One of the questions we get asked quite regularly is about the specifications of advertising across different platforms.
Best Practices for Online Ads
Online advertisements can do wonders for your sales and business growth, don’t be deterred by the competition, even small businesses can reach millions of customers with the right ads. Follow these rules if you want to maximize audience engagement and reach.
Determine who your audience is
Having a very specific idea about the demographic you are targeting is crucial if you wish to maximize conversions. The best ad will fall flat on its face if targeted towards people who are simply not interested in your product/services. Specify the age group, location, gender, income level, occupation, education levels, etc. also look at psychographic aspects such as interests, values, lifestyles, behavior, and personality traits. It will be easy to tailor your marketing pitch once you have these parameters defined.
Brand-friendly content
This factor can be considered from two different perspectives and both are relevant here. One from the point of view of the ad creator, that is the business owner and secondly the ad delivery platform, that is Google or Facebook or other. The ad you create, whether it is a text ad, video, animation, should reflect the message you are trying to communicate to the customer. As far as the ad platform is concerned, the major ones have a powerful branding position and have cultivated a reputation built on millions of dollars and the most valuable commodity user trust. They will not display ads that are not up to the standards they implemented.
Measure success
Having an excellent campaign in place will be of no good if you can’t measure the impact. Make sure your marketing strategy has a method in place for quantifying the returns from ads; if the ads are costing more money than they are bringing in, timely reports and tweaking will help you in the long and short run.
Google Ads Policies and Procedures
Incorrect format, poor quality, inappropriate content, these are the most common reasons for Google rejecting your ads. It is better to understand the guidelines and create a good ad that gets quick approval instead of churning out low-quality image/video ads. Getting your ad disapproved is not the only consequence if you don’t follow Google’s guidelines, it is possible that the company might disable your domain (no advertising allowed for it in any form on Google) or suspend your account. To avoid these mistakes read on for some of the most common specifications.
General Instructions
Ads must occupy the entire size you opt for, do not repeat the same image in one ad unit.
Content should not be screenshots of Google Ads
Image ads and target content must be family safe
Ad content must be relevant to the product/service and clearly visible
Ad content must be relevant to the product/service and clearly visible
Image Sizes Available:
pplicable to static image ads, animated image ads, HTML5 ads and Flash ads.TypeDimensionBanner468 x 60Leaderboard728 x 90Square250 x 250Small square200 x 200Large rectangle336 x 280Inline rectangle300 x 250Skyscraper120 x 600Wide skyscraper160 x 600Half-page300 x 600Large leaderboard970×90Large mobile banner320 x 100Billboard970 x 250Portrait300 x 1050
Static Image Ads
Size Limit: <=150KBAccepted Formats: JPEG, JPG, PNG and GIFSize: See table above
Animated Image Ads
Size Limit: <=150KBAccepted Formats: GIFSize: See table above
HTML5 Ads
Size Limit: <=150KBAccepted Formats: ZIP (Include the HTML of the ad and can contain: CSS, JS, HTML, GIF, PNG, JPG, JPEG, or SVG)Size: See table above
Flash Ads
Compatible Versions: Adobe Flash Player versions 4-10.1Size Limit: 150 KBFile format: Flash file having a .swf extensionDuration Limit: 30 seconds (can be looped)Frame-rate: <=24 fps
Advertising Guidelines for Facebook
Facebook accepts advertisements from all kinds of businesses from all over the world. Their set of rules for reviewing the ads is stringent and any violations are strictly dealt with. They allow video ads, text ad and image ads. The content of all Facebook ads has to comply with the official set of rules that the company terms Community Standards. The image below shows how your Facebook ads are displayed on a typical desktop/laptop screen and smartphone<https://www.facebook.com/business/ads-guide/?tab0=Mobile%20News%20Feed>The technical specifics for the video and image ads are given below:
Images
Advertisers should avoid:
Overtly sexual, suggestive or images with nudity
Images that infringe upon copyrights
Sensational or violent content
Images that might be discriminatory against a race, culture or gender
Before-and-after images
Any image that violates the Community Standards
Displaying text in images: Text should not cover >20% of the image (Use the grid tool to check this)Size: News Feed=1,200 x 900 pixels and Right Column=254 x 133 pixelsMaximum characters in ad copy: 20
Videos
– Avoid letterboxing (horizontal black bars on either side of video) and pillar-boxing (vertical black bars on either side of video)– Add an optional call to action button if you want– Content should adhere to Community StandardsMaximum size allowed: 1.75GBLength: less than or equal to 45 minutesRecommended format: H.264 (MPEG-4)Maximum frame rate allowed: 30 fpsMaximum characters in ad copy: 90
Slideshow Ads
This is basically a video with static images
Displays only in the News Feed
Try using images that are the same size and aspect ratio for a smoother slideshow
Image size: 1,280 x 720 pixelsCharacter limit: 90Image ratio: 16:9 (max 4:3)Text on image: <20%
Twitter Advertising Policies
Twitter allows you to advertise using Tweets, accounts and trends. There are a couple of categories of policies that apply to Twitter Ads, each having specific rules:
Promoted Account Username:
Communicate a clear idea about your business
Must not contain offensive language or profanity
Promoted Account Photos (Profile, Header and Background):
No GIFs are allowed
No adult or sexual imagery
No text that is offensive or contains profane language
Any image of products on Twitter’s prohibited products list.
General Rules for your Promoted Account:
Pick a relevant name, preferably the same as your business name.
Add an accurate and valid location to the account
Use the Bio section to provide helpful and relevant information to the users.
Promoted Trends:
Avoid overuse of capitalization in hashtags
Maximum length: 20 characters
Try to avoid punctuation, symbols or spaces, they will break up the hashtag.
The image used must be relevant to your campaign and adhere to the image guidelines.
Target URLs:
Must lead to a valid and error-free page
Avoid excessive redirecting to other pages
No pop-ups should be displayed if a Twitter user clicks on the URL.
The target page must not be login-walled or pay-walled
URL cannot be changed once ad is promoted
LinkedIn Advertising Specifications and Guidelines
This section contains specifications that you can use to tailor your ads and get them accepted on LinkedIn. Also included are some general instructions you must follow. The specification rules are categorized (1 general and 5 specialized) by the types of ads available, each of the 5 special types contains a couple of sub-types. This article focuses on the common specifications which govern general LinkedIn ads, the detailed analysis of the subtypes is out of scope. However the categories and their details are linked below, if you see the type of ad you want listed here, then just follow the link. (You might have noticed the funny-looking names of the ad subtypes, these are the display dimensions of the ads and are exactly as listed in the official LinkedIn guide).
LLA_300x250_160x600_728x90_300x600
LLA_Facebook_Newsfeed
LLA_LinkedIn_Sponsored_Content
inmail_300x250
talentdirect_300x250 (Details link)
LND_160x600
LND_300x250
LND_728x90
featuredcompany_300x250
followcompany_160x600
followcompany_300x250
groups_160x600
groups_300x250
spotlight_160x600
spotlight_300x250
spotlight_300x250
Common Advertising SpecificationThere are some general rules that govern this category of ads and the sub-types.– All ad content must be SSL-compliant– Ads must be compatible across different browsers and platforms.– Ads can display surveys within banners– Javascript/IFRAME tags are allowedThere are four sub-types in this general category:
- 160×600 (Also called Wide Skyscraper)
Size limit=200kb (HTML5) or 40kb
Allows rich media options which are activated on user clicks
A 1 pixel border is required for white or transparent images
Allowed file types: GIF, JPG, PNG, HTML5(third party served)
Dimensions: 160×600
Video duration: 15-30 seconds
- 300×250 (Also called Medium Rectangle)
All aspects same as the Wide Skyscraper, except the dimensions which are 300×250.
- 728×90 (Also called Leaderboard)
All aspects same as the Wide Skyscraper, except the dimensions which are 728×90
- Textlink
Character limit: 90 characters
No rich media options
Ad dimensions: 960 x 17
Instagram Ads Guide
Advertising on Instagram is possible through a self-service platform launched by Facebook. Your Instagram ad will contain: Instagram Handle, Images/Videos, an optional Call to Action, and your ad copy.The display format and an example are shown below:<https://www.facebook.com/business/ads-guide/?tab0=Mobile%20News%20Feed>Instagram Links (Clicks leading to target website):Photo Guidelines
Recommended image size: 1080 x 1080 pixels
Minimum Resolution: 600 x 315 pixels (1.9:1 landscape) / 600 x 600 pixels (square)
Aspect Ratio: 1:1
Caption word limit: 2200 characters (Recommended limit is 125 characters)
Text on image must occupy <20% of the image (Check using the overlay tool)
Video Guidelines
Aspect Ratio: 1:1
File type: MP4
Audio Format: Stereo AAC audio compression, preferred bitrate >128kbps
Caption word limit: 2200 characters (Recommended length is 125 characters)
Aspect ratio: 1.9:1 to 1:1
Duration: 2.5 seconds-30 seconds
Codecs supported: H.264 and VP8 for video, AAC and Vorbis for audio.
Maximum size allowed: 30MB
Frame rate: 30fps
Instagram Image Carousel Ads:– Use an Instagram Carousel to display 3-5 different images within a single ad– Text on image must occupy <20% of the image (Check using the overlay tool)
Recommended image size: 1080 x 1080 pixels
Allowed formats: PNG or JPEG
Maximum size: 30 MB
Number of images: 3(minimum)-5(maximum)
Resolution: 600 x 600 pixels (minimum) – 1936 x 1936 pixels (maximum)
Aspect Ratio: 1:1
Caption word limit: 2200 characters and 300 characters for Mobile Ads (125 characters is recommended for both)
Links to Official Ad Creation and Submission Guidelines for Major Social Media Platforms
There are more options that have not been covered here, their official guides are linked below for your convenience. If you prefer to advertise on these platforms then consult the rules and your ad creation and submission process will be a breeze.