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Top 6 creative automation tools in 2024: features, pricing and user reviews

Part of creative automation also involves choosing a creative automation tool that works for you. But it doesn’t mean you have to become overwhelmed with complicated specs and SWOT analysis of each one.

After all, your goal is to streamline production, not to add more complexity. Or worse, get the platform you’ll spend months adopting before it helps. 

Each creative automation tool has different strengths, and to make an informed decision in choosing one, we've compiled a list of the top 6 creative automation tools along with their reviews, pros, and cons.

Let’s dive in. 

#1 Hunch: all-in-one platform

Hunch is an automated creative production tool that lets you create 1000s of personalized creatives by leveraging your feed data, third-party sources, and AI-powered tools.

Creative Studio in Hunch platform.
Break free from generic ads with Creative Studio.

Designing top-notch creatives at scale doesn't mean you have to stretch your team, or spending hours in designing. Besides creating templates from scratch, Hunch allows you to import a .psd file or choose from different ready-to-use templates. Create a master template and scale creative production by generating multiple versions, automatically ready for all channels and placements.

Use Hunch’s AI tools, such as background removal, or color palette suggestions to streamline production of stunning product-centric creatives.

With Hunch, automation doesn’t end with creative export. Unlike most creative automation tools, Hunch gives you the opportunity to run multiple campaigns right through the platform. While this isn’t an essential feature of creative automation tools, you are producing creatives for campaigns. So, it’s useful to have both creative automation and campaign management rolled into one platform.

You can also customize and set optimization goals for the campaign using advanced rules and triggers. With personalized customer journey, Hunch helps you create the right offer to the right person at the right time.

Best For:  Performance marketers working for agencies.

Pricing: Hunch offers two plans: monthly and yearly. Plans refer to the commitment to Hunch, not the ad spend. With Hunch you only pay for what you get, and in the trial period, we're bringing 3 dynamic image templates and 2 dynamic video templates to give you something to start with.

Main Features:

  • Automated Creative Production
  • On-brand Templates
  • Dynamic Video Templates
  • Dynamic Image Templates
  • AI-powered background removal
  • Full Meta Integration
  • Snapchat Integration
  • Creative Testing
  • Automated Workflow
  • 1M+ feed catalogs
  • 3rd-party Data Integrations
  • Review Tool
  • Creative Export
  • Automated Campaign Management
  • Reporting Capabilities

Positive Review:
A user on G2 shares:

“Creating customised ads at scale and publishing them to Facebook works like a breeze. During an important season, we delivered over 700 ads to over 110 ad sets on Facebook in an instant. We were able to customise creatives and copies by including dynamic values such as local slang, area name and target audiences. I also like that we can run ads directly from a Google Sheet and Google Drive (so we don't have to go into Ads Manager to create ads which is a tedious process). Hunch's customer support is top-notch. They have given us the support needed to bring our ideas into reality."
Easily produce thousands of video creatives with Hunch.

Critical Review:

Users on G2 have noted a few cons:

"Creating new campaigns can be overwhelming if you don't create them regularly (at least I tend to forget all the nitty gritty settings that need to be set for the campaign to work out properly). However, with Hunch's awesome customer support this hasn't been an issue as they have helped us set up new campaigns everytime it has been needed."

#2 Celtra: creative production suite

Designed for creative teams and marketers building a production suite, Celtra helps you go from design concepts to media-ready assets seamlessly. Celtra’s studio features tools that are similar or mimic ones that most designers are already familiar with.

Celtra’s studio.
Celtra's studio tools mimic editing tools already used by designers.

The builder supports multiple formats and offers responsive design thinking if you wish to resize assets. If you want to create videos but don’t have any source footage, you can use static assets in the tool to create them.

The preview function lets you scan a QR Code so you can review the assets on your smartphone.

While an earlier version of the platform used to include creative ad serving and decisioning, these features have been deprecated. The platform’s focus is solely on the production of creative assets.

Best For: Established brands and media publishers creative agencies that want self-serve enterprise software.

Pricing: Available on request.

Main Features:

  • Advertising Management
  • Collaboration Tools
  • File Sharing
  • Project Management

Positive Review:

A reviewer on Capterra shares:

“Overall, Celtra is easy to use and reliable. It's an all-in-one platform for digital ad campaigns; design, build, traffic, analyze and report. The Ad Creator part of the platform is designed to help you build HTML5 digital media adverts and it does this with aplomb. As well as being easy to navigate and understand, it's a very powerful platform that allows you to create rich, dynamic and exciting media without needing code. It just works.”

Critical Review:

Reviewers on Capterra have noted a few cons:

"In the last time I created creativity with transparent background, but I couldn't deliver it in apps but online on site. Celtra support said to me this problem was a publisher problem."
"There should be a sort of offline version for editing ads, even if your internet connection fails."
"As of now, it takes more time to list the campaigns in the dropdown. Showing a warning/alert when the CSV format is wrong for the locator component."

#3 Bannerflow: automate banner ads

Bannerflow is intended for designers and marketers and the platform’s focus on ad creation and versioning capabilities in its Production Studio product speaks to that. Many users prefer using Production Studio instead of Adobe.

If you’re looking for prefabricated templates that you can use, Bannerflow isn’t the right solution because it takes a different approach to building templates. Also, DCO capabilities are not built into the platform so you have to use Bannerflow with other adtech solutions.

However, Bannerflow is not just for creating ads. You can use it in owned environments such as onsite or in-app which isn’t a feature other creative automation platforms necessarily offer.

The platform designed to solve the problem of designing banners by hand is reliable, robust and very easy to use.

Currently, production capabilities include video, OTT/CTV formats but not decisioning. It only offers CTR-based optimization which is quite limited when compared to other platforms. Bannerflow can be expensive since features like feed customization and advanced retargeting incur extra fees.

Best For: Multi-national companies looking to enhance their display ads globally.

Pricing: Available on request.

Main Features:

  • AB Testing
  • Ad Inventory Management
  • Ad Optimization
  • Audience Targeting
  • Banner Management
  • Campaign Analytics
  • Campaign Management
  • Commenting/Notes
  • Conversion Tracking
  • Cross Channel Attribution

Positive Review:

A happy user on G2 shares:

“We usually create multiple versions of all our creatives and with Bannerflow it's super easy to manage the different versions, keeping them up to date and adjusting the messaging when necessary.
I feel that Bannerflow mainly is a big timesaver for me and my team. Creating banners and keeping them up to date is no biggie and with campaign management, we distribute our campaigns to different DSPs. So to be able to do multiple steps of the whole process of setting up a campaign within Bannerflow makes my life so much easier.”

Critical Review:

A user on Capterra noted:

“Not too intuitive. To find what to do one has to dig and actually click around. I didn't find a lot of trainning options.”

#4 Innervate: ad experience platform

Innervate (formerly RevJet) describes itself as an ad experience platform. So while it may be a great option for brands used to the SaaS pricing model, advertisers used to the CPM model may not be on board.

While other tools in the creative automation space (not necessarily on the list) suffer from a clunky UI, Innervate has focused on automatic self-optimizing performance tools and high-velocity semi-automated content production.

Innervate platform interface.
Ad experience platform in the form of a SaaS-based tool.

The platform offers solutions by industry, challenge, and channel (advertising, marketing, and customer service). Innervate helps you seamlessly navigate workflows and collaboration by automating almost all of it.

However, its video offering leaves a lot to be desired compared to leading creative automation tools.

Best For: Financial and telecom enterprises looking for a SaaS-based tool.

Main Features:

  • Dynamic Audience & Creative
  • Marketing intelligence
  • Enterprise process management
  • Automatic Experimentation
  • High-velocity creative production
  • Customer journey tracking

Pricing: Available on request.

Reviews: Innervate doesn’t have any reviews on reputed third-party sites. Check out their case studies on the site instead.

#5 SundaySky: video platform

SundaySky’s entire focus is to help you create personalized, interactive, video experiences. You can opt for the self-serve experience which doesn’t include media buying or use the video platform to create “video-powered experiences”.

A standout feature is its Shopify Advertising App. Once you connect your Shopify app, SundaySky automates selects your best-performing products and creates multiple videos tailored for each individual shopper, and distributes those ads on sites like CNN and MSNBC.

The platform has a robust set of features to help you create tailored, video content for a range of use-cases. However, you may find it performing below par in other channels like display and DOOH.

SundaySky platform interface.
Create personalized video experiences with SundaySky.

The tool is intuitive and extremely easy to use when it comes to launching new campaigns. You can integrate first, second and third-party sources and data from other apps to personalize creative assets for specific audience segments or for individual viewers.

You can measure viewer engagement and impact through analytics and AI insights to optimize your messaging.

An obvious criticism of the tool is its singular focus on video. However, that may appeal to performance marketers looking to up their game with video ads.

Best For: Performance marketers who want to create tailored video ads.

Main Features:

  • Dynamic templates
  • Creative themes
  • Color and font configurations for your brand
  • Animations
  • Advanced text-to-speech narration capabilities
  • Music tracks
  • Sound effects
  • Partner integrations
  • AI-powered reporting

Pricing: It is available on request.

Positive Review:

A reviewer on G2 shares:

“I love how efficient the platform allows you to be when targeting a customer base. What used to take hours or days to complete can be done in minutes using SSky. The AI voice is also very natural sounding, maybe the best I've heard. Hiring voice talent can be costly, so this is a huge plus.
The best part of using SSky is how much time it saves. Additionally, we can get information to customers in a much more digestible way. People generally prefer to watch a short video over reading an email.”

Critical Review:

A dissatisfied user on G2 noted:

“SundaySky is difficult to do business with. They are not flexible in how the contracts are structured. There are also changes made to their platform that sometimes require additional expenses that I would not expect from a SaaS solution.
Customers who have questions about their bills often times call into a call center to get their questions answered. The smart video solution deflects those calls and saves the company money by not having to have a person speak to the customer.”

#6 Adacado: DIY advertising

After nearly 10 years as an early-mover in the DCO space, Adacado changed its direction to take a DIY approach and is perfect for DIY-ers who want to launch dynamic ad campaigns or execute media buying - fast. You can be up and ready to go in about 5 minutes only using a credit card.

Adacad platform interface.
Launch simple campaigns fast with Adacado.

The platform has a 24x7 chatbot that offers help and sends usage data and feedback to the team. Tools like ad building, versioning and distribution make it a breeze to handle basic use-cases. It also has templates that are specific for verticals to get rid of guesswork. However, the platform is not a serious contender if you have more complex use-cases. Reporting is not as developed as you might want and it supports fewer channels.

In short, Adacado gives you all the support you need to launch simple campaigns but you may want to consider other platforms if your use-cases are tricky.

Best For: DIY-ers looking to execute simple use-cases.

Main Features:

  • Pre-built ad templates
  • Complete campaign control
  • Schedule in advance
  • Drag-and-drop design editor
  • Daily billing & analytics
  • Simplified audience targeting
  • Real-time reporting

Pricing: Adacado offers a lot of features for free while the important ones require you to pay a fee.

Review: Adacado only has one old review on G2. Read their customer case studies for a complete overview.

An all-in-one platform may be better than a creative automation platform

Sampling Hunch's vast capabilities.
Everything everywhere all at once with Hunch.

Of course, the problem you’re looking to fix is your asset production. Creatives on auto-pilot mean you can spend more time thinking about strategic design decisions and running A/B tests, ensuring each ad has a positive ROAS. Hunch lets you scale your creative testing and use up to 20 templates per single catalog, making sure right ad is delivered to the right user.

But here’s the thing: Automating your creative production is only one part of the equation. Your campaign doesn’t end with creating the assets you need.

You still have to expend resources on launching campaigns, monitoring them and optimizing them manually for different ad networks, channels and markets.

Choosing a platform like Hunch that combines creative automation and campaign launch into a single tool allows you to run campaigns from a single platform. This saves you from switching contexts often, paying for different services, and frees up even more time so you can focus on running successful campaigns.

Hunch has helped launch over 120+ million automated ads. Chat with an expert today to talk through your needs!