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Display Creative Specifications

There are three accepted creative types for Display ads.

Specifications for Display Ads

Display ads can include any of the following creative types:

Image file Specifications

  • File types: JPG, PNG, or GIF
  • File size: 150 KB or smaller (for both first-party ads and third-party ads)
  • Images: Creative images must be clear, recognizable, and relevant and must occupy the entire space of the image size you've chosen.
  • Text: Text appearing in the ad must be legible.
  • Orientation: Creatives cannot appear sideways or upside down.
  • Segmentation Creatives cannot be segmented, contain multiple copies of themselves within the ad, or otherwise appear to be more than one ad.
  • Background color: Creatives with partially black or white backgrounds must include a visible border of a contrasting color to the majority background color of the ad.
  • Click action: When the user clicks a creative, it must open a new page.
  • Animation limit: Animated ads are restricted to a maximum of 15 seconds of looping, after which they must remain static.
  • In-banner: Must be in Flash format with a 50 KB maximum file load and 2 MB maximum load for the secondary file; video ads must include play, pause, mute, and unmute controls.
  • Click-to-start video: No length limit, but must navigate to a landing page upon completion.
  • Auto-start video: A 15-second limit applies, with no audio heard unless initiated by mouse-over; should be backstopped by static 300x250 that clicks through to landing page.
  • Best performing ad sizes:
    • Display: 160x600, 300x250, 728x90, 300x600
    • Mobile: 300x50, 320x50
    • For additional ad sizes: click here

Third-party HTML or JavaScript ad tags

The following third-party and Javascript ad tags are approved to run on the exchanges.

Adara

AdCentric / Cossette

AdConductor (Burst Media)

Adform

AdGenie

ADITION

AdJug

adMarketplace

Adobe Flash

AdOcean (Gemius)

Adrime

Adroit Interactive

AdRoll (Semantic Sugar, Inc.)

ADTECH / AOL

Advolution

Aggregate Knowledge

ARAnet (Adfusion)

Atlas

Audience Science

Avazu

BlueKai

Bluestreak

Brand.net

BridgeTrack / Sapient

Canal+

Chitika

Constant Contact

CPM Advisors, Inc

Criteo

Dapper Inc.

Dedicated Marketing Solutions

(Dedicated Media)

DKK

DoubleClick (DFA)

Dynamic Logic/Safecount

Dynamic Video

e-Planning

EchoSearch

Efficient Frontier

Emediate

Eulerian Technologies

Evidon (formerly Better Advertising)

Eyeblaster

 

eyeReturn

EyeWonder

Facilitate Digital

Factor TG

Fetchback Inc

Flashtalking

Fusebox

Goodway Group -- BUYER

Google

 GroovinAds

Hamilton Beach (TruEffectDirectServe)

HURRA Communications

iCrossing

Impact Engine

Insight Express

InterCLICK

Intergi

Intermundo Media (TruEffect

DirectServe)

Interpolls

Kwanzoo

Linkstorm

Lotame

MaxPoint Interactive

Media 6 Degrees

MediaMind

Mediaplex

Mercado Livre

Mixpo

NetAffiliation

Netmining (buyer proprietary -

Innovation Interactive)

NetSeer Inc. (buyer proprietary)

Newtention

Nextag

Nielsen

 Nielsen IAG Research

Nurago (Pixel tracking only)

Oggifinogi

OpenX

OpinMind

Pointroll

Predicta

Pulse 360

Qoof

Quantcast

QuinStreet

Quisma Tracker

Red Aril

Reddion/NOAH (Pixel Tracking Only)

RichRelevance

SMART AdServer

Spartoo

Spongecell

Steel House Media

Struq

TagMan

TellApart

Teracent Corporation

TradeDoubler

Traffic Marketplace

TruEffect

Tubemogul

TumriUltimate Feed

Underdog Media

Undertone

Unicast

United Virtualities

ValueClick Media

Visible Measures

Wall Street On Demand (Adhesion)

Weborama

Yieldivision

Zedo

 

  

Specifications for HTML5 Creatives

HTML5 creatives are a type of display creative with their own specific recommendations HTML5 creatives are displayed as a full HTML page in an iFrame.

  • You may not use dynamic or expandable creatives as HTML5 creatives.
  • Different browsers have different subsets of HTML5 features enabled. Your creative might fail on a browser if it attempts to use a feature that is not enabled in the browser. It is your responsibility to ensure that your creative “gracefully degrades" in case the browser it is viewed on doesn’t support the features it uses.
  • The IAB recommends adding the dimensions of your creative to your primary HTML document in a meta tag inside of the <head> section of your document. Here's an example, in which you'd replace the width and height values with the actual dimensions of your creative: 
                    Example:  <meta name="ad.size" content="width=300,height=250"/>
    If an ad.size meta tag is not provided in the primary HTML document, you are prompted to enter dimensions when you submit the creative.
  • The TradeDesk Hosted HTML5 system requires that you upload a static backup image. This image is used to display the ad if a user has JavaScript disabled.
  • Commonly used JavaScript and CSS libraries (such as jQuery) do not need to be included with the creative.
  • Including image sprites instead of multiple images decreases the number of file requests made by your creative and increases its performance.
  • Avoid the use of video tags in HTML5.
  • Audio tags should play only if a user intentionally starts the audio.
  • File sizes: 
    • Initial load: 300 KB (200 KB recommended)
    • Subload: 600 KB
    • Initial file load count: 10 files
    • File size: 5 MB
    • User-initiated load: 2.2 MB (recommend)
  • File Packaging:
    • A single HTML file.
    • All information for serving the creative (with the exception of commonly used JavaScript and CSS libraries) should be included in the HTML file. The maximum HTML file size is 200 KB.
    • A single root/main HTML file with supporting images.
    • A single root/main HTML file with supporting images and additional supporting JS and CSS files.

Here's what you need to know about using compressed (ZIP) files:

  •  All files for displaying the creative (with the exception of commonly used JavaScript and CSS libraries) should be included in the ZIP file.
  • The primary HTML file should be located in the root of the ZIP file.
  • ZIP files must contain no more than 100 files, including at least one HTML file for use as the initiating file for display. Keep the file count low to minimize browser performance impact.
  • You can include only HTML, JS, CSS, MP4, JPG, JPEG, GIF, PNG, and SVG files in a ZIP file. 
  • When packaging HTML5 creatives, include the asset files, not the folder containing them, in the ZIP file:

The following table lists the maximum file size requirements for compressed files. See also File Sizes.

  • Automatically-started video: less than 1.1 MB
  • Any individual file: less than 2.2 MB
  • Primary HTML file: less than 100 MB
  • ZIP file compressed: less than 10 MB
  • ZIP file uncompressed: less than 12 MB

Click Tag Parameters

A click tag is a parameter used in HTML5 banner ads. The parameter is a variable that defines the destination URL and is provided in the primary HTML file as a URL parameter.

Here's what you need to know about click tag parameters:

  • You can customize the name of the URL parameter when uploading or editing the creative.
  • Click tags names are case-sensitive. Be sure to use uniform capitalization throughout the creative and any supporting files. For example, clickTag and clickTAG are two different tags.
  • When the user clicks the ad, the creative must direct the user to the correct click-tag page in a new window.
  • If you want to also use that clickthrough URL in your HTML5 creative, you can configure the creative to use the backup clickthrough URL as the default clickthrough URL. To call the clickthrough page through the backup ad image correctly, you must supply a clickthrough parameter.
  • You can use multiple click-through URLs and define different landing pages for different actions. If you append a URL-escaped landing page to the click tag URL, the platform tracks the click and redirects the request to the given landing page. 

                 Example:   var clickTag = getParameterByName("clickTag") +             

                                      encodeURIComponent("http://www.thetradedesk.com");

TIP: Use JavaScript to read the parameter from the document location URL and use it to set up the landing page for your clicks. You can use either all single quotes (') or all double quotes (") in your code, but you can not mix them.

Example: A Click Tag Parameter Example

  • The following code block shows one way to retrieve and implement a creative with a clickthrough URL that has been specified in The TradeDesk platform. In this example, a single image is wrapped with an anchor tag, which, when clicked, opens a new window with the address stored in the clickTag URL parameter of the creative.

Additional Display Ad sizes:

  • 1000x90, 1020x250, 120x240, 120x60, 120x600, 120x90, 125x125, 125x83, 1280x100, 180x150, 180x500
  • 226x850, 230x230, 230x600, 234x60, 240x400, 250x250, 250x360
  • 300x100, 300x1050, 300x240, 300x60, 320x160, 320x240, 320x250, 320x320, 320x480, 320x80
  • 400x400, 440x220, 450x250, 468x400, 468x60, 480x250, 480x280, 480x320, 480x80
  • 519x225, 544x225, 550x340, 551x289, 555x111, 555x333
  • 600x75, 640x480
  • 720x300, 720x480, 750x200
  • 800x250, 88x31
  • 930x180, 960x325, 960x60, 970x250, 970x66, 970x90, 975x300, 980x120, 980x150, 980x240, 980x250, 980x400, 980x90, 994x250