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).
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
- Test-a-tag: client-side ad preview
- Screely: Turn a screenshot into a browser mock-up
- Cleanshot X: OS tool for screenshots and screen recordings
- Previewads.com: ad preview and UX metrics: 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!
