Traditional ads show the same message to everyone, regardless of context. Current personalized advertising requires creatives that can adapt to the viewer. Dynamic creatives offer such a solution. This glossary page explores how advertisers can deliver more relevant messages at scale, thereby improving both targeting precision and campaign efficiency across channels such as display, social, and video.
In this post
Dynamic creative refers to personalized digital advertisements that automatically adjust their content, layout, and messaging based on individual user data. These ads change in real time to align with factors such as a user’s browsing behavior, purchase history, demographics, location, or current context, without requiring a new creative for each scenario. The goal is to serve the most relevant version of an ad to each viewer, increasing engagement and performance across display, video, social, and mobile campaigns.
Dynamic creatives are built from modular assets that can be combined in countless ways to create tailored ad experiences for individual users. This modular structure enables marketers to efficiently create hundreds or thousands of tailored ad versions from a single creative strategy. One of the key components is the headline, which adapts based on user interests, past product views, or where the user sits within the conversion funnel. This ensures that the message captures attention with relevance from the first line.
Images or videos within the ad can also be dynamically selected depending on browsing history, geographic location, or audience segment, making the visual component of the ad as personalized as the text. The call-to-action (CTA) is another element that adjusts to the user’s behavior or stage in the journey, ranging from prompts like “Buy Now” for ready-to-convert users to “Learn More” for those still exploring.
The product or offer details are populated in real time from live data feeds. This allows ads to display accurate pricing, stock availability, or limited-time promotions, giving users information that’s timely and relevant. Throughout all variations, branding elements such as logos, color schemes, and typography remain consistent to preserve brand identity, while still allowing room for personalization in layout and messaging.
Dynamic creatives address a core challenge in digital advertising: how to deliver personalized, high-impact messages at scale. Today’s users are less likely to engage with generic content; they expect ads that reflect their behavior, preferences, and context. By adapting creative elements in real time, dynamic ads help brands meet these expectations and drive stronger results.
One of the most immediate benefits is improved engagement. When users see ads that align with their interests or past behavior, they’re more likely to click, convert, or take meaningful action. This increase in relevance directly boosts campaign performance, often resulting in higher return on ad spend (ROAS) and stronger conversion rates.
Dynamic creatives also unlock efficiency. Rather than designing and coding individual versions for every segment, marketers can produce a modular creative system that automatically generates personalized variations at scale. This saves time and resources without sacrificing customization.
Finally, dynamic creatives ensure cross-channel consistency. Whether the ad appears in display, video, mobile, social, or native environments, the message can remain cohesive while still adapting key elements to fit the format and audience. This balance of flexibility and control makes dynamic creative an essential strategy for performance-driven advertising.
Dynamic creatives work by using real-time data to automatically generate personalized ad variations for each user. The process begins with data collection: information such as browsing behavior, location, purchase history, or device type is captured from the user.
This data feeds into a dynamic creative optimization (DCO) system, which selects and assembles modular ad components, like headlines, images, calls-to-action, and product details, based on predefined rules or AI technologies. These components are combined instantly to produce a tailored ad variation that matches the viewer’s context. The final creative is then delivered across platforms, ensuring personalized experiences at scale with minimal manual effort.
Dynamic creatives are most effective in performance-driven campaigns where personalization can significantly influence outcomes. They’re commonly used in retargeting strategies, product recommendation ads, geo-targeted promotions, and time-sensitive offers. These formats allow marketers to deliver highly relevant content that aligns with a user’s recent actions, interests, or location, whether it’s a reminder to complete a purchase, an upsell opportunity, or a seasonal promotion.
At Perion, dynamic creative optimization (DCO) powers campaigns across retail, travel, and CPG verticals. Retail brands may use dynamic ads to showcase inventory updates or personalized discounts, while travel advertisers dynamically promote destinations based on user browsing patterns.
