Brands spend a lot of time, money and resources trying to figure out who to talk to and how to reach them. But if you only have a handful of creative versions to deliver that message to a consumer, what's the point?
This is where dynamic creative optimization (DCO) comes in, allowing marketers to personalize ad creative to individual shoppers.
What is dynamic creative optimization? How does it work? And what technology do you need to make it happen? Read on for the details.
Dynamic creative optimization (DCO) is the process of personalizing ad creative automatically in real time. The system looks at each viewer’s behavior and traits, and then builds an ad variation just for them. It happens in milliseconds, so the ad feels personal the moment it appears.
Before an ad is shown, the DCO platform reviews signals like how recently someone visited a site, how often they buy and what they’ve clicked on before. It then creates a tailored ad with the right image, message and call to action and delivers it instantly.
This speed is possible because strong DCO platforms run on three core elements:
Beyond speed and efficiency, dynamic creative optimization reshapes how brands connect with people. It helps you deliver relevant messages across channels and devices, minimize ad spend (and maximize ROAS), strengthen customer experience and engagement and take a modern approach to personalization. Let’s break each benefit down to learn more.
DCO makes digital ads more personal. It adjusts messages to fit each customer’s needs and shows them across email, display, video and more. The result is a consistent brand voice everywhere your customer goes without extra manual work or slow turnaround times.
AI learns from every ad impression in real time. It tests different words, images and calls to action, and then uses what works best in the next ad. This reduces wasted ad spend and boosts return on ad spend (ROAS) because every creative gets smarter over time.
When customers see ads that feel relevant, they pay attention. DCO helps brands move beyond generic messages to deliver ads that fit each person’s life stage and interests. This builds stronger connections, improves engagement and keeps customers coming back.
With reliance on third-party cookies declining, brands need new ways to deliver relevance. DCO thrives in this environment because it runs on high-quality data, stable identity resolution and privacy-safe collaboration through clean rooms. That means you can continue to personalize at scale, even as traditional tracking methods fade away.
From acquisition to loyalty, DCO adapts to different goals. These real-world examples show how personalized creative makes a direct impact on marketing performance.
A large American movie theatre chain wanted to increase new customer acquisition and drive ticket sales in smaller markets. First, it used Epsilon’s COREid identity resolution to find customers in those markets that would be likely to buy.
Next, the theater chain used Epsilon’s Dynamic Creative to customize ad creative for each customer, incorporating variables like:
The results were 237K creative iterations and a staggering $541:1 ROAS.
A national retailer wanted to build brand loyalty specifically during the holiday shopping season. Also, the retailer wanted to increase customer lifetime value for recent buyers and people who interacted on the website without purchasing.
The first step was to identify recent shoppers. The retailer relied on Epsilon’s COREid to pinpoint which customers had the most potential to convert.
Next, the retailer used Epsilon Dynamic Creative to tailor ads to the unique individual, giving customers relevant recommendations that drove conversions. We helped the retailer scale their creative ad features with dynamic branding headlines and subheads, nearest store location, product image and price—resulting in 25 million unique creative iterations.
The results of this holiday campaign were a gift to the retailer:
Dynamic creative optimization doesn’t work in isolation. To reach its full potential, it needs to plug into the systems you already rely on for data, identity and activation. By connecting DCO with the rest of your martech stack, you ensure creative decisions are powered by real insights and can scale across channels.
A unified view of each customer—built by combining online and offline interactions, enriched with partner data and anchored in stable identity resolution—ensures ads are not only relevant but also consistent across channels.
This unified identity makes it possible to:
The result is personalization that feels seamless to the customer and scalable for the brand. When your CDP, clean room, DCO and the rest of your martech stack all work in concert, you move beyond fragmented campaigns toward a truly integrated, one-to-one marketing strategy.
Making the leap to DCO doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Think of it as an evolution of your current digital advertising strategy—one that unlocks greater personalization, efficiency and performance.
First, assess your data and identity foundation, and then look for a partner that can seamlessly integrate with your existing martech stack. From there, you can begin testing campaigns that prove the value of true one-to-one personalization.
Not every solution that calls itself DCO actually delivers on the promise of true personalization. Many providers repackage basic ad management tools and label them as DCO. In reality, what you get is closer to a static, one-size-fits-all approach than dynamic, real-time optimization.
So how can you be sure a supplier is offering true DCO? Here are four things to look for when you’re evaluating vendors:
The best DCO platforms go beyond simple image or headline swaps. They continuously adjust creative and messaging based on where each person is in their journey—whether they’re still researching or ready to buy. With the right partner, you’re not just automating ad production; you’re unlocking one-to-one communication that’s personalized, contextual and built to deliver results at scale.
DCO success isn’t measured on clicks alone. With the right partner, you can tie performance back to the metrics that matter most:
By connecting DCO to your broader martech stack and identity framework, you get a clear view of how creative drives outcomes across the entire customer journey.
And thanks to rapid, ongoing iteration testing, the system constantly fine-tunes each creative iteration according to what’s been successful. This feedback loop ensures the creative is fully optimized. The platform determines the changes needed to make the ad more enticing for the customer.
Epsilon Dynamic Creative combines COREid—the industry’s most accurate and stable identity platform—with AI-driven optimization to deliver personalization at scale. Unlike basic ad management tools that mimic DCO, Epsilon’s solution adapts creative in real time across channels, devices and formats.
With the ability to generate millions of ad iterations from a single template, Epsilon ensures every message is timely, relevant and privacy-compliant.
Transform your digital advertising with our Dynamic Creative Optimization. Speak with Epsilon's experts to create a personalized strategy for measurable results.
