Creating your first design

After you’ve imported your product feed, and your products have been loaded into Confect, the next step is to start designing your new customized Dynamic Product Ads.

The design editor allows you to customize virtually all aspects of your design to match your brand and the feed you are using. 

The beauty of creating dynamic product ads in Confect is that you can create one design and have it applied to all your products automatically. You can also include relevant product information inside the creative, which will change dynamically, based on which product is being advertised.

1. Creating a new design

The design function in Confect pulls product images from your feed and allows you to position, scale and add different elements. That is why the first step is to make sure your feed is loaded in and working properly.

Once all your great products are ready to be used in Confect, you can get started with creating your first design.

To do this, head over to “Design” on the left side of the screen, and click “Create your first design”.

You now have two options; you can either create a new design from scratch (top-right), or use one of our pre-made design templates. 

Even if you select a template, you can still edit and adjust all the elements yourself. We recommend starting with a template (sorted by industry) if you’re just starting out with Confect.

Either select a design template that fits your brand the most, or click “Start from a blank template”.

2. Editing your design

Our design editor shares some commonalities with other well-known software such as Canva, Photoshop or PowerPoint, so you will likely find it rather intuitive.

On the left side are the layers of the design. The elements on top will be overlaid over the layers on the bottom, and the order can be changed simply by dragging one layer above the other.

In the middle is the main canvas, where you can click on elements, move them around the design or change the size.

And on the right side, you can adjust the settings of a design element by clicking on the layer and customizing the different options, such as text and image settings.

Below the canvas, on the right side, you can click “preview” and see the design applied to all your products instantly and automatically.

2.1. Adding a background

Backgrounds in your DPAs can make them much more interesting and eye-catching, while also communicating your brand image.

You can either upload your own background, or create a solid color background.

To create a solid color shape background: Click on “Add shape” above the layer menu. This will be a square by default, but you can change the shape under the “Shape” dropdown menu on the right side (fill / square, circle, or triangle). Make sure to scale this up to fit the entire design and drag the layer down (to back).

To upload your own image background: Click on “Add media” above the layer menu, click “Upload”, select your image file, once the image is uploaded, click “Select”, scale it up to take up the entire design and select “Aspect fill” if your background is not the same aspect ratio as the design.

Make sure the background layer is behind all other elements by dragging it down in the layer tab (left side), otherwise your other elements won’t be visible.

2.2. Adding product information dynamically

Confect also allows you to add any relevant information from your product feed to the design, such as the price or product name, which will change dynamically based on the product.

This is done by adding “product fields” to a text layer.

If you’ve selected a design template, you might already have this in the design, but if not; add a text layer (at the top of the layer menu), head over to the “Editor” on the right side, click on the “Product fields” dropdown and select the attribute you want to display in your design.

You can add a number of different dynamic information, including price, brand, category, savings/discount, description and more.

You can also add any text you like into the same layer; such as “Now only [[Price]]”

You can now highlight the text, change the size, font and color of the text to be on-brand and position it wherever you want.

2.3. Adding shapes

Adding a shape behind the price, or other text, can be a good way to make the information stand out and be more noticeable.

Simply click “Add a shape” above the layer menu, head over to “Shape settings” on the right side, select the shape from the dropdown (we recommend a circle for price splashes), select the color you want and scale & position the shape wherever you want.

Make sure the shape layer is behind the text (price) layer, otherwise it won’t be visible.

3. Previewing your design

Once you’re satisfied with your latest design, give it a name and click “Save” in the top right of the screen.

Click “Preview”, below the design, to see the design applied automatically to all your products.

If you’re using “product fields” in your text layers, you will be able to see that the price, product name, category, or any other product feed information you selected change dynamically based on the product.

Congratulations on your first design!

The next step will be to create a product feed to show off your customized dynamic product ads to the world.