# Creatives

> The Creatives workspace for managing, generating, and tracking the performance of your ad creative assets.

Source: https://help.tryordinary.com/features/creatives

---

The Creatives workspace holds your ad imagery — generated assets,
uploaded references, and variants grouped by campaign goal. Left nav →
**Creatives**.


## The gallery

Each tile is a creative (a root image or a variant of one). Shown with:

- The image itself (thumbnail)
- Format label (Static / Video / Carousel / etc.)
- Campaign goal tag
- Generation cost if it was AI-generated (small, greyed out)

## Filtering

Toggle filters along the top:

- **Format** — Static / Video / Carousel / Story
- **Campaign goal** — Acquisition / Retargeting / Brand
- **Archived / Active** — archived creatives are hidden by default.
  Toggle to see them.

## Creative detail

Click a creative to open its detail modal:


- The full-size image on the left, details panel on the right (on
  desktop). On mobile the panel stacks below the image.
- Metadata (format, campaign goal, model used, cost if AI)
- Prompt details (campaign goal, target CTA, brand guidelines, ad
  angle, custom instructions, final prompt sent to the model, product
  images referenced) shown inline — no accordion to click through.
- **Generate additional formats** — if the creative is a square
  original, buttons to generate portrait / landscape variants
  preserving the same style.
- **Performance chart** (if the creative is linked to ad IDs via Meta)

**Navigating between creatives:** use the left/right arrows in the
modal header — or just press `←` / `→` on the keyboard — to flip
through the gallery without closing. `Esc` closes. The position
counter (e.g. "3 / 24") in the header shows where you are in the set.

## Generating creatives

Click **New creative** in the top-right. Options:

- **Upload** — drop in an existing asset from your desktop.
- **Generate** — use Ordinary's AI generation. Provide a brief (campaign
  goal, CTA, angle, optional custom prompt), pick a format (square /
  portrait / landscape), optionally attach product or reference images,
  and choose an **AI model**:

  
  - **Gemini 2.5 Flash** — lowest cost, great default choice.
  - **Gemini 3 Pro** — highest quality on the Gemini side; slower and
    slightly higher cost.
  - **GPT Image 2** — OpenAI's latest image model. State-of-the-art
    photoreal output and strong at on-image text; comparable cost to
    Gemini 3 Pro.

  You pay your AI provider directly for generation (it's billed to your
  own Google AI / OpenAI key, not to Ordinary). The exact cost of each
  generation is recorded on the creative row so you can audit spend later.

## API keys

Gemini and GPT Image 2 use different providers, so they need different
API keys:

- **Google AI (Gemini)** — required for Gemini 2.5 Flash, Gemini 3 Pro,
  and ad-copy generation. Paste your key on **Settings → Google** from
  [aistudio.google.com/apikey](https://aistudio.google.com/apikey).
- **OpenAI** — only required if you want to use GPT Image 2. Paste a
  key on **Settings → OpenAI** from
  [platform.openai.com/api-keys](https://platform.openai.com/api-keys).

Keys are stored encrypted per-organization. Billing lives with the
respective provider (Google Cloud / OpenAI), not with Ordinary.

If you pick GPT Image 2 without an OpenAI key saved, you'll get a
clear error telling you to add it (or switch to a Gemini model).
Ad copy always uses Gemini — skipping ad copy is automatic if the
Google AI key isn't set.

AI generations are stored securely and mirrored to this gallery.

## Linking to ad performance

Creatives gain performance data once they're matched to the running
Meta ad during sync. Ad-level creative attribution is tracked via
Meta's ad library metadata.

> **Note:** the Creatives workspace described here is for **your**
> creative assets — references, AI-generated drafts, variants you
> produce. The **Creative Library** tab on each Meta campaign
> (Campaigns → Meta → click into a campaign) is a separate surface
> showing the live creatives Meta currently has running for that
> campaign, with thumbnails and per-creative performance. Use the
> Creatives workspace to *generate* and *iterate* on assets; use the
> per-campaign Creative Library to *report on* what's running. See
> [Meta deep analytics § Creative library](https://help.tryordinary.com/features/meta-deep-analytics#the-creative-library).

## Archiving

Click the three-dot menu → **Archive**. Archived creatives don't
appear in the gallery (unless you toggle the filter). They stay in
the system so historical ads keep their creative reference.

## Permissions

The Creatives workspace requires the **Creatives user** role or
higher. Reports-only users don't see the Creatives entry in the
left nav.

## Related articles

- [Inviting your team](https://help.tryordinary.com/getting-started/invite-team) — grant
  the Creatives role.
- [Campaigns — Meta](https://help.tryordinary.com/features/campaigns-meta) — where creatives show up in
  ad performance context.