).

Btw, I like Darren's suggestion; not sure it would be easy to implement. Perhaps integrating with the Users favorite editor.

Thanks. Great program.
Ron

I would like to see a way to save templates you edited through the Ad Builder(mentioned already i think) and away for the system to rotate though a few templates. For example if I wanted to split test some layout options with the same text.

I also like Darren's idea of a community to share templates, or maybe a simple forum to share ideas and communicate a little easier.

Ron - Glad to hear you got it working.

Are the ads we create private or are the tools on this site being released for free for data aggregation? Wouldn't mind paying for these tools if I knew my ad copy/keywords/urls were private.

Thanks Matt for making this available. It looks great.

One thing that struck me is that I can't enter the destination url upfront. It would be good if this could be done and there could be someway to add a tracking code to each link for each ad. For example, I usually just make it relate to the size and title of the ad so I know what is working and in what size.

The other thing I've seen recently is flash versions of basic text style ads. One I saw today had all the info on the first screen, the next just had the date in big lettering and the third, 'get it now' type wording. Would this be possible? Or is it just template dependent?

I thought I wasn't doing something right as I couldn't get the template to generate so went and watched your video again. I was doing it right but for some reason when I click on open template and then go to ads.html in basic nothing happens. I'm still seeing the image from your blog in the ads preview screen.

Hey Matt,

Whippin up a batch of ads for some CPA action on Google. Great concept for an ad tool, using your SSP to find the perfect places to park my new ads.

Wish you could have allowed for a little more characters, especially in the headline.

Will light up the ads tomorrow and report on conversion effects. Thank you making this happen!

Maurice

Thanks for the chance to use and test this great software. I am just starting to do some tests today and will be putting together some templates too. One thing I think would be beneficial would be to increase the amount of characters we can use for the headline and main body text (-;

Matt,

Looks good…neat and clean interface. At first use, no major problems except when I pulled in the basic ad template one time, everything was skewed and images didn't show. Re-did and it corrected itself.

Hi Matt

I've insalled the software and and had it activated, now I'm trying to open ads template, I try opening the ads.html file from the location I saved it in but it does'nt seem to respond when I try opening it, any reason why this could be?

Cheers,

Chris

Chris,

Close the application, reopen it and select the template again - worked for me, I was having the exact same problem as you.

Allan

Allan,

I've done that and still doesn't show for some reason. The ads file is save as a .html and is a firefox document, should this be an issue? I've opened it normally without using the tool and the works fine, can't see where the issue is.

Chris

A few initial observations. I imported a set of basic text ads and found that the text didn't fit within the bounds of the template in some instances. Whilst I can alter that by editing the HTML directly it is cumbersome and time consuming to do. I see that the text is flowed in to the template using placeholders so my thought was how easy would it be to set a few basic text attributes using the same method. If we could allow a say size, color and font to be altered in the same area where the ad text is entered it would make tweaking the images for size pretty easy. Whilst I accept that it wouldn't correct things if you are having problems with only one of the ad sizes it would go a long way to making it easily customisable.

The other thing that I notice is that the ads are full size. Most of my image ads are created in Google's optimised sizes to avoid them from being "squashed" when they resize to get the display url in (eg a 468 x 60 becomes 468 x 49). This probably makes less difference to text based ads as the aspect ratio will be less critical but may be a nice option to think about when creating templates.

The use of animation is a great idea - I have been experimenting with basic animated gifs and love the idea of being able to use the technique with this.

Allan

Hey everyone… thanks for the comments so far. Lots of great feedback. I've got some great ideas swimming around in my head right now.

I've got a pretty full day today making changes and working on another top-line project. I'll start working your suggestions in and will probably have a second beta by the weekend.

I'll see if I can break away today for an hour or so and create some quick videos so you don't have to grope around like blind mice looking for cheese in the software

Once, again… thanks for everything.

Be patient… this is going to Rock and Roll once e get the power of everyone's ideas bearing on it!

Excited.

The software opens fine, activation was fine but i can not get the ad template to pull over. I've opened it normally in dreamweaver and in a browser. The software acts like its opening it up but nothing. I've tried restarting the software and my computer. Tried opening it up as an administrator and I get nothing. I'm still trying a few things I will report back. Thanks for all your killer software Matt.

One other thing… I woke up this morning (after getting a wonderful *10* hours of sleep last night) to about 100 emails regarding the project.

I'll weed through them as time allows. And I still have about 200 backed up from earlier beta requests.

There's a very (very) good chance I won't reply to all of them. I apologize in advance if you took the time to email me a personal email and I didn't reply.

The best way to get a message to me is still twitter.

My email inbox is absolutely overflowing right now. You will go right into a mass of chatter if you email me anything right now.

A direct message on twitter is the way to go. If you need me to follow you first so you can send a dm then please don't email me to follow you… I probably won't even read the message until the weekend.

Just make a public message like @mattharward follow me.

Or use the #ImageAdBuilder hashtag. Long, I know, but I'm following that hashtag.

http://twitter.com/mattharward

Hi Matt,

Great Tool!

Some suggestions:

- Batch processing to generate ads using two or more templates with import ads since split testing is in our blood!

- If we're manually creating the ads, also allow us to select a number of templates to generate them for split testing as well.

- I would suggest that the generated ad contain the name of the template that is being used so we will know easily which is the template that converts better when we split test since I'm assmuing the number of templates will get more and more as we create them so we can identify them easily instead of having to search through all our templates. The ads can also be batch created into campaigns folder and adgroup subfolders so it can be more easily uploaded using adwords editor.

- It will also be great if we can move the objects around in the ads preview area, since when designing the templates, we're just using placeholders and putting actual text in it might look different.

- Ability to adjust the display url text size. The url is likely to be the same for one campaign so by allowing us to adjust the size once, it will ensure that the rest of the ads will have the url fitting into the circle or whatever the template is.

- For Import AdWords Ads, show and allow us to cycle through the preview of the ads imported so we can view that everything is in order before we generate a lot of files.

- Support for other languages? Seems like its only supporting roman characters currently other languages will give just dots.

- If AdGrenade is being built into this, remove the character limits on line1 and line2, since we shouldn't be limiting ourselves if we control the whole image.

- The infamous save workspace/project that lots of your other tools have!

Btw, what are the custom fields for? Would love to share some templates but since we aren't sure who's going to get their hands on them if we post here… maybe thats holding us back.

You can send templates directly to me. matt at mattharward dot com.

If you have specific questions I'll see what I can do to get them answered.

Since templates are my primary concern right now those requests will go to the top of the pile.

Hi Matt,
Summary of suggested features:
1) animated gifs feature and/or flash
2) WYSIWYG image editor
3) split testing capability for multiple image ads
4) image ad builder community/forum
5) ability to import CPA network banner ads **
6) different font types & sizes
7) different background colours
ability to import customized background gifs

Hey Jason,

I'm having the same issue as well, hopefully it can get resolved very soon.

BTW Matt great tool you've got here, hopefully when the issue is fixed I can start giving some feedback.

Noticed one thing, when you click 'Build Image Ads' it forgets which directory you have chosen so i'm having to drill down and select the directory each time.

For those having problems with the ad templates showing up… which version of Internet Explorer are you using? Even if you're using a different browser, I need to know your IE version.

Also, are you current with Windows Update?

Hi Matt,

Can I suggest when you are building Image ads that you're able to create a destination folder on the fly.

Regards Bryan

The real power of this will only be realised if there is a way for us to create and share a libray of templates. That has the potential to lift it from being an interesting and useful tool to one that is simply mind blowing, and hopefully will also provide a way for us to give something back.

Allan

Not to buck the trend here but arent't some these just html/css changes.
6) different font types & sizes

Looks like I lost half of my message so here it is again.

Oops=-

Not to buck the trend here but arent't some these just html/css changes.
6) different font types & sizes

@bobcat… yes. That's exactly what it is.

I haven't given any explanation yet… but thank you for saying that. The entire point is that you don't have to be a graphics expert to do this… just modify the html templates.

@admin thanks for confirming my thoughts. I'm going to try and post one last time. I'm only seeing half of my message teh last to times. Feel free to delete some of these if you guys can see the whole post.

6) different font types & sizes
- I know You cant get a lot of fonts just by using css font-family
7) different background colours
- css background-color
ability to import customized background gifs
- css background image

I know they my not be as simple as pushing a button, but its not to tough right now. If anyone wants help with some of this let me know.

One issue I do see when using background images through css is getting the path right. Is the path relative to the template you opened or relative to where the program is installed? I will test this out when I get home tonight.

Installed with no problems using Firefox. Fast and easy.

Mauricio

My point about being able to change the font size, color etc in the ads preview pane is that it would make it super easy without having to trawl through 150 lines of code making the same change 8 times. As placeholders are being used I assume that this wouldn't be too difficult to do.

The greatest area that I am having problems with at the moment is in getting the text to fit within the ad. Quite a lot of my ads "overflow" outside of the box. I'm sure that this will improve over time as templates get developed and refined and that is the real answer but some of it could be overcome if the images were behind the text - is there an easy way that I can achieve this?

Allan

Matt,

I'm using firefox but the the IE version I have is IE 8. I can't see where the issue is when trying to open the ad templates.

Works great for me, I'm half done with 2 new templates, then I will animate some. I'll send them to Matt, so we can share.

Do you guys use PS or PSE or Gimp? do you want .psd files too? I'm just playing with the graphics at the moment.

~Taylor

@Allan the easiest way would be to make the image a background image though css.

If the templates are setup slightly differently you could have a class for each type of token ( each %%header%% token would be wrapped by a header class ect) Then the changes would all be in one place. Thats why
I'm leaning toward using a css style sheet for the template. Then simple changes to the text color and and size could all be controlled though this.

The only question I have about this is linking up the style sheet. Is the path relative to the location of the template or the location of where the image ad builder is installed/running? I will try to figure this out tonight when I get home from work and let you know.

Hi Matt,

Wow.. your new software is awesome.. after using it a while, I notice it will be great if:
1. you can add in delete ads inside 'import ads' list, just in case there is some ads that I dont really want to generate.
2. put and group the image ads inside folder per ads when you generate the image ads.
3. ability to map/choose between multiple ads templates and multiple adwords ads (as well as seeing all the ads preview before generating them, currently the preview only display the last ads generated)
4. search capability under ads template source

Hope my suggestion will help to improve the software user experience.

Regards,
Rudy

Matt, I have the same problem as described by Chris (Can't see a Ads Preview - get only a blank screen - even after several restarts) . Using IE 8.0.6001.18813 on a Vista 32bit.

I also get nothing when I start the app and load the ad template, just a blank screen. I am able to get something to show up (when I type text in the template source) but when I then build the image ads and try to open them I get the message "header not found"

To anyone still having difficulty viewing the templates. Make sure that you use the ads template that is inside the 'Basic' folder and not the one that installs itself in the 'Templates' folder. I think this was mentioned earlier, but it seems to work for me both on Firefox and IE8 using that.

That's weird because I still can't get it to work, Matt I mentioned earlier I'm using Firefox and have IE8.

Any ways round this issue?

For me Marks's suggestion works, it didn't when I tried it before but now it does. No idea why…

Jill,

I had the same problem. Maybe you're doing the same thing I was.

I was clicking on the first html file that popped up when I clicked on the Open Ads Template button. That files name is adsTemplate.html. I then realized that the file I should have been choosing is called ads.html.

Try clicking on the folder titled Basic. When that opens up click on the ads.html file and see if that does the trick.

I was having a heck of a time opening the ad template, but it worked once I simply closed the program and reopened it.

Quick up date. You can edit stuff via style sheet. The path is relative to the template you opened. I copied the style sheet from Templates directory (not the basic directory)into my new templates directory. Then I have access to all the styles setup by the editor. You can then wrap each token with a class then to make a quick change like text color all you have to do is edit the css sheet.

By the way the custom fields are really really cool. You can actually set the value to some html and it will get passed in. So if you really wanted to you could have nothing but tokens in the template file and then pass the html into them from the custom fields. But a better idea would be paths to images. If you have dozen images you would store each one as a custom field and then just swap out the tokens to change images. Nice and easy.

I noticed the template is using standard banner sizes.

It may be worth noting that static (non-animated) image ads are resized so Google can display the destination URL and the ubiquitous "Ads by Google".

For full details:
https://adwords.google.com/support/bin/static.py?page=guidelines.cs&topic=9274&subtopic=9295&answer=47179

So a 250×250 static image will be resized (not cropped) to 250×239.

Someone may want to create some templates using the following sizes:

Banner: 468 x 49
Square: 250 x 239
Small Square: 200 x 189
Leaderboard: 728 x 79
Medium rectangle: 300 x 239
Large Rectangle: 336 x 269
Skyscraper: 120 x 578
Wide Skyscraper: 160 x 578

I hope this was helpful.

Anthony

That's odd.

If you open the wrong template file, i.e. /templates/adTemplate.html, everything is screwed up and it is not corrected by simply going one sub-directory deeper and loading /templates/basic/ads.html

You first need to exit program entirely and then start again and load /templates/basic/ads.html first, or it will not work.

I see that PNG are the only output options for now. Do note that IE6 has a transparency issue with displaying PNG files - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/294714#appliesto

If the template contains transparent images over the text, IE6 will display the background of the transparent image as gray and not transparent.

Who still uses IE6? - http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

There's still a 14.4% who does, so you won't want them to click on your image just because they're curious and can't see part of the text. It certainly improves your CTR, but not necessarily your conversions.

Maybe we can have other output options too like jpg or gif..

The first thing that happened was the integration of the Ads Preview with the default Ad Template. But after you close and reopen the program again it will work.

Second thing was the color choices - I guess that's related the Ad Template but I don't know how to manipulate that. PPC Bully had a report on different colors and their effects on buyers. Maybe one suggestion is having several color combinations of the Headline and the Ad text, as well as the backround.

I will send more comments as I test this out..

Same experience with John @ 2:50 am:
I just close the program and re-open. folder Basic->ads.html

On "Import Adword Ads". What about MSN, Yahoo? Or a csv file?

PPC newbie and just scratching the content network. So don't know if msn/yahoo content is profitable, don't know stats yet.

Can it pass a keyword dynamic insertion in the headline?

very innovative. thanks.

Ok it seems some people accidentallt opened the adsTemplate.html file and that didnt work but when opening Basic-ads.html it worked. This is what I'm doing and it doesn't open the templates, I've restarted the tool many times and still no luck! When I try opening the ads.html file without the tool..voila it works, I can't see what the issue is.

Matt, I got it finally to work. What exactly the problem was (I had a blank screen for the Ads Preview) I do not know …. Anyway, I am about to make a few banners.

Can you let me know how to use the "Import Adwords Ads" function? Pasting the output of AdGrenade, I do get a failure massage… Thx

Wow that was easy, just posted 240 new image ads, testing colors first, 3 templates of the same design and different colors. Hope G doesn't take the usual 10 days to approve them.

Only hit one bug, I had to close and reopen the program to change templates, but once I got the hang of importing the ads, it was no big deal.

Thanks Matt!!

Just finished reading the Placement Targeting Unleashed, it's a great guide regarding the content network/placement targeting; Installed Image Ad Builder without problem, I'm playing with this great tool, will provide feedback as I go, thanks Matt for sharing such amazing stuff.

Brian

Hey Bobcat:

Can you email me an example of this?

Send to ronb107@gmail.com

Thanks,
Ron

@Ron,
I will try to help out. Can you be more specific on what your looking for?

Success! Uploaded the smiley banners to Adwords. Thank you for the time-saving tool, Matt! I got stuck and worked around 2 things. Didn't figure out how to Import Adwords Ads (the copy/paste from both Editor and a desktop .XLS failed), so I pasted the ad lines individually. Editor failed to post banners due to "Unrecognized Image Ads (Will Not Be Added)", so I uploaded manually from inside Adwords. Still troubleshooting. I'm running Windows XP and have Firefox and Chrome open simultaneously.

Also finished reading placement targeting unleashed… what a great summary of lots of great tips and trips for driving good cheap traffic to your sites/offers! I'm very excited about the possibility of of using Image Ad Builder to suck up and exploit more "cheap" traffic sources.

I've installed Image Ad Builder, but when I open the ads.html file in the "Basic" folder, I get a bunch of ill-formated text with no images. It also has lots of RED X's like it can't fine the image files. I've checked and the images are in the \Templates\Basic\images folder. Do you guys think I should try reinstalling?

I'm just trying to get this up and running so that I can start cranking on templates… anything I can do to contribute and hopefully make the cut to keep ImageAdBuilder. I really believe this is going to be a huge tool for us traffic brokers.

Cheers - Derek

Got it working! I guess there's some quirk because I had to shut it down a few times and reopen the software, and then it magically started working and displaying the ad template appropriately.

Alright… now I'm going to get started working on some templates of my own to share with everyone.

Cheers - Derek

I also initially confused when opening ads.html with no image (red cross) but after changing the relative path for the images & css everything look alright.

Suggestions:
1. For opening another template, need to close and reopen the software. Hope to see this improve on the next download.
2. In Select output folder, it's better if there is option to create new folder.
3. If there is an option to remember the last folder to save into, it's a time saver.

Several question:
1. Need more explanation about custom fields functionality?
2. How to send the template?

Need to create a dummy campaign in Adwords to use this new template image ads.
Wow….it's an awesome tool Matt.

@Ruth custom fields are pretty easy. Just put %%CustomField%% in the html where you want the varible. then enter a field value of CustomField and put the value you want into the value field. Then click the check mark at the bottom to save it. Upddate the ads and then you are all set.

Hi, does anyone think bits from the Belcher button might make a good ad? If you haven't seen it go to belcherbutton(dot)com and scroll down for the button image.

Supposed to have been tested to death and triggers all kinds of brain stuff.

If anyone thinks that might translate to an ad, I will try to pull something together for us.

"All I ask is an unfair advantage." ~little desk sign

@Taylor Not a bad idea. I would double check the adwords guidelines. I know they are strict with the call to action on the text adds, I'm not sure about the image ads though.

Bobcat, good point, I probably would start will the red dashes and an orange "more info" button, no credit cards or price. Our ads aren't really a buy button, that's why I was concerned it would be a wasted path. But it is interesting.

I just finished renaming all the graphics from the default template, and organized them into 19 folders for different variations of each. It's going to be ala carte soon…

The testing possibilities boggle my mind.

There are a few mentions of a video in the posts here. Now, I'm either blind or stupid because I can't see a link to one and nothing came in the download.

Would appreciate the url.

Cheers,

Matt sent the link in an email on Aug 4th, title was New AdWords Tricks.

I don't know if I can post the url - you might try a twitter DM to Matt.

This is crazy good!

I do agree with Ruth's first three suggestions regarding opening and saving templates within the tool. It would accelerate the creation process.

Next session I'm going to explore the custom fields and create some themed templates using Bobcat's suggestions regarding the CSS. Since I'm not an expert, this may take a bit of trial and error on my part.

BTW: Placement Targeting Unleashed offered up some great tips and strategies on dominating the content network.

@Cynthia The custom fields are really cool. I'm not an expert but let post your ?'s and I will be happy to try and help.

Hi Matt,
The ability to preselect which size image ads we want to build out would be good.
eg. some campaigns you may want to not use mobile ads.

Got my first campaign approved this morning. CTR of .97% so far. There is a glitch, however. Only two of my ads were approved because the display URL was too long and I failed to catch it before uploading. The URL either extended past the edge of the image or it was overwritten by part of the ad text. I'll fix it and upload replacements.

@Mark - Have you tried not using the Display url? I don't see any rules that say we have to use in in the image.

Here's another vote for including a saving of templates in any future additions (if there are any future additions).

This tool has massively speeded up my workflow and I hope to have some good results to post pretty soon.

Hey all… sorry for being silent for the past several days. As I mentioned in the original email, this is more of a side project for me and I'm spending the bulk of my time on 2 other projects at the moment.

That said, look for an update tomorrow sometime (probably more like the middle of the night tonight).

I haven't spent as much time as I would like on the project so far and my to-do list is still pretty long. I have made some improvements, however.

Many of you have asked about Ad Grenade integration. Chris is working on that right now. When it is available I'll let you know.

Lastly… I really appreciate those of you that have taken the time to be active here. I've even considered creating a "swat team" of sorts with a private forum where we can exchange ideas, strategies and tools.

I haven't done anything like that in the past because the absolute kiss of death on something like that is no participation. If that interests you please let me know here, via email, or on twitter.

Anyways, thank you for your contributions. There most definitely will be future versions of IAB. And it *definitely* works… I'm getting very good results on my test campaigns.

@Bobcat:

If I can see an example of what you had stated above: "You can then wrap each token with a class then to make a quick change like text color all you have to do is edit the css sheet.

By the way the custom fields are really really cool. You can actually set the value to some html and it will get passed in. So if you really wanted to you could have nothing but tokens in the template file and then pass the html into them from the custom fields. But a better idea would be paths to images. If you have dozen images you would store each one as a custom field and then just swap out the tokens to change images. Nice and easy."

Thanks,
Ron
ronb107[AT]gmail.com

@Ron… that will be built in to the next beta. I really like how it works, too. It didn't make it into the current beta, but it should be available by Thursday, or so. (* fingers crossed *)

Hi Matt, thanks for the video, been away for the weekend, will try & upload some images for you before my next vacation. Count me in with the SWAT team - (you know me I got lots of ideas for you

Just got the new beta installed Matt. Absolutely fantastic and works like a charm. The video was extremely informative and I now have the program working. Can't wait to test it out on a few pages.

Cheers,

Ric

Matt:

Awesome stuff and I really appreciate the time you took to make the video.

I too would love to be able to save templates with a click.

It there a trick to get these new ads reviewed faster by the Adwords staff? I have been waiting patiently for about 4 days now for my initial batch

Also, does the "import adwords ads" feature autmatically look for a defaut location or anything to import from? I ask because when I click it and the window opens, ni data displays.

I get the drop down boxes on "campaign" and "adgroup" but the grey data box remains empty.

All in all…..very cool tool!

Swat team sounds good to me, count me in please.

My first campaign has an average position of 1.

Seems like a good start to me.

In the VCR controls for create/update of the ads what is the purspose of the check, the "X", the * and the '*?

I think the color scheme for the controls makes edits harder. Would prefer using the standard Windows color pallete for background color on controls so I can see selection, tabbed/selected control, etc.

With the ability to write/manage more than 1 add I think we need an Open/Save/Close project notion — not just for templates but the ads as well.

Hi Matt..

Like you I get some of my best work done in the middle of the night..

Thanks for the update, wasn't able to get the templates but now we're up and running..Your Placement Targeting Unleashed is a great insight to Content & Placement and with SSP we're rocking and rolling..

Looking forward to getting the AdGrenade update..

Graham

Hi Matt,

… just getting started at playing with the software and wanted to take a moment to honor you for your generous contribution!

My friend, you're truly an inspiration!

Thank you!
Charlie

Hey Matt:

Great on the pending updates and the interface to AdGrenade (I love that software).

Include me on the Swat team as well.

Ron

v0.2 is now installed and working well for me too. Great work Matt.
It is much smoother being able to create all the split test ads at the same time. In particular, I appreciate the ability to rename each 'adgroup'. This makes it much easier for me to view the results of all of my creatives and to work out where my winners are.

Hi Matt,
I just had an idea it would cool to be able to customize the image sizes for use with eg. media buys, myspace ads etc. as well.

Matt:

Just quickly went thru the current update.

Great being able to sequence thru the ads once loaded from Google's editor.

Couple of suggestions…
1. when loading from the editor, please include the Adgroup capture. This would enable me to keep the grouping when Building the ads.

2. Please change (or allow user definable) the background color to something lighter. I am havind a difficult time reading the text when its black on grey.

For all those who have an interest in a graphical interface, take a look at 90 Second Website Builder. There may be a way to integrate the two. (Just a thought).

Thanks Matt. This program is evolving and I will be modifying the templates this week.

Ron

Just installed the new version, and now can't get it to run. I entered my usual info, click "Get instant activation link", and then i see a message about restarting to complete the activation. It restarts, and starts the activation process over again. I even tried a separate name/email combo, the email link arrives, i click it, and then same issue. Anyone else experiencing this? I'm using Windows 7.

@Ron, Matt mentioned he might have this have this worked out more in the next beta. But here is a quick run though of what I was talking about. (I'm away from my main computer due to a move and I don't have access to all my templates so bear with me)

Say you have the header tag %%Header%% now to color this you probaly have something like %%Header%% to color the text. You can change that to something like %%Header%% What you have done is created a custom field called HeaderColor. Now all you have to do to change colors is go into the custom field values and enter your new color (Red, Blue, #FFFFFF ext) — Let me know if this makes sense.

- Also about the background color, look in the main style sheet, its the style sheet in the same folder as blankAdsTemplate.html. Open the sytles.css sheet and change the background color to what you like, its currently at
#666666

@Darren, A quick easy way to do this would be If you have photoshop (other photo programs may do this as well, i don't know) is to create an action and have them batch resize all the images in a specific folder). If you have photoshop and are interested let me know and I might be able to help out real quick.

@admin - Matt Count me in for the SWAT Team. I'm in the middle of moving, but I will keep popping in to help out. I have a number of ideas I want to test as soon as I'm settled.

@Ron… Working on #1. It will come along with the campaign management and project storage (the next version will actually be database driven so everything gets stored).

I have a test version of #2 for you that I'd like for you to take a look at (I forget that not everybody wants stuff to look cutting-edge… at the expense of usability). Call it a beta beta

Download the setup from http://www.mattharward.com/downloads/ImageAdBuilderBeta.exe and run it.

Notice the "Look and Feel" drop down on the right-hand side. Play around with it and see if that gives you what you need.

Right now it doesn't store your preferences (that will come)… I just wanted to see if this works for you.

Btw… this has now reached the point where a blog with comments isn't cutting it. Would you all rather take this to a forum… or a wiki?

I vote for a private forum, I would be happy to help manage it if needed.

I downloaded the latest beta (.zip). I entered my company email address but got no confirmation. I then used my normal email address that I have used with some of your other software and it worked like a charm. I also bought a copy of Placement Targeting Unleashed and am going through that right now.

Thanks for all your great work Matt. You always put out quality.

Forum might be the best for people asking each other questions and sharing ideas. But a wiki certainly has its appeals. My vote would probably goto a forum.

I would also be glad to help out as needed.

I'm know that you just built this, that's why I'm aware that there's no help. It's kinda confusing for me. idk, is there a forum for this? just like bobcat said. A forum would be great so you don't have to take care of eveything yourself.

Matt:
(hope this gets posted, it's my third try)

I love this software.

My question is, when I click on the Import Adwords Ads nothing happens. The Data Box remains empty and gray.

I selected ALL from the campaign and Adgroup drop down.

Am I supposed to do anything else?

Besides that, I wonder if IAB could remember where I save my ads? (instead of drilling through my folder structure).

The HTML and CSS are very cool to play with a edit to see what you can come up with.

I would also vote for the saving of templates.

Thanks

Andrew

Please count me in for a forum, and if there is a SWAT team then I would definitely want to be in.

I have put up some campaigns, and waiting for google's terrible approval time 9 days or so. Then I will have CTR data to feedback.

I will put up some templates that others can use soon… after I get me head around how to move the bits around in the html/css templates.

I would also vote for a forum at this stage and then we could have more straight forward themed conversations along the lines of: Getting Started, Template Discussions, Suggested Features and a Creativity Corner for those of us with suggestions on how to attack the image parts of the content network in novel ways.

Matt:

After re-reading your Placement Targeting Unleashed…a cool idea hit me: Why not use these image ads on all the blogs I build out to support my main money site?

Just another great way to get a click to my main site…..

Thanks Again.

IAB is a wonderful tool!

There's one thing I'd suggest from my prior experience that I haven't seen in the comments so far - Google (at least AWE) has a 50K file size limit.
You might consider placing a check in the system somewhere to ensure that files are not created larger than that.
I appreciate that your current ones are OK but as soon as we begin creating our own, I'm sure we'll bump into that, especially animated.

Better still would be if IAB could automatically reduce the file size if that was to happen.

Many thanks!

Matt,

Small bug (not sure if this has been reported yet):

1. If you open the blank template (BlankAdsTemplate.html), then…

2. Open the 'Red Pen Template' next (ads.html), then this happens…

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/275905/IAB-Bug_1.png

Only way to reset is to close the app then open it again.

However…

If I open the 'Red Pen Template' FIRST … then everything displays fine from then onwards (even when opening multiple templates).

Andre

Re: Kerry's comment:
http://www.mattharward.com/image-ad-builder/#comment-8265

Perhaps allow the ability to select different file image compression formats when generating the output. (PNG, GIF and JPG)

For the most part PNG & GIF will produce a far smaller image size then JPG for what this tool does.

JPG is not as well suited for line drawings and other textual or iconic graphics. Such images are better saved in a lossless graphics format such as GIF and PNG.

JPG compression algorithm is at its best on photographs and paintings of realistic scenes with smooth variations of tone and color.

But that's not to say that we may not have a template containing photographic elements. In that case, JPG "may" be a better option to keep file size down.

Andre

@Andre… good catch on the template order issue. I'd had people send me the messed up screen before, but I couldn't figure out what happened. Thanks. I just made the fix for the next beta, which should be available Thursday or Friday.

The software doesn't appear to install on Vista, but OK on Windows XP. Can anyone confirm?

@Jim… It was developed on Vista. Definitely works with Vista.

What problems are you experiencing?

I've only seen one comment on this above, but every time I open the application I get a webpage error when the preview window attempts to load this very page:
Line: 28
Error: Object expected

I had the same experience as everyone else, that I had to restart the app after registering before template would load properly.

After only "complaining" in my last comment, I wanted to tell you how awesome I think this software is. I am sure by the time you implement some of your ideas and other beta testers' suggestions, it will rock!

Here's a suggestion I have: I would like to have settings / options for the build image ads function, where it allows me to control the output file name. I use Firefox with the Adblock Plus plugin, which I enjoy tremendously (and I am sure many other people use it), and it automatically blocks images that have standard image sizes in their name like image-250×250.png etc.

Thanks so much, Matt, and keep up the good work,
Biggi

Kudos Matt!! I was just able to install the software (after some initial challenges with my firewall) and I am loving this thing. I've been looking for something like this for a while and here you've produced it.

I especially like that you're using html token based templates with this that we can modify to our liking. I am working on some customized templates now which I will be sending your way.

NOTE: IF ANY OF YOU are having problems with the 'activation button' and getting a message about not being to reach the server, etc - you might want to disable your firewall. I have COMODO installed and could not get things to work until disabling its firewall. After activation, I re-enabled the firewall and permissioned the "ImageAdBuilder.exe" executable directly and it's now working fine.

Thanks for sharing this tool with us Matt, I hope to be included with your further releases! Thanks!

PS I'm all for a forum and / or 'SWAT Team' as well.

Matt or someone on his Image Ad Builder Blog. I am somewhat a newbie on all the technical stuff. I created some simple templates in Photoshop Elements for IAB. I saved them as JPG and with the HTML. I loaded them into the templates folder in the IAB Program folder. I can get the template to come up in IAB but when I hit create ads it doesn't create them properly and I can't view them. What am I doing wrong? Thanks for any help!

@Greg… send me your template and any supporting files (including images) and I'll take a look at what's happening. matt at mattharward dot com

The more I think about it, the more I think we should have a private forum on this. This is powerful stuff with some great feedback here.

With that said, many have made suggestions here that I agree would be great to include and I'm sure there are a many more things we may be suggesting here that has already been planned to be included in subsequent releases, but here's a small list of things I think would be good have included as well:

(I apologize in advance if any of these ideas/suggestions have already been made as I have read through most of the comments left here but may have missed a few…)

Some additions I'd like to see:

- A way to select and individually delete multiple ads (currently I can only delete ads individually - becomes more of an issue when dealing with a lot of ads at once).

- A way to 'clear' (delete) all ads at once (without having to close / open the program).

- The ability to 'clear' or 'append' the ads currently being shown when importing ads from adwords

- A display count of the number of ads currently loaded and the number of images that will be generated (simple math yes and not a 'must have' feature but would be 'nice' to have)

- Display the number of ACTIVATED ads selected which will have images generated for them.

- A 'Copy' (duplicate ad) feature.

- 'Undo' support

- The ability to save as a 'project' or template, etc, providing the ability to save the 'state' of things currently loaded and recall/open different projects when needed.

- The option to place our generated ads all in the same folder or in individual folders according to the names of campaigns and/or adgroups.

- Import file support for Adwords Adgroup or campaign csv files (or whatever for that matter) My guess is this is coming soon…?

- An 'easier' way to define static (global) as well as dynamic tokens AND values (I do realize we can currently do this manually via templates (thank you Matt!) but I'm also seeing a scenario where one might want the ads to be generated according to a keyword (or token) list and where we could define what part(s) of the ad uses a static token and what part uses a dynamic token (think dymanic insertion) - hope this makes sense.

- A display of the current running Version number (About box?) I wasn't quite sure which version I had running until checking the executable's properties itself. (again, not a 'must have' feature but a 'nice to have')

I will probably have others for you but that's all I have for now

Has anyone else had a challenge with importing Adwords Ads?

My import screen is just blank (Grey).

Thanks!

Thanks Matt,

Will test out this software over the weekend! I vote for a forum as well!

Matt, looks like the first ad being imported is getting skipped and not being generated, please see my response to Andrew below, thanks.

Andrew,

Looks like the Import Adwords Ads feature is intended for use with either Ad Grenade or SpeedPPC data exports right now? (or anything else for that matter that follows the format I've discovered below). I just tested using data exported from both software and it works EXCEPT that the very first row of data is missing (in other words my first ad IS NOT displayed).

It looks like in order to get things to work with csv data exported directly from the Adwords editor itself will take some additional work right now as the data does not 'line up' in the same manner as does the data exported from Ad Grenade or SpeedPPC.

From my testing, Image Ad Builder seems to be expecting the following (I will explain this as if you are using a spreadsheet program such as Excel to view the data):

1. A Header Row. The first row is the header row consisting of 7 columns (It is important that you have 7 columns (not less) or you will have errors.

2. Data Rows. Each ad's content would be included within a subsequent row (one ad per subsequent row).

For each of the subsequent rows (after the header), the following needs to be in place:

Column 1 should contain your Campagn name (blank seems to be ok too but it's probably a good idea to put your campaign name there anyway)

Column 2 should contain your Adgroup name (again, blank seems to be ok but I would still enter the adgroup name anyway)

Column 3 = Your Ad's Headline (or whatever you want to display for the token…)
Column 4 = Your Ad's line 1 description (or whatever…)
Column 3 = Your Ad's line 2 description (or whatever…)
Column 6 = Your Ad's Display URL (or whatever…)

Column 7 = Your Ad's Destination URL (for now, it doesn't seem to matter what's placed there as long as SOMETHING is put there as a placeholder otherwise you'll get an error ("List index out of bounds(6)" error).

Again, if you use AdGrenade to create your ads, all you'd have to do is export and open your exported ads into excel (or some other spreadsheet program), copy and paste into IAB's import feature (until this is addressed, just remember to insert a copy of your first row to row 2 as it seems that the import is skipping row number 1 (reserved as a header row?))

Has anyone else noticed this? Just wondering…

Hope this helps.

@Tama Man… Actually, you've got it backwards. The reason the first line from SpeedPPC or Ad Grenade are getting skipped is precisely because IAB is only designed to import ads from Google's AdWords Editor. And it creates a header line in the first row, which I then skip.

The format I am importing is the exact format you get if you select an ad in AdWords editor and copy it to the clipboard. See my original video (not the tutorial) for an example.

If you are using Ad Grenade then Chris is working on direct support support for Image Ad Builder so you won't have to do anything else.

Also, for this reason, I will not be adding any sort of token replacement or similar technology since I use Ad Grenade for that (which is why I asked Chris to modify Ad Grenade for me… so I wouldn't have to duplicate his effort).

Even the AdWords Editor import is just a stop-gap solution for me until Chris gets the AG side working.

Btw, if you're interested, I have exclusive pricing with Chris on Ad Grenade. You can go to http://www.adgrenade.com/ssps.php if you want my discount.

The AdWords import works and isn't as difficult as it seems. It's a simple copy from AdWords Editor and click the paste button in IAB. I could make it more obvious, I know… but I view it as a temporary solution anyway while I wait for Ad Grenade integration.

Watch the first video to see me doing the AdWords import. The interface has changed in beta 2… but the process is the same.

I just got a chance to play with the new version, and can't seem to access the custom fields, have they been disabled?

@admin I did email you a template with a possible rendering issue. I think the email was sent on saturday/sunday morning of last week. I included the problem template and a couple output images. Let me know if you want me to resend this.

"'I see', said the blind man to his deaf wife as he picked up his hammer and saw…"

Thanks Matt for that clarification. (I had forgot about that video!) I was exporting the campaigns and ad groups instead of simply copying and pasting the individual ads displayed (as you DID SHOW us in your intial video - which, by the way, is WAY easier, lol).

It works perfectly.

For those wondering, the video Matt is referring to is not the one listed at the top of this page (it was originally sent by email).

Here's the link to the initial beta video:

http://www.mattharward.com/videos/ImageAdBuilderBeta/

Thanks!

Got my first campaign up today using the software.
Great job on the new version. Things seemed to work easier.
The video was spot on.
I instantly was able to create ads for a content campaign in a matter of 2 minutes.
Just from the explanation you gave on importing my ads from adcenter I was able to copy all of the ads from my current content campaign to image ad in less time then it took to open adcenter.

Just a note to some people I did run into a problem with to much whitespace when I took out the pictures in the template ad that was given to us. I think only two got approved so if any one is building them out then probably increasing font size or adding other pics would solve that problem or maybe a border.

I did end up purchasing site sniper pro from you. Great piece of software and well worth the money. Btw, loved the placement report. So, u got one extra sale because of your image ad beta release that you probably wouldn't have gotten otherwise.

I am setting up a split testing different color hand drawn cirles and arrows. I'm testing to see if red or blue has a higher CTR. I'll report back when I have stats.

Great software Matt! Thanks.

Matt,
When I first got the beta version I couldn't get it to work right. Mainly because I was naive on how to use it. Then got busy working on a client's project and didn't get back to using it until last weekend. by then I'd seen the video (thanks so much for that one)…

I've gotten approved by Google on all the campaigns I set up last weekend. Have to say that my content ad conversion beats what I was getting with simple text link ads before I started using the image ads. I'm tickled to death…

The image ad builder is the perfect compliment to your Site Sniper Pro that I bought awhile back. I'm hoping you make another video on how to make custom image templates… I've been working on one already based on background images with your basic template design overlaying them.

Once again, good job!

I'm loving the updated version Matt. I also like the fact that you make the banners in png format because I have found and they convert better on the content network because they look very crisp while jpeg and gif can diminish the quality of the banner image.

You might want to have the option of jpg because of Internet Explorer display issues with older versions. And to use these banners in other networks that only allow jpeg.

Looking forward to the next update… thanks Matt!

Matt and Tama Man:

As far as the import, I only have Adwords Editor and when using IAB, it won't import from there for some reason.

Can anyone offer any insights in why I am unable to import?

OK, next subject……

The Adwords Team finally got around to looking at my image ads after 5 days (ho hum)…..and disapproved them.

These are images ads of my exact regular text ads that have been running for two years without fail. (with an average 9.26% CTR…btw)

The reason they gave is "unaccepatble image content".

HUH? They are silly up there are they?

So, now what?

Has any one else run into this yet?

Did I just get a grumpy adwords editor?

Yikes

@Andrew… For the AdWords import watch the video at the link provided by Tama Man. Should clear things up.

I have not had any of my image ads disapproved for any reason other than an invalid display URL when the URL wraps.

Someone else posted that they got disapproved for too much white space.

I'm assuming that the red arrows are a judgment call for the human reviewers. I don't know that for sure.

When I release the next beta I'll include a couple more "toned down" ad templates.

Also, the review time is strange. I've had it take as long as 4-5 days… and as quick as a few hours. And Google claim that they review ads in order is crap. I've launched 2 campaigns back-to-back and the 2nd campaign sometimes gets approved days before the first campaign.

Strange.

I'm not aware of any way to get them fast-tracked.

@Andrew
I got that with some of my Keyword Rockstar ads, they use red pen arrows too.

I made new graphics for IAB and they were fine.

Maybe too many "red pen" arrow ads are showing up at the moment.

I copied and pasted my ads from Adwords editor and they went in ok. That's how it was done in the email message video, the link is up a few posts.

When I copy Ads from AWE and Paste into IAB, the first screen shows the ads nicely grouped etc
However, when I click OK I get this error message:
Cannot Create File "". The system cannot find the path specified.

Wow, just created 960 ads in

Thanks Matt, Taylor and TamaMan

Worked like a charm.

My editorial issue was an URL being cut off on one of the skyscraper ads, so I just edited the size of the font for that particular size ad and it worked.

AWESOME STUFF!

@Andrew

I know how easy that is to happen now that this tool speeds up the workflow so much. I have difficulty slowing down to go and look at each creative before hitting upload.

Incidentally, the early results that I have after playing around with colours only show that I am getting a better CTR with the original red colours rather than my newer blue ones. Hasn't affected conversions yet though.

@Mark

Once I get enough ads up and approved I will test a bunch of colors. My knee jerk reaction is that it will be hard to beat red, but let's see what the results bring.

I know people like James Brausch swear that navy blue headlines rule for online sales copy, but perhaps these ads are different.

The numbers will tell.

Thanks Matt.

The Look & Feel is perfect. Now I can see everything clearly.

@Bobcat:

I appreciate the feedback. The current beta has disabled Custom Fields.

Ron

Wow… the power of image-ad-builder is incredible. I just created 576 image ads in seconds. As always, great software Matt!!!

The only part that slowed me down was importing them into my adwords editor software. I haven't quite figured out how to import into multiple adgroups? For example, I ran image-ad-builder on a campaign with 18 adgroups each containing 4 ads. It created 32 unique images per adgroup (i.e. 32images X18 adgroups= 576 total banners). When I import them into adwords editor it doesn't automatically break them out into my adgroups. Does anyone have an easy way around this? My apologies if I'm missing something… I'm still learning!

Thanks and to everyone's continued success. Cheers - Derek

Been busy lately so I just had time to try the 2nd beta. Thank you Matt for taking my split testing suggestion into production!

Some suggestions for improvement on the 2nd beta:

1. Include Text Tooltips when hovering the mouse over the buttons below the Display URL field. Hard to tell what they do if you're new.

2. Its nice to be able to edit the font size for headline right in the source pane without affecting the original template if I had a certain headline that is too long, but this would also cause the other headline with are of the right size to shrink as well. Would be great if we could just have the headline shrink for just the copy of the ad with the long headline.

Other than that I aboslutely love IAB, thanks Matt for taking the time to do this and also recording the video at 4:30am in the morning. Do take care and have sufficient rest!

Looking forward to more features in the next beta - split testing between different templates with same ad copy perhaps?

Your beta v2 works great! I imported ads from Editor, built image ads and posted them via Editor. Your 2 videos were helpful. The Ad Group identifier for split testing ads is handy. SUGGESTION: maybe add a descriptive hover pop for the 10 buttons in Ad Content section? Your 'Placement Targeting Unleashed' e-book gives good tactics and insights. Thank you so much Matt.

@Derek: The first way I did it was by importing all of them into one adgroup and then moving them around in the Editor. Since Adwords Editor crashed on me a couple of times doing that I started just importing them one adgroup at a time. It's a litte bit of a pain but seems to work consistently.

I second Edgar's point about making the "on the fly" source editing ad specific. That would be an awesome addition!

Thanks so much for the video's Matt. They were a big help.

@Glenn, @Edgar - If I read your posts correctly "on the fly" source editing can be done with the Custom Field tokens, if Matt decides enables them again.

@Bobcat… sorry about the custom fields thing. I had to do that to get the 2nd beta for technical reasons. They're coming back in beta 3 with even more power than before.

I'm hopign to have the next beta out on about the same schedule as the others… probably Tuesday sometime.

Keep the suggestions coming.

@Matt,
No worries about the custom fields, I'm sure you have your hands full. I didn't mean to keep harping about those. I think the true power of this program is yet to be realized, and I think we have hardly scratched the surface of what we can do with it.

Matt…
Anybody who puts pictures of his wife and kids on 50% of his website banner is more than OK in my book. And gives away great software on top of that… One of a kind! Thanks for both.

Hi Matt,

Just had a suggestion - if we could import our CPA network image ads into this program, with the ability to resize images and also make the files less than 50kb, to comply with Google, that would be handy too. This is probably a feature that would go hand in hand with Adgrenade.

Great update Matt, here is my opinion.

Suggestions:
1. Give a tool tips when mouse hover the 10 small button (I don't know what the last 2 button used for esp)

2. Have button for create/open/save project to save the last state of all the ads we create, if we need edit or create additional similar ads for certain project, we can open and add some more as well remember what kinds of ads variation we have created.

3. Ability to edit 'on the fly' for certain section of the ads in the preview mode and sync with the source template code. It's really great if it can function like small html editor with drag & drop capability, so we can adjust the position of the ads component without changing manually through the source code.

Several question:
1. Do you purposely make dim button for Ads style & Campaign Style or do I have to create/do something first so it will show?

Overall it's great update, thanks for improving and include our past suggestion, appreciate it so much for your hard & awesome work.

Matt

Thanks so much for this great tool. I really hadn't done much with image ads before because it all seemed too hard: lots of effort to get it all up and running only to have Google decide (for various reasons) it wasn't OK.

I've now done a few small scale tests using your tool by incorporating the image ads into existing content campaigns and early results are great. My CTR varies from 0.06% to 13.33% but it seems the conversion rates are definitely higher, in one instance 3x higher than a regular text ad.

Thanks also for the excellent Placement report. I'd tried placement targeting before and couldn't work out why I wasn't able to get it to work. After reading your report I now know exactly what I did wrong and how I can fix it. Have to say it was refreshing to read a report that was full of solid information and strategies without the usual fluff or ego boosting padding. I'm onto my second read and then I plan on firing up Site Sniper Pro and implementing a few of the techniques.

Thanks again, Matt. Excellent stuff!

Thanks Matt!

I'm having amazing success with your tool. Check out the stats difference between my text ad vs. the image ad built with image ad builder for one of my content campaigns.

CTR Avg. CPC Avg. Pos
Text 0.12% $0.59 4.8
Image 0.67% $0.12 1.1

This is in a high volume competitive niche. Needless to say I'm killing it with the image ad.

I've started split testing with the image ads now to see what will work to get the CTR even higher. I will report back soon with my findings.

Thanks again,

Dave

@Matt, I just noticed that this page is indexed by google. If you search image-ad-builder or image ad builder It is appearing in the results. I'm not sure if you wanted that or not.

Matt, you mention Perry Belcher several times in your placement targeting whitepaper. Is there a particular product that he has on writing for the content network or did you mean his copywriting info in general?

I think Matt was mentioning the whole sale traffic, there's a placement targeting section and also ads writing for content network in it, it's a good one.

Hi Guys,

If anyone has a link for Perry Belcher's Ad Content Copywriting module, I'd love to purchase it. That's one thing I haven't spent a lot of time on… I usually just quickly write my ads and throw them up. I know I could do a much better job writing my ads.

What an awesome product Matt… can't say enough and am excited to see the next Beta version!

Cheers - Derek

@Jill & @Derek… Brian is right about Wholsale Traffic by Perry and Ryan Deiss. That's probably where I first saw Perry's copywriting for the content network.

Wholesale Traffic was moderately expensive, though. And I know I've got multiple courses from Perry with essentially the same content copywriting information that are significantly less expensive.

Problem is… when I went to go find it I was digging through dozens and dozens of folders with crappy ebooks to find the good stuff (I buy just about everything I can get my hands on). And I can't find which of the lower end stuff has the same info.

Anybody else own any of Perry's other content that has the content copywriting module?

Perry's Get Money From Google (www.getmoneyfromgoogle.com)has the content copywriting module, it's cheap only $27 if you don't buy the upsells.

@Matt @Brian… thanks much for the info! I'll get the cheap module at www.getmoneyfromgoogle.com and see if it has the content I'm looking for. Thanks again guys!

Just a sidenote… this may have already been addressed, but I'm seeing a problem in the Beta version of ImageAdBuilder that only happens when I try to open new templates. The first one always opens fine, but when I open the second one it has a problem displaying (i.e. like it can't resolve where the image files are). This problem is easily fixed by closing down & relaunching the program and then opening the template again. I just can't seem to figure out why it's happening.

Google has just turned on a couple of my campaigns… I'll let you guys know how they go. I'm also hoping to have a bunch of new templates completed SOON.

Cheers and thanks again to ALL. cheers - Derek

A quick update:
The software works great and I got my test campaign up and running in super quick time. The issue I seems to be having is Google taking nearly two weeks to approve/disapprove my ads. I went with the original template with some minor design changes, but Google only approved one advert. The rest are "Approved (limited)". So even though my keywords are high traffic ones I get no impressions for the "Approved (limited)" ads and the one that has been approved gets a trickle of impressions. It's very frustrating )-;

Anyway I am going to try some more tests and see what happens.

Thanks,
D.

Matt,
A suggestion:
Perhaps adding a function to change the Fonts and the Colors of text.
Either way it is an awesome tool.
Thanks,
Glen

Finally got some of my ads running on Google. Getting a 0.18% CTR for my ad. Think it is still a little low for a content campaign. Will continue to update my performance here.

Well, I've been waiting since since the beginning of the week (now Saturday 23:55) and they just went live 5 minutes ago.

Hey guys, how long does it normally take to get ads approved on a placement basis?

I'll let you know the results as soon as I've got some.

I spoke too soon, as usual. They hadn't approved them after all - they're still sitting there waiting the fickle finger of fate!

Sheesh!… how long can it take? Its now over a week!!!

Has anyone used the standard template and found that they take longer than normal to be approved or dissed, or am I just getting paranoid in my old age?

@Terence They claim they can take up to 14 days, Some times its longer, sometimes (not often in my case) its sooner. It can be extremely frustrating when you are excited about launching a campaign and then you have to sit and wait.

Also a thing to remember is Oprah and Dr Oz just slapped a number of people with lawsuits about using their name(networks, advertisers, and affiliates got hit) and there is alot of buzz about google and the FTC looking into people pushing the biz-op cpa offers with googe in the name. Its a pretty hectic time right now, so things may be running slowly.

@Bobcat - Thanks for the heads up and useful info re the placement waiting times.

I just hope Matt doesn't get trigger happy with his registration server before I can report back.

Its also running pretty slow in the PPC channel for anything that gets caught in their "review" net. I have a couple of end-time dated campaigns for products where the offer will be withdrawn midnight tonight, and they will never see the light of day since they're still stuck.

Must be nice to have more money than God and make the rules up as you go along… 8^(

@Terence - Google does like to changes the rules as they go. but there is no need to have more money than god you just have to convince people they cant live with out your service

Google hates me, really not getting many impressions, but from the ones I did get this month I'm leaning toward saying, the more red the better!

I have 3 red diamonds across the top and that one is the best, also the url is surrounded in red 1 ad has a 66% CTR, the same ads with blue around the url has a 9% CTR.

Time to create some more templates.

Matt, I have a question. This isn't directly related to image ad builder but it kind of is. I've had a content campaign running with the image ads and its going really well. So now I want to do site targeting and got my placement report from Google. I now have a list of sites that 'image ads' ran on but I don't know exactly which ads ran on what sites. I want to be able to analyse the sites to see what size ads they take and where they are placed.

I've been through all the training documentation and videos and I can't work it out. I'm obviously missing something

Is it possible to run those targets through Site Sniper Pro? If so, how do I do it?

Thanks!

I have a suggestion for Image Ad Builder. Is it possible to make it so that the code that is added to the image name could come after the image description rather than before?

The reason this would be helpful is where you have more than one image size in an ad group. It would then be possible to order the images by size and easily compare the results for different ads for the one size. Does that make sense?

I guess the alternative is to set up a different ad group for each image size…

Unfortunately, not being an HTML/CSS jockey means I have only been able to work with the basic template so far, but given confidence by the initial results, I have now just placed an order with a web designer to come up with 10 more templates.

When they are ready I will post here and you can DM me for the download address and I will share them with you.

OK, so the first results are just starting to come in.

XXXXX XXXXXXX [P] Active 297 5 1.68% £0.07
XXXXX XXXXXXX [PPC] Active 366 6 1.64% £0.20

Its hard to make a direct comparison between PPC and [P]lacement campaign results as there are so many variables, however, for a similar amount of impressions, this first highly targeted (thanks to Matt's "URL Laser Pro"), non-keyword, placement campaign of mine shows that even ads created with the standard template are capable of delivering clicks at a fraction of the cost of PPC

Now, the next stage is to see which clicks convert better!

@Bobcat - I didn't mean ME "have more money than God", although I must admit the idea certainly does have some appeal, I actually meant Google.

And I am not sure I want to spend my time thinking of ways to convince anybody of anything - I think I would prefer to find people who are already convinced and make them an irresistible offer.

Hi Matt!

Again, many thanks for sharing your amazing talents! You ROCK!

I'm playing around with Image Ad Builder … and, thus far, the only feedback that I can give you is that it would be nice to be able to click on 1 of the ads and make a change (rather than the batch).

For example, in my current set up - all my ads work PERFECTLY … with the exception of just 1. For the sake of efficiency - would be nice just to click and make the change.

Once again- THANK YOU!

With gratitude,
Charlie

Hi Matt!

You should have two emails from me with a total of 25 newly designed templates that are fully compatible with your Image Ad Builder software. Please take a look when you get a chance and let me know what you think! Hopefully some of them will work for your campaigns…

Alright… enough template building, time to launch some campaigns of my own!

Cheers and thanks again for another great product. Keep the automation's coming!

Derek

Hi Matt,

Thanks for the great tool. I just started testing it. I uploaded my first set of images and am waiting for approval.

All went smooth adding the images to existing campaigns was a bid tedious.

-Mike

Hey Matt

My number one feature request would be to have multiple banner output options, namely .gif and not just .png this will allow us to build animated banners easily.

I have created an animated template that works in the Ads preview of IAB but once I build image ads the animation is gone.

Thanks!

Dave

Hey Matt,

For some reason your "Image Ad Builder" and your "Keyword Sniper" software does not want to activate on my system. When I type my email etc to activate, I do get your email and it does "SAY" it is activated after I click the confirmation link. However, when the software reloads, it tells me to Activate it again. There doesn't seem to be any way around it.

I am using Windows Vista Home.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

Hey Matt a friend just sent me this site, the price list for having this company make banners for adwords.

OMG $125 for the full 8 set (all sizes) or basically $20 each!

I figure your product will save people $x,xxx easily. Don't you dare give it away for free (pleeeeeease)

not an aff link or even an endorsement - just proof of the $$
http://minibannerszen.com/Prices.shtml
~kt

Just FYI: When Matt's installation routine recommends closing all the running applications, DO IT!

Had to reinstall app to get it working because I ignored that recommendation.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE TOOL MATT!

Hi Matt,

Just an amazing tool.
One HUGE wish: Animated GIFs support.

I animated your Red Pen Template and emailing it to you.

Thank you,
Lana

Hi Matt

I read through the comments, and didn't see any mention of the new Keyword Rockstar tool that's just come out from Joel Peterson and Jon Shugart.

If you've seen it, then just ignore the rest of this post.

If you haven't yet, its obviously a keyword data mining tool that provide a lot of data filtering options and also short cuts to key free analytic tools most use during the keyword research process.

It also has a placement targeting ability and an image ad creator that produces data input files for PPC campaign upload services like adwords editor.

Looks like there's a lot more planned for the product, and fundamentally, they are developing a platform to incorporate the full process from keyword research to building and loading up campaigns on the various search platforms.

However, at this stage, the ad builder (which is the main reason I'm writing this), only allows for the creation of banners that build off of the text ads (same as your design), but only at the campaign level. So, it has all this power to explode out the data for a campaign upload, but all the adgroups in the campaign get the same ads. You can also target keywords to placements, but you still can only show the campaign level ads for each keyword/placement pairing. (At least that's all I could get it to do).

The other key features of the ad builder are:

animated gifs or not (your choice), ability to import banners, additional templates

Cost is around 1,000 one time or monthly pay option

I've just started to use your system to compare. Works good so far. I've read through almost all the other posts, so I'm not going to repeat anything else already stated but share many of the same thoughts.

Thanks for providing the opportunity to work with the software

Fin

Hi Matt,

I emailed you, but I know email gets missed quite easily.
Just wanted to give you some more feedback on the image ad builder. google resizes most images when people upload them because the add the 'ads by google' bar at the bottom, this is included in the dimensions. It would probably be better to make the images to be these sizes

See here: http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?answer=7683

* Banner: 468×49
* Leaderboard: 728×79
* Square: 250×239
* Small Square: 200×189
* Large Rectangle: 336×269
* Medium Rectangle: 300×239
* Skyscraper: 120×578
* Wide Skyscraper: 160×578

thanks again for great software!

Vinnie Curto

Just wanted to say that I have really enjoyed using image builder. I will hopefully be sending some new templates shortly. Do you think we could maybe make some library to share our templates?

The last comment by Matt here was on Aug 18. Has this communication avenue been moved to another location? There was mention of relocating this to a forum. Is there an updated version (newer than v0.2) of this program available? Matt mentioned coming out with version 3 in mid-August.

With the awesome list of programs/products he has given away for free (and sold…-SSP) I've been wondering what else he's working on. I know I caught some comments in his videos that this program is not on his list of important items simply because he has been working on two major projects. Anyone know what those projects are? I, for one, would be interested…

This guy is re-inventing the way internet marketing is done!

@joshua

If I told you, I'd have to kill you…8^)

Seriously though, I don't know what it is he's working on. I only know Matt has been really busy working on a couple of BIG projects, and that as he said when he so graciously gave us the opportunity to use his software, this particular item cannot be a high priority for him right now.

Here's what I suggest we do.

If you, or anyone else for that matter, is interested in setting up some sort of free template sharing with everyone (so we can all do as Matt has done and give something back), drop me an email at w8aepzgik0@sxipper.net and I will collect the addresses of all those interested, so I can set up a shared dropbox, send everyone the access info, and then we can all share the available templates.

Dropbox will automatically share the available templates with anyone joining later on.

I prefer to do it this way round, i.e. find out how many, if any, are interested in sharing and giving back first, before setting it all up. Agree?

Anyway, if you're interested or you have a better idea, let me know.

I personally have a problem with all this, so I better come clean up front. As I am not a CSS jockey nor an HTML wizard I have had to try and get people from RentACoder and Scriptlance to create templates for me, but I haven't been able to manage that yet. I would be more than happy to share these templates with everyone, even though I would have had to pay for them, but I have been searching for weeks now and can't find anyone with the skills, knowledge and talent who will take the job on.

Anybody got any ideas or know of someone who can develop some templates for me/us and wants to earn some extra money?

Terence.

No matter what I try the Image Ad Builder will not start on my laptop. I uninstalled it and tried a second time, but to no avail. The message I got after clicking the activation link was that once I clicked the go button, it would start, but it keeps returning to the original screen and asks for my name and email all over again. I have Vista home premium SP1. What can I do to fix this?
Terry
terrylemoigne@cox.net

After struggling with the activation issue for about an hour, I entered the IP address of the program into ZoneAlarm and now I am able to launch the program. For some strange reason ZoneAlarm's firewall didn't warn advise me that it was blocking access.
Terry

@Terence - Good ideas. I can code, and would be willing to help out. However like Matt I have a couple other priorities right now. The other issue I have is a few of the templates I was creating are heavily based on the Custom Fields, and these are disabled in the current beta.

Any one else have any thoughts on this?

@testers

OK, roll up roll up. The DropBox is now open and 3 people are already signed sharing it. Go get yourself a copy of dropbox over at https://www.getdropbox.com/ and watch the video, then set up a folder called "ImageAdBuilder", drop me a PM to this address w8aepzgik0@sxipper.net and I'll send you the access details.

@bobcat

Thanks for offering to help out. I don't think it matters too much about the additional coding since in many cases using it would be optional, I imagine. And in any case, speaking for myself here, that's how I learn usually. By viewing the page source and picking other people's stuff apart to see what happens. Learning by doing, as they say. If you get a minute, you could always zip 'em up with a readme.txt that gives a few hints and instructions.

I wanted to make a modifications with the image ads so I tried adding borders and stuff. It shows all right in the preview page but when I try to Build the ads and look at the saved images it's all messed up.

I just want to ask if I can make such design or it should be left alone like that?

Thanks.

Does anyone here have access to Matt? Could we somehow "encourage" him to open up the Custom Fields area again. I never got to see it, but it sounds like it made things even more "special". Perhaps I'm oversimplifying this, but from what I could make of it, new templates can be made simply by:

- adjusting the settings inside the css file. You can change colors (background and text) by changing the codes.

- modifying the source template on the second tab. You can change the layout of the gifs, the gifs themselves (you have to put the new/modified gifs in the appropriate folder) and even add new stuff, like images, backgrounds, and borders.

Of course, be sure to save the new template, and test them before making them live! (per Mike's comment.) Just as Terence said, I figured this out by getting in and just "seeing how it worked".

One last IMPORTANT note. If you plan to use these templates for actual ads in Google, be aware that Google is disapproving all templates that "look like text ads". I've submitted quite a few using slight modifications of the original template, and most have been declined by G. I finally figured out the common problem was the hand drawn circles in the first template. Anyone else have this same problem?

I second Mike's request for help on advice on adding borders! I tried creating a new .html doc and new stylesheet with borders added. Same as Mike, it looked OK in Image Ad Builder but when I built the ads and viewed them it was all messed up. Anyone have any tips on how to get this working right?

Thanks!

@ Joshua - I have had some problems with getting ads approved in Google. Sometimes the response is poor image/video quality and in other campaigns they sail through just fine. I think it depends who at Google looks at them.

Best tool in years. I am creating them for testing, and then will tweak ones that are working in fireworks.

I am REALLY disappointed!

Everyone has asked to share templates created by everyone else but, so far, nobody has been willing to share 'their' templates.

Doesn't that fly in the face of Matt's generosity in allowing us to use this tool for free? I think it does.

Tell me I'm wrong and you were just waiting for the right moment to share won't you, and drop a template or two into the drop-box and help someone else.

Either that or don't be surprised if Matt's registration server suddenly develops amnesia and all you have to play with is your regrets.

@bobcat

Hows it going with those "other priorities" ?

@Terence - Sorry for the delay, my other projects have been going poor at best. I will email you tonight. I have had a some issues with the template showing up silly as @mike described. Regardless I will send it your way and see what you think. Just a warning it does rely heavily on the custom fields.

Is Matt still alive? No updates here nor on his main blog for months.

I'm still alive

Here's a quick update… I'm working on the next version of Image Ad Builder. It will definitely be the last beta. There are some cool new things I'm doing with it, including more templates, a template editor, animated gifs, re-enabling a more powerful version of custom fields, custom ad sizes and formats, and more.

I've also entered into negotiations with Chris to buy his AdGrenade business. Use your imagination on that one… I am.

After the next beta I will be releasing IAB as part of a complete content network domination system that I've been working on.

There's a small (but real) chance I will be starting a small braintrust / mastermind group soon. If that happens I will probably *not* release the system/software to the public and, instead, make it only available privately.

We'll see.

Thanks for all the feedback and comments. I'm still a few days away from being active here again, but look for more information in about a week (right after I release my new mobile marketing suite).

Hi all…

I am an image ad builder user as well as a SSP Pro user.

I have been playing around with Image Ad Builder and have Submitted over 200 image ads on Google using this awesome software, however I have had all my image ads Disapproved… they reckon its because of poor image/video quality..

I really don’t know why, cus I think the software output quality is AWESOME!!!

Have any of you had any issues with this software and having your images disapproved by G?? Any pointers tips you can give me to get them approved??

please let me know any tips whatsoeva in getting these image ads approved..

THANKS HEAPS MATT… your a top bloke for sharing such a powerful tool with everyone…

I am definitely in buying the last beta version of this builder when it comes out.. let me know and i am all over it….

@mharward nice to see you around again :). I can't wait to see the new custom fields.

@tryese what do you mean by "they reckon its because of poor image/video quality.." are you putting images into the ads? Are all your outputting at the right size? It's possible to accidentally make the ad size larger if your text doesn't fit.

I am trying to use it but it does not connect to the server and I cannot use it.

Is there a way to get rid of the validation?

Thanks
Francesco

@tyrese: Two things. First, the red, hand drawn, circles and arrows are probably what is shooting your ads down. There was a huge flooding of these thanks to a parallel program that introduced them just recently too. Apparently Google pulled the plug on all similar style ads. (SOME did get through and approved.
Second, keep in mind, when Google tests your ads, they actually "adjust" your ad so they can include the "Ads by Google" appended to the bottom of your ads. This tends to shrink your ads a bit. Depending on the text used, it may appear to produce "poor image quality".

@Matt: When's the next Beta gonna be released?! I'm chomping at the bit here!! You seriously need to consider cloning yourself 2-3 times so you can work a bit quicker. Stay cool.

Awesome tool, thanks Matt! I produced quite a few ads, will see how it goes. (well, now it's up to me, really)
Animations is what I'd love to see in the next version; Also, although Im good with Excel/SpeedPPC campaign building techniques, having the full functionality of building the campaign would be awesome, I'd gladly pay for such a tool. Thanks a lot for releasing this!!

I downloaded the program late last night while I was sleep walking. Trying to open a template but can not find file. Where can I redownload.

thanks, Marko

Hi, when I open the template that I want to use , it show only the text that I write, but the images no, it appears that "x" .I need to install something on my computer or why the images can't be view in the ads?

Wow, this is incredible. I am playing with it now but the possible ways in which I can combine this with other software (specifically SPPCv4) is mind blowing.

Matt thanks for doing what you do. I am only sorry that I missed your braintrust.

thanks

Mark

I can't believe I haven't seen this earlier - thanks so much. This will really come in handy.

As others have said this is great - hope to see you around.

Hi Matt,
Thanks for putting Image Ad Builder out there. It looks great, especially being HTML based - just what I'm looking for.

Just tried creating my own template (for the first time) but it seems like it's still trying to pull the images from the 'Red Pen Template\images' folder. When I put my new image in the images folder of my new template it can't find it, but when I put the image in the images folder of 'Red Pen Template' it can.

Am I missing something here?

Thanks

I cannot activate the software because it says the server connection is not working.

Can someone help?

Thanks
Francesco

Hi,

Just tried to put up a post to share an Image Ad Builder template I'd created, but my post got blocked by the spam checker (probably because it had the template url in it). Is there another way to share a template?

Thanks

Damian.

matt this is great - you could prove to be my life saver!
just one question…. do you have any plans to give the ability to add animation to the software i.e. so that we can build flash-based ads where the words can move etc?

thanks again for great piece of kit

1- When I hit Build Ad button, it asks for output folder. After saving, the images in the output folder are all of
0-byte size png files which I can't view…

2- For some reason I don't get the audio on both the tutorials.Nothing is muted and speakers work fine.

I'd appreciate any help.

Thanks

This is great! Is there any link to the tutorial that shows how to upload this to google editor?

I am having trouble to understand how to use the flash output and use that in a campaign?

Is it possible to use that in a pop over?

Very cool tool.. I cant wait for the new version release..