Creative Guidelines
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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.

        

      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:

      160x600 

      336x280

      120x60  

      300x250 

      1024x768  

      120x600   

      728x90 

      768x1024

      120x90  

      300x600

      1000x90 

      125x125 

      300x50 

      1020x250 

      125x83   

      320x50 

      120x240 

      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

      970x66 

      970x90 

      975x300

      980x120

      980x150

      980x240

      980x250

      980x400

      980x90 

      994x250