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Common Creative Specs to

Consider for Rich Media Ads

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Every creative agency in the Online Advertising industry knows that once you completed your banner ad production it’s not really the end of the story. The creative process ends only when the ads are approved by the publisher. For this purpose, each publisher maintains a list of “creative specs” or “publisher specifications” to follow. The problem starts when a complex execution meets multi-publisher campaigns, and the specs are never seamlessly aligned between them.

Intro

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Following the best-practices in this guide may certainly enhance the chances for publisher approval for all

your creative ads, and also will enhance your ads’

performance.

So let’s start!

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1. Set the frame-rate of the Flash asset to be lower than 31fps and higher than 18fps: The first best-practice will ensure better CPU performance and the second will ensure smooth animations.

2. Avoid movie-clips on the first frame of the ad’s timeline in order to enhance performance when loading on the page. This is also a best-practice when using Flash components or Ad Server MXP components.

3. Make sure that Flash version is consistent between all ads’ assets (e.g. banner and panel).

4. Make sure that there’s a clickthrough in your ad and that all buttons are fully functional.

5. Set your clickthrough to be triggered upon mouse-release (and not mouse-press) in order to avoid pop-up blockers.

Best Practices for Overall Performance

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1. Make sure your ads don’t contain graphics that simulate interactivity (like search boxes or video buttons) without that functionality actually existing.

2. Add a border around your banner. This will make sure that your ad background color does not conflict with the publisher site.

Design Recommendations

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1. The audio should be user-initiated. The best approach is by mouse-click, the alternative approach is by mouse-over.

2. If mouse-over initiates the audio, there must be a 1 second delay – and the audio must stop when mouse leaves the ad.

3. Also, make the click on the clickthrough-button to stop the sound.

Audio Recommendations

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1. Videos that are longer than 30 sec. should be initiated by the user (with click).

2. The video should contain Play, Mute and Stop buttons.

3. Encode the video’s bitrate up to 800kbps to enhance streaming for small banner units such as 300×250.

4. Make sure to use the video-loader component of the appropriate Ad Server so you will be able to track all video-metrics at the reports.

Video Recommendations

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1. A close button is required for any expandable panel, floating ad, side-kick etc.

2. A “rollover to open” action should follow with “roll-out to close” and “click-to-open” with “click-to-close”.

3. In any way don’t combine “rollover to open” with “click to close”.

4. Best practice: If the banner is expanded with rollover, make sure that after clicking the close button the mouse won’t overlap on the banner’s area (or else the panel will automatically expand again).

Expansions and Collapses

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These are the milestones for successful establishment and smooth start on your way to get the publisher approval quicker. We’re following them on a daily basis in our production process and so far never got disappointed. On top of this guide, if you are designing your ad to specific publisher you can always visit the IAB’s Creative Specs Database and review its full list of specs.

Conclusion

Results

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