The Role of Taxonomy in DCO: Why Structure Equals Success

🕓 5 mins read

When marketers talk about Dynamic Creative Optimisation (DCO), they usually focus on the exciting part: more ads, more variations, more personalisation. But there’s a less glamorous piece that decides whether a campaign succeeds or fails: taxonomy.

In this article, I’ll explain what taxonomy means in the context of DCO, why it matters, and how getting it right turns complexity into clarity.

What is Taxonomy in DCO?

Taxonomy is simply the system of naming and organising your creative assets.

Every variation - headline, image, call to action, audience segment - needs a clear label that tells you what it is, who it’s for, and how it fits into the bigger picture.

Without taxonomy, your campaign is just a messy folder of files. With it, you have a structured map that makes sense to humans and machines.

Why Taxonomy is Critical

Here’s why taxonomy isn’t just “nice to have”:

1. Clarity at scale

   • DCO creates hundreds or thousands of variations. Clear naming is the only way to keep track of what’s running.

2. Measurable results

   • Without taxonomy, you can’t tell which variation drove the performance uplift. With it, you know exactly which headline, visual, or CTA worked.

3. Efficient optimisation

   • Taxonomy lets you spot winning patterns and double down on them.

4. Cross-team alignment

   • Media teams, creative teams, and clients can all understand the structure and reporting.

Common Taxonomy Pitfalls

Many brands struggle because they:

• Use inconsistent naming conventions (e.g. “ad1_final” vs “HeaderTest_v2”).

• Forget to tag audience or region in file names.

• Mix creative elements into one lump without structure.

The result? Confusion, wasted spend, and no clear learnings.

How to Build a Solid Taxonomy for DCO

At ProductionStudio, we use a simple but powerful approach:

1. Define dimensions up front

   • e.g. Audience, Region, Message, Visual, CTA.

2. Create a naming convention

   • Example: UK_Audience1_HeadlineA_Image2_CTA1.

3. Apply consistently across all assets

   • Every variation follows the same system.

4. Link taxonomy to reporting

   • Names flow into analytics dashboards, so performance data maps back to creative elements.

Why This Matters in 2025

Budgets are tighter, but expectations are higher. Brands can’t afford to produce endless creative without knowing what works. Taxonomy turns DCO from a “black box” into a measurable, repeatable process.

It’s the difference between chaos and clarity — and ultimately, between wasted impressions and smart performance gains.

The ProductionStudio Difference

We don’t just generate variations. We build campaigns with taxonomy baked in from the start, so you always know:

• What’s running.

• Why it’s running.

• How it’s performing.

That means you can scale confidently — and prove the value of every creative decision.

Conclusion

In DCO, taxonomy is the hidden engine. It might not be glamorous, but it’s what makes scalable personalisation possible.