Online prospects can find your eCommerce product landing page in multiple ways— organic search, social media posts, paid campaigns, and emails, among others. When running paid ads that include your product images, it’s important to ensure your images are optimized to motivate customers to click on your ad.
In this article, I dive into how to create product images for your eCommerce paid media efforts that will increase click-through rates (CTRs) and conversions and lead to more sales. Keep reading to find out more!
Use Professional Photography
The most important recommendation is to use high-quality images for your product ads. An eCommerce retailer can substantially improve the credibility of its ads by using professional photography.
Low-quality images make your ads look spammy and cause users to think your site — or product — isn’t legitimate. High-quality professional product images are key for a successful paid media campaign.
Display Your Products Professionally
Another key way to optimize product images for ads is to elicit an emotional response. An emotional response drives customers to click your ad and make a purchase without actually having physically experienced your products.
One of the best ways to create the visual appeal required for an emotional response is to arrange physical products using a combination of display aids to dynamically present your products at different heights and from different angles.
Consider Using Display Aids
Display aids, such as acrylic risers, cloth, textured backgrounds, and added items, can help create an inviting look for your photos.
Risers help place products so they fit neatly in a nice composition. Risers are ideal for product photography because they come in various sizes, shapes, and colors offer options for customization too. They’re popular for jewelry, beauty, and skincare product shots.
Display aids elevate your products and can catch your audience’s attention while adding colorful reflections under artificial lighting that give photographed products a visual boost while also adding depth to the image. They can also be used under a cloth to help display products at different heights and add interest.
Touch Up Your Photos
If you’re using a professional to shoot your photography, you shouldn’t need to retouch them. But, if you have older images or need to do some retouching, it’s not difficult to do it yourself. Don’t be afraid to make adjustments.
Simple tricks are easy to master, even if you’re a novice. Plenty of free online tutorials are available to help you quickly learn the basics of photo retouching.
You can also have your agency or a freelancer or contractor help.
Make Sure Your Images Are the Right Sizes
Once you’ve got eye-catching product photos to feature in your ads, you want to ensure you have the size and file type required for the advertising platform you’re using.
I’ve included the correct image sizes for the most common ad platforms below.
Amazon and Amazon Advertising
- Sponsored Brands: 728×90, 800×90, 300×250, 160×600, 245×135, or 900×45 px
- eCommerce display creative on Amazon: 300×250, 160×600, and 300×600 px
- Amazon DSP off Amazon: 300×250, 160×600, 300×600, and 728×90 sizes, and 970×250 px
- Standard media ad sizes
See more in the Amazon Ad specs: Ad sizes and policies.
Google landscape
- File type: JPG
- Maximum file size: 1 MB
- Dimensions: 1200×628 px
Google square
- File type: JPG
- Maximum file size: 1 MB
- Dimensions: 1200×1200 px
Google Shopping
- File type: GIF (non-animated), JPG, PNG, BMP, or TIFF
- Maximum file size: 16 MB
- Dimensions:
- Non-apparel images: a minimum of 100×100 px
- Apparel images: a minimum of 250×250 px
Find Google image sizes for image ads and image sizes for display ads.
Microsoft Advertising
- File type: JPG or PNG
- See recommended and minimum dimensions
- Find all Microsft Advertising creative specifications
Facebook single ad image
- File type: JPG or PNG
- Maximum file size: 30 MB
- Dimensions: 1200×628 px
Facebook carousel image
- File type: JPG or PNG
- Maximum file size: 30 MB
- Dimensions: 1080×1080 px
Instagram single ad image
- File type: JPG or PNG
- Maximum file size: 30 MB
- Dimensions: 1080×1080 px or 1200×628 px
Instagram carousel
- File type: JPG or PNG
- Maximum file size 30 MB
- Dimensions: Minimum 600×600 px, maximum 1080×1080 px
Do A/B Testing on Your Images and Ads
Testing your paid ads and product images is important. Testing is critical for any successful paid media campaign.
Testing takes the guesswork out of the equation and lets you truly find out what your audience responds to. For instance, you can test plain product images versus lifestyle images. You can also try testing product images with different angles or displays.
Bottom Line
It’s important to take the time and effort to optimize product images for your eCommerce paid advertising to help maximize conversions. Do it right with help from the tips above and enjoy a better advertising cost of sales (ACoS), ultimately more revenue from your paid media efforts.
About the Author
Ray Ko is the senior ecommerce manager at ShopPOPDisplays. He has many years of experience in the retail space and is an expert at formulating and implementing eCommerce strategies to increase revenue.
