Digital

Guidelines

Standard Ad Unit Specifications

The following are the standard dimension and file size standards for advertising served through OAS on the Advance Internet sites. Not all sections/pages can accept all ad units and not all ad units are offered by each affiliate. Our ad serving capabilities are not limited to these sizes, however any other sizes should get approval before being sold/designed. Before submitting your creative, please check to make sure all requirements are met. FILE SIZE LIMIT STRICTLY ENFORCED.

Ad Unit Dimensions File Size Animation Rich Media Enabled IAB Standard
Rectangle* 300×250 40k 15 sec. YES YES
Leader* 728×90 40k 15 sec. YES YES
Tower* 160×600 40k 15 sec. YES YES
Sky 160×400 40k 15 sec. YES NO
Half Page 300×600 40k 15 sec. YES NO
Banner 468×60 40k 15 sec. YES YES
Half Banner 234×60 15k Non-animated YES YES
Section Sponsor 170×30 6k Non-animated NO NO
Site Sponsor 170×30 6k Non-animated NO NO
Listings Sponsor 170×30 6k Non-animated NO NO
Text Link - - 1 line of text
50 char limit		 NO NO
*Network approved

Mobile Specifications

Ad Unit Dimensions File Size Animation Rich Media Enabled IAB Standard
Editorial Sites 320 x 53
300 x 50
216 x 36		 40k 15 sec. NO NO
Classifieds Sites 300 x 50 40k 15 sec. NO NO
High School Sports Mobile 300 x 50
640 x 106
480 x 79		 40k 15 sec. NO NO
Leader “iPad” 728 x 90 40k 15 sec. NO NO
Rectangle “iPad” 300 x 250 40k 15 sec. NO NO

Photoshop Guidelines

• Compress output via “Save For Web & Devices” in Photoshop (screenshot)

• Only acceptable ad formats: .jpg & .gif

• If .gif, looping cannot exceed 15 seconds

• All .jpg & .gif MUST BE UNDER 40k

Flash Guidelines

Our standard Flash version is Flash 6. (We can accept up to Flash 9.) All prior versions are acceptable. NOTE: The higher the version, the more the users will see the back up image. For each flash creative, the .swf, .fla and backup gif/jpg file must be included with the ad request. (The .fla file is only used for troubleshooting.)

• .swf MUST BE UNDER 40k – no exceptions

• ClickTags must be correct (instructions below)

• No looping beyond 15 seconds.

• Create backup files

• Publish both html & swf files, zip & send.

 

Clicktag Instructions

1) Create a new layer (Insert > Timeline > Layer) above all other layers, name it “click” – and select the first keyframe in that layer.

2) Using the Rectangle tool, draw a rectangle encompassing the entire area of the ad.

3) Convert the rectangle to a button. (using the Selection tool, right-click and select Convert to Symbol. Type a name “clicktag” for the symbol and select the Button behavior. Click “ok”.)

4) Double-click the rectangle (go into symbol editing mode) to edit it, and drag the Up keyframe to the Hit keyframe.

5) Go back to the main timeline and select the button on frame one of the “click” layer. Open the Actions panel (If the Actions panel is not open, choose Windows > Actions (F9)).

Note: Make sure “Actions – Button” displays at the top of the panel.

Note: If you get a message in the Actions panel saying “In Actionscript 3, code cannot be placed directly on objects.” Use Actionscript 2 on the project. This can be changed in your publish settings under the file menu. When the publish settings window comes up. Click the flash button at the top of the panel and then select Actionscript 2 from the Script dropdown menu. Then click OK.

6) Copy and paste the following code verbatim into the ActionScript field, do not insert the click thru URL after the “http:” or “https:”:

on (release) {if (clickTAG.substr(0,5)==”http:” || clickTAG.substr(0,6) == “https:”) {

getURL (clickTAG, “_blank”);

}}

The clickTAG parameter is case sensitive. The preferred and standard variable name is clickTAG. If you know that the variable is named anything but clickTAG, please communicate this to ad ops with your request.

7) To use multiple click-tracking URLs (up to 5), number the variables sequentially, using the exact naming shown below:

URL #1 – clickTAG
URL #2 – clickTAG2
URL #3 – clickTAG3
URL #4 – clickTAG4
URL #5 – clickTAG5

Eblast Newsletter Specifications

When creating email newsletters, follow the guidelines below for optimal results. These guidelines will ensure your newsletter eblast is delivered to as many people as possible, as effectively as possible.

• Absolutely NO CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)

• Newsletter width must be 600px (height does not matter)

• Must include text. Cannot be comprised of only images. (the more text, the better)

 

Peelback Specifications

Build one 125×100 gif/jpg/swf file for the corner unit, and another full size ad 800×600 gif/jpg/swf file.
al.com producers will need to implement the graphics into our software program for testing and serving. FILE SIZE LIMIT STRICTLY ENFORCED.

COMPONENT EXANDABLE CORNER UNIT
File Size 200kB 40kB
Dimensions 800×600 125×100
File Type Flash, gif, jpg Flash, gif, jpg
Required Browser Size See Below -
Expand Method Automatic, On-mouse or Click -
Freq Cap If Expand Method is automatic.
1 per user per day.		 -
Template Test Page Template This download includes:
Images to show you where your ads message needs to be placed. A index.html page and 2 swf files to test your ad and see exactly what it will look like on the page.

Wallpaper Specifications

Ad Unit Dimensions File Size Animation Rich Media Enabled IAB Standard
Wallpaper – Tiled 200×200 max.
Optimum size 100×100		 10k Non-animated NO NO
Wallpaper
Single-Image		 1280×800
to 1680×1024		 100k Non-animated NO NO

Downloadable Wallpaper Template

Notes to Designers

A monitor resolution of 1280x is common, though many screens are larger. Examples here are on a 1280x monitor. At this resolution, you only have an effective width of about 130x on either size of content to deliver the client’s message (1280x total – 15-19x scrollbar – 1000x content well). You can have information outside of this 1280x boundary, but the user might miss it. This is just a caution. We will still accept up to 1680x wide creative.

We highly recommend fading the bottom of the wallpaper to white. We can’t change the background of the page and can’t tile anything down the page below the creative, so non-fading creative will simply have an abrupt end at the bottom. Again, however, this is just a caution and we will accept any image that otherwise meets our specs.
Wallpaper images and use of colors should be subtle, and not to be too high-contrast as not to take away from the users site experience.

The specs documented on this wiki page will be strictly enforced. So we urge you to submit creative as early as possible or send to AdOps for review as early as possible if you have any doubts.

Video Specifications

• File Size: elements other than the video component must conform to existing ad size standards. The maximum file size for the video component is 1.5 Megabytes.

• Video length: 15 seconds or 30 seconds.

• Audio initiation: Audio within ads must be user initiated with a click.

• Video must include video stop/start button, as well as an audio stop/start button which must be present at all times. The user should always have the option to control the entire video experience, i.e., stop, pause, mute. Generic Video Controls are available courtesy of the al.com production team.

• The Frames per second (FPS) should not exceed 18fps. Settings greater than 18fps will result in poor performance for many of our users and is not allowed.

• Continuous looping not accepted.

• If the video is clickable, a new window will open upon user interaction and should pause the video.

• Video cannot be played in a pop under, slider or floating ad unit.

• Video ads should be targeted to positions above the fold so that users may quickly see the audio controls for the ad and turn off if so desired.

• Agencies and advertisers will need to ensure they acquire the online uses of any footage used in the video ad