Creative Studio End-to-End How-To Guide

Creative Studio: End-to-End How‑To Guide

This practical guide walks you through Creative Studio’s core workflow: from creating your first template & connecting data feeds, to creating variants, generating previews, routing approvals, and rendering final assets.

What you’ll accomplish

Configure a creative template
Connect supplemental data feeds (products, locations, promos)
Create and edit creative variants
Generate previews for QA, share for review, and track approvals
Deliver creatives to destinations or export as needed

Terminology: “Template” refers to a reusable creative wireframe (HTML or compatible format). “Variant” refers to a specific creative generated by applying inputs (copy, images, feed rows).

Before You Start: Requirements

Brand inputs available (logos, color codes, and brand copy guidelines). If your brand uses themes, confirm theme groupings (e.g., Light, Seasonal, Sale).
Template source files ready (e.g., Google Web Designer editable files and published files).
[Optional] Data feeds connected or accessible (Product feeds, supplemental feeds for offers, locations, inventory). Align column names to the standardized schema when possible.

Step 1: Access Creative Studio

Navigate in Alli: Side navigation → Creative → Creative Studio. You’ll land on the Creative Studio home, where you can browse existing templates or create new ones.

Step 2: Add or Select a Template

You can upload a new template or start from an approved creative blueprint.

Choose
Provide a clear name and description (Tip: include channel/placement type: e.g., Meta feed, display banner).
Select channel type
Upload editable template files from the GWD published package.
Select sizes: select sizes from the list of available creative dimensions in the template file.

If your team migrated from Dynamic+, replicate the familiar column bindings to minimize retraining and reduce mapping errors.

Step 2: Connect Data Feeds [Optional]

Creative Studio works with standardized inputs and feed-based inputs. Connecting feeds unlocks at-scale variant generation and management.

Under Data Feed, select a Supplemental Feed type. There are two ways to connect data in Creative Studio:
1. Use an existing Alli Data Source: Allows you to connect to data sources in the Alli platform such as product feeds, audience personas, or custom data sources.
2. Upload a supplemental feed file: Allows you to upload your own data in Creative Studio. This oprion should only be used for use cases where supplemental data will not change.
Connect your supplemental feed (e.g., product, hotel, flight, geolocation). Verify access and freshness.
Set up your column mappings to your Creative Studio template schema.
When you’ve finished setting up your template select & you’re ready to start generating variants!

Schema tip: Not all columns need to be mapped. Only map columns you want to pull from supplemental feeds. (e.g. product_image → image_1)

Step 5: Variants & Previews

Quickly generate new variants of your creative template & check previews in real time for creative QA.

Create a new variant by selecting or to duplicate the default creative.
1. A default creative is added when a template file is uploaded to Creative Studio. This will be used as a backup creative on some channels when dynamic data is not available.
Add your content (copy, image links, logos, etc.) to the columns in the variant table
Previews will automatically appear on the left side of the Creative Studio builder when changes are made to the variant table. To view a preview of a particular size, use the size selector to switch between sizes.
To view a preview in a full-size view, select the expand preview button . This will open up a larger window with your creative preview.
Once all changes are finished and you have QA’d the creatives, hit & the changes will be published to the template file.

Unsaved changes: Changes will only be published once a user selects the save button above the variant table.

If you need to delete a variant, select the variant you want to discard and select

Bulk changes: to edit multiple variants at once, select the checkbox next to the variants you want to make bulk changes to.

Route previews to internal or client reviewers directly from Creative Studio. Keep the full approval trail centralized.

Navigate to the approval view by navigating to .
To view a specific variant for approval select a variant from the variant list on the left side menu.
Share the preview using the button & send to your approval stakeholder for review.
Stakeholders will be directed to the variant to review. Review the creative variant previews by panning around the preview canvas.
When a variant is ready to approve or reject, select the checkbox next to the variant name in the left side menu & select either one of the reviewer actions. To approve or reject multiple variants at once use the Select All action, or select the variants using their checkboxes.
Capture approval and review feedback by opening the Activity Feed to share recommended edits & other feedback.

Approval Status: The approval status will automatically publish to the template & appear in the variant table in the editor to signal if edits are required.

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Troubleshooting

If a preview fails to render, check mappings first: the most common cause is a mismatched or renamed feed column.

Feeds connected but data missing in previews: Verify filters; confirm join keys for supplemental feeds; test with a single known-good row.
Images not loading: Confirm asset URLs resolve and that fallback imagery is configured in Brand Inputs or template defaults.
Copy overflow/truncation: Adjust max-length or enable auto-fit in the template; consider shorter CTA variants.