If you’re in ad operations, account management, or media buying, you’ve probably received this request a time or two. “Can you send us a screenshot of the ad on X site?” The client wants to see what their ad looks like on a site. First off, try to push back on any wacky client screenshot requirements to save yourself some time, but that’s beside the point.
You’ve probably used a bunch of different tools like photoshop or Google Ad Manager preview to handle this in the past, but it’s tedious, doesn’t always work, and is especially time-consuming on mobile. I wanted to share a quick way to capture a campaign screenshot using Chrome or Firefox dev tools, to make this task a bit easier. I hope this helps you in a pinch!
- Download Chrome or Firefox if you don’t already use it
- Go to the URL that the ad campaign has run on
- Two-finger tap on the ad that you want to replace and choose inspect (or inspect element)
4. Replace the image URL (Img src= “”) or the iframe (scroll up to find the uppermost iframe). Press enter.
5. Capture a screenshot of the browser viewport or use this extension (your browser may have an option for this too) to capture a screenshot of the entire length of the page.
6. If you want a mobile ad campaign screenshot, follow the same process but use the mobile device emulator (you may need to use a mobile ad unit).
If you want a specific frame of the ad in a screenshot, you’ll need to capture an image of that frame when you’re previewing the ad. If you use Ad Reform we capture all the frames of the ad for you to make this easy.
Other helpful screenshot-related tools
Here’s a quick list of some other helpful ad preview or mock-up tools if you just need one quick ad campaign screenshot or tearsheet:
- Youtube mock-up tool
- Screely: Turn a screenshot into a browser mock-up
- Cleanshot X: OS tool for screenshots and screen recordings
- Previewads.com: Preview HTML5 ads, test tags, and preview VAST ads: While ad campaign screenshots are the core product, we also give you a way to preview any 3rd party ad tag or HTML5 zip files and collect UX data on your ads and landing pages.
What if I need to capture ad campaign screenshots at scale?
This is a simple way to capture a quick ad campaign screenshot or ad preview on any site. However, with the scale of programmatic or direct ad campaigns, doing this in bulk would be incredibly time-consuming and a waste of your team’s time to be quite honest. Why wash every dish by hand if you can own a dishwasher?
You’re in the business of content and optimizing ad campaigns, not generating screenshots for hours every day. If you’re hoping to automate this in bulk, automatically create decks/presentations of those campaign screenshots, and host it all elsewhere, we built a product at Ad Reform for your team! Sign up if you’d like to try it out. Happy screenshotting!
