What are image ads?
Are you looking to bring a little ‘pop’ to your web property? Try expanding the ad formats you offer by running image ads.

Image ads help create more monetization options for your site and may expand the pool of available advertisers. By allowing both image ads and text ads in your advertising space, you increase the opportunity to maximize yield for that space. An image ad will only appear if it wins the auction against the top text ads. At this time, there is a limited amount of image ads inventory available, so although you enable image ads, you may not see them appear on your site during the test.

Remember, you cannot set up an ad unit to run only image ads. If you want image ads to appear, your ad unit must accept both text and image ads.

How to set up image ads
Any ad unit can be set to accept image ads. When you're modifying (or creating) an ad unit, you'll confirm the setting on the first page of ad unit settings. After confirming the information in step 1, proceed to step 2, as if setting up a text ad.

FAQ

Q. What are image ads?
A. As part of the adCenter platform, the image ads offering is a building block that will provide a scalable and versatile option for rolling out new multimedia ad formats, products and delivery methods as the online advertising industry continues to evolve.

Q. What is the purpose of image ads?
A. The purpose of Image ads is to bring display advertising to life within an auction model, allowing you to offer display or text ads on your pages in much the same manner as paid search advertising.

Q. How will image ads be rolled out?
A. Image ads are available as a pilot program to all publishers in the adCenter Publisher Pilot. Microsoft will test Image ads with internal Advertisers prior to piloting with external Advertisers. The external Advertiser pilot is slated for rollout in early 2009.

Q. What ad formats will be supported?
A. With the first release of image ads, ad types will be limited to static .gif, .jpg and .png files.

Q. What are the creative requirements?
A.  The following ad sizes will be supported:

300 x 250 IMU - (Medium Rectangle) 250 x 250 IMU - (Square Pop-Up) 180 x 150 IMU - (Rectangle) 468 x 60 IMU - (Full Banner) 234 x 60 IMU - (Half Banner) 120 x 240 IMU - (Vertical Banner) 125 x 125 IMU - (Square Button) 728 x 90 IMU - (Leaderboard) 160 x 600 IMU - (Wide Skyscraper) 120 x 600 IMU - (Skyscraper). If you enable Image ads on an ad unit that does not match one of these sizes, no Image ads will be displayed.

Q. What is the editorial policy for image ads?
A. Keywords will comply with the standard adCenter editorial policy. The associated image ads will follow the Creative Acceptance Policy guidelines used for display advertising. If you have questions about these policies, please review the policy at: http://advertising.microsoft.com/creative-acceptance-policy

Q. Is this intended to be a global or U.S.-only offering?
A. It is eventually intended to be a global product, but the pilot will occur for U.S. customers only at this time.

Q: How do I activate image ads in the UI?
A: Publishers can activate image ads simply by checking the Image box located in the Set Up tab on the Step 1: Ad Type page. Selecting image ads is at the ad unit level only. If the image ads box is checked there is no additional action required to activate image ads.

Q: Are image ads reported separately from text ads?
A: On the Create Report screen of the Reports tab, view data by Individual Ad and then select the display type box. The report will show data by ad type.

Q: Why should I participate in image ads?
A: Participating in image ads creates more monetization options for publishers and potentially expands the pool of advertisers available to them. Exposing existing advertising space to both image and text ads increases the opportunity for publishers to maximize yield for that space. By selecting image and text, an image ad will only appear if it wins the auction against the top text ads.

Q: What type of advertisers should I expect to participate in the program?
A: Microsoft will test image ads with internal advertisers prior to piloting with external advertisers. The external advertiser pilot is slated for rollout in early 2009.

Q: How will image ads perform vs. text ads?

A: Publishers will only receive an image ad if it wins the auction against the top text ads.

Q: What is expected inventory ramp?
A: During the pilot phase of the image ads program, we will carefully manage inventory ramp so that we ensure a quality user experience and the health of the marketplace for publishers and advertisers.

Q: Where can I go to for help in setting up image ads?
A: You can visit the Help system for detailed step by step instructions on getting your image ad units set up. To get started, read these instructions.

Q. How do I turn on image ads?
A. Any ad unit can be set to accept image ads. When you are modifying (or creating) an ad unit, you’ll enter the setting on the first page of ad unit settings. Make sure to check both Text and Image, or your ad slot may occasionally display a blank space.

Q. Can I set an ad unit to display only image ads?
A. No. You can set an ad unit to run only text ads, but not to run only image ads. If you want image ads, you must set the ad unit to accept both.

Q. I have ad units set for text ads that I don’t want to change. Do I need to do anything?
A. No. Leaving existing ad units set to run only text ads will keep them running text ads as they have in the past.

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