Many agencies design banner campaigns in house and hand the HTML5 build to an outside developer. Done well, the client never notices: the work arrives on time, under the agency’s name, and looks like the agency built it. Done badly, the agency spends its time chasing files, explaining the brief twice and checking whether anything leaked.

Most of the difference is decided before the first banner is built. A few clear agreements make white-label production predictable for the agency and invisible to the client.

Agree who the client sees

White-label means the developer works behind the agency. In practice that should be visible in the files themselves:

  • No developer credits, comments or signatures in the HTML, CSS, JavaScript or file names.
  • Preview links that do not carry the developer’s branding.
  • Delivery to the agency only, never directly to the end client, unless the agency asks for it.

It is worth saying this explicitly at the start, even with a developer you trust. It removes guesswork for everyone involved.

Put confidentiality in writing

Campaign work is often confidential before launch, and some clients require it long after. If the client needs an NDA, sign it before the files arrive. Agree as well what may be shown later: many campaigns can never appear in the developer’s portfolio, and that should be the default unless the agency clears it.

On this site, client work only appears when it has been cleared, and the gallery never names brands or clients in text.

Talk to the person who builds the banners

An extra account layer between the producer and the developer slows feedback and blurs responsibility. The most efficient setup is direct: the agency producer talks to the person who writes the code, and that person is accountable from the first size to the last.

That is how I work: you deal directly with me, the developer building the banners, from the brief to the final ZIPs.

White-label quality is judged by what is absent as much as by what is built. A finished portrait unit with no developer branding anywhere in the creative or its files: what the client sees is the agency's work.

Make the brief and the process explicit

A white-label developer cannot ask the end client what they meant. The production brief has to carry the decisions: sizes, copy, source files, the ad platform or publisher spec, and the deadline.

The process should be just as clear. A rhythm that works well for agencies:

  1. Brief and confirmed scope, timing and price.
  2. One key size built for approval.
  3. The full set rolled out from the approved master.
  4. QA across sizes: weight, click-through, backup images and final frames.
  5. Delivery as ad-network-ready ZIPs plus preview links for review.

Agree the delivery format

Agree how files are named, versioned and grouped before delivery, so the agency’s ad ops team can upload without renaming anything. Versioned ZIPs with a clear naming pattern stop old and new rounds getting mixed up when copy changes late.

Delivery should match the agency's conventions, not the developer's. Delivered as a ZIP and a preview link, named the way the agency's ad ops team asked for, ready to upload under the agency's name.

A short checklist before the first brief

  • No developer credits in files, previews or names.
  • NDA signed if the client needs one; portfolio use only when cleared.
  • Direct contact with the developer who builds the banners.
  • A complete brief: sizes, copy, sources, platform spec and deadline.
  • Key size for approval, then the full set, then QA across sizes.
  • Naming and versioning agreed before delivery.