Snap’s acquisition of Flite last December led to all Flite ads going dark, leaving some advertisers scrambling to evaluate Flite alternatives and competitors. Although Flite’s website remains online, the creative management platform (CMP) has closed its doors for good.
Ad tech is often considered an area that is oversaturated with similar technologies, and many view Flite’s exit as a positive step for the industry overall.
With Flite gone, the other main creative management platforms on the market are:
- Thunder
- Celtra
- Spongecell
- Jivox
Finding Flite Alternatives
Flite was known in the industry for its rich media design studio. Used by publishers and advertisers alike, the product made the production of expandable and interactive ad units fairly straightforward. However, the rise of ad blocker adoption has lead the IAB and Better Ads Coalition to push for stricter standards against intrusive rich media ad units.
Flite’s dynamic creative optimization (DCO) product gained steam over the last few years. Some advertisers may be looking for alternatives to Flite and DCO specifically. Flite also more recently released some video ad products that advertisers may be looking for alternatives for.
If you’re looking to replace some of these features with a Flite alternative, here is a rundown of potential CMP options.
Thunder
As the original creative management platform, Thunder has been driving innovation in the creative management platform space since its inception. Thunder is well known for its delightfully slick design tools that include unrivaled creative versioning and custom animation capabilities. Thunder’s white-glove support ethos earns consistently high marks from its partners.
As an alternative to Flite, Thunder covers all of the DCO requirements Flite was helping advertisers with, as well as many other creative production needs. Thunder CMP also offers a host of “apps,” including a powerful DCO app that combines Thunder’s elegant creatives with automated decisioning and optimization. Thunder DCO offers 1000+ free audience segments to all DCO users, it also works particularly well in concert with DMP data, too. Thunder is also the only CMP with an app for mass versioning of Facebook ads.
Some of Flite’s more intrusive rich media capabilities are not echoed in Thunder’s feature set. Publishers looking to build the same expandable or screen takeover ads may want to look at other vendors.
Thunder customers include category leaders like the world’s biggest brewer (Anheuser-Busch InBev), the world’s largest hotel company (IHG), the world’s biggest spice company (McCormick), and one of the largest personal goods companies (Kimberly-Clark), among others.
Celtra
Like Flite, Celtra has a legacy as a rich media ad building tool. Celtra has been more focused on mobile from the beginning. Celtra also has video and dynamic creative products. As a rich media builder, Celtra will probably feel the closest to Flite for many evaluators. Former Flite customers looking to echo some of Flite’s video or mobile ad capabilities may find Celtra a good fit with many familiar options as well.
Spongecell
Spongecell’s smart dynamic creative offering is similar to Thunder’s as it is a self-service platform with dynamic creative optimization and a decision engine. Ben Kartzman, Spongecell’s CEO, is a frequent contributor to trade publications and is a well-respected thought leader.
Jivox
Jivox is another contender and potential Flite alternative. The company primarily does DCO executions, and like Celtra, boasts data inputs like time, weather, and geography. Most of Jivox’s customers use the managed services so self-service Flite customers won’t find Jivox as appealing as other CMPs. Jivox DCO ads are unfortunately known for being slow to load due to heavy file load sizes, making them a less ideal choice.
Google Web Designer
Google Web Designer (GWD) is Google’s free beta ad builder that deserves an honorable mention as a Flite alternative. Some of its capabilities are similar. While GWD is capable of producing many types of ads, it has a much higher skill level bar than Flite. To successfully use GWD frequently requires some amount of coding or development.
If you are selecting a new creative management platform, there are a lot of factors to consider. To learn more about what to look for, check out this article: 7 Ingredients for a Perfect Creative Management Platform.
