Generative AI (GenAI) is reshaping how agencies and marketing teams bring ideas to life, but transforming a single AI-generated asset into a high-performing, on-brand display ad campaign requires more than just a good prompt. At SizeIM, we’ve worked alongside agency partners and designers to build a smoother path from GenAI concepts to production-ready, multi-size ad sets that don’t compromise on brand or efficiency. Below, we unpack our perspective on bridging GenAI creativity and the unique demands of modern ad production, going deep on proven techniques and honest lessons learned.
Why GenAI Images Are an Opportunity—But Not a Silver Bullet
With GenAI, you can generate striking, customizable visuals tailored to campaign goals in seconds. But here’s what we consistently see: while GenAI dramatically accelerates the creative spark, large-scale, on-brand ad execution still hits bottlenecks without the right downstream workflow. Pixels get cropped, logos slip or lose legibility, file size requirements differ by platform, and manual resizing can erode both visual polish and your team’s morale.
What Agencies and Designers Want from GenAI-to-Ad Pipelines
- Quickly transform GenAI images into complete ad sets (not just static social posts)
- Ensure every size is not just resized, but adaptively composed for visibility and impact
- Maintain strict fidelity to existing brand kits, legal, and compliance requirements
- Enable review, approval, and fast last-mile tweaks without clunky manual edits
Below, we walk through a detailed, hands-on workflow that bridges creative ideation and production realities for display ad campaigns at any scale.
Step 1: Craft AI Prompts with Production in Mind
The starting point is the GenAI prompt—but not just any prompt. If your goal is a cohesive ad set across 15+ placements, priorities shift:
- Describe Core Elements: Concept, product angle, primary color palette, logo placement, and must-have messaging.
- Anticipate Format Needs: Many networks require portrait, landscape, and square crops, so include guidance on negative space, clear focal points, and safe zones within your prompt.
- Enforce Brand Rules: Call out brand colors (by code if needed), font styles, and tone to nudge the AI toward your style guide—limitations here can’t be “fixed in post” for every output size.
For teams who want deeper best practices on this, the process overlaps with what we explored in operationalizing AI for ad design: effective communication between creative and production stages is key, even when machines do half the translating.
Step 2: Generate & Curate—Then Double-Check Usability
After running your well-tuned GenAI prompts, always curate a shortlist based on:
- Centralization of Key Visuals: Make sure your “hero” subject isn’t too close to the edge to avoid awkward crops.
- Clean Backgrounds: Busy or complex backgrounds tend to cause the most downstream issues for text overlay, CTA readability, and adaptive resizing.
- Licensing & Download Formats: Always export in high-res, layered formats where possible (PNG, JPG), ensuring legal commercial use for your specific campaign context.
Step 3: From Single Asset to Multi-Size Ad Sets with SizeIM
This is where our product proves itself for designers and agencies.
- Upload With One Click: Bringing a GenAI image to SizeIM’s editor instantly places it within a robust design system—templates reflect real-world ad specs and brand guidelines.
- Choose a Template: Select from hundreds of pixel-perfect templates tuned for leading ad platforms, including the most-requested portrait, landscape, banner, and square options.
- Leverage Brand Kits: Drop in the right font, logo, color set, and legal lines. SizeIM keeps brand assets consistent across all sizes, reducing errors that crop up in less disciplined workflows.
- Auto-Generate Responsively: Each size is not a simple crop, but reflows content and logo placement for clarity and compliance. No more lost CTAs or chopped graphics.
- Edit Individual Variants: Fine-tune overlays, punch up the call-to-action, move elements slightly if a format needs more attention. Unlike manual PSD edits, adjustments cascade smartly across all versions.
Step 4: Quality Control, Download, and Go Live—Faster
Before every campaign launch, we recommend a QA review step focused on:
- Text and Logo Legibility: Every ad unit must keep legal copy and branding readable, especially for small or mobile placements.
- Visual Consistency: All background, CTAs, and key visuals need to align—if something looks off-size, tweak it directly in SizeIM’s editor rather than regressing to manual design workflows.
- Export in Platform-Ready Formats: Download all required specs for major ad networks, from Google Display to Facebook and programmatic platforms, in the exact format needed—no extra conversion tools required.
Well-defined QA isn’t just an internal standard—it’s critical for surviving retail media creative specs and fast approval cycles, a topic we’ve explored in creative specs, file limits, and approvals.
The Benefits—What This Means for Your Team
- Time Efficiency: The typical GenAI-to-ad-set workflow that once took 3+ hours can now wrap in under 15 minutes, letting us iterate, A/B test, or support more clients without burnout.
- Consistent Branding: By automating the heavy lifting, we can focus on what really matters—expressing the brand and ensuring every touchpoint is aligned and polished.
- Operational Agility: Scaling up to new platforms, responding to client last-minute requests, or launching rapid-fire campaigns becomes trivial. We can confidently promise faster turnarounds and lower operational risk.
- Scalable QA: Automated resizing systems like SizeIM dramatically cut the risk of “off-brand” or rejected creative, especially as requirements multiply across media buys and regions. To dive deeper into the operational side, see operationalizing brand consistency across networks.
Smart Tips for Maximizing On-Brand Impact with GenAI and Automated Resizing
- Test Multiple Variants: Generate three to five GenAI images for each core concept and run them through multi-size resizing to see which adapts best across placements.
- A/B Test Creatives: Distribute variants and review network analytics to spot high-performers, then rapidly iterate using the same workflow.
- Centralize Brand Guidelines: Use a digital Brand Kit within your resizing platform to ensure logos, font-files, and color themes don’t drift campaign to campaign.
- Refresh Quarterly: Rather than one-and-done, schedule creative “refresh sprints” each quarter using the GenAI plus automated resizing combo to keep ads looking fresh and current without redoing the pipeline from scratch.
Common Pitfalls (and How We Avoid Them)
- Over-customizing the Master: Resist the urge to “perfect” your GenAI visual before resizing. Often, simple, centered compositions adapt best across multiple placements.
- Neglecting Safe Zones: Critical calls to action and legal disclaimers can get chopped on half banners or mobile leaderboards. Use built-in guides in your ad design tool, and always preview all sizes before finalizing.
- Manual Edits for Every Variant: If you’re still individually cropping, moving, or layer-editing every output, reassess your production flow. Automation unlocks speed—but only if you trust and properly configure your system and templates upfront.
The Future: Building Flexible, AI-Driven Creative Systems
We believe the real value of GenAI in advertising comes when it is paired with best-in-class production systems that respect the realities of campaign scope, compliance, and ongoing iteration. Instead of a single “hero image” campaign, you’re building a model everyone on your team—or your client’s team—can run, adjust, and improve, week after week, without reinventing the wheel.
And while GenAI is transforming creative speed, operationalizing it for precision, brand safety, and regulatory compliance is now just as critical. Combining generative visuals with an automation-first sizing workflow means you can respond to trends, campaigns, and platform updates in real-time—without trading brand for speed.
Expand Your Capacity and Your Creativity
Every agency and brand team wants to ship more, test more, and waste less time on repetitive resizing and production headaches. Ultimately, streamlining the GenAI-to-production pipeline is how we all win—by freeing up our teams to focus on strategy and creative nuance, not just mechanics.
Ready to experience the difference for yourself? Learn more about SizeIM’s multi-size ad generation platform and see how our workflow empowers agencies and brands to execute, adapt, and grow at the pace of today’s digital advertising landscape.
