Creative guidelines

Guidelines for display creatives

Below are the most common requirements for display creatives to serve on various exchanges.

Technical requirements

  • Duration of animated ads must be 30 seconds or less.

  • Ads must open in new tab or new window only.

  • To make sure image creatives look great on any device, you can upload high-density image assets up to twice the dimensions of your creative. Display & Video 360 will scale down the image based on the resolution of the device where it serves. Display & Video 360 will only scale the image into sizes with the same aspect ratio as the original asset. For example, if you're making a 300 x 250 creative, you can upload a high-density image up to 600 x 500.

Supported file types

  • HTML/Text: HTML, HTM, CSS, JS
  • Images: JPG, JPEG, GIF, PNG, SVG, WEBP
  • Fonts: DFONT, EOT, OTF, TTE, TTF, WOFF, WOFF2
Image creatives only support JPG, JPEG, GIF, and PNG.
Common creative dimensions
  • 120 x 600
  • 160 x 600
  • 180 x 150
  • 300 x 250
  • 300 x 600
  • 468 x 60
  • 728 x 90
Restrictions
  • Autoplay: Ads that autoplay audio are prohibited. (Ads that autoplay video are OK, as long as the audio is muted.) 
  • Pop ups: Ads that spawn popups or surveys are prohibited.
  • Size: Image creatives hosted by Display & Video 360 can be up to 10 MB. There's no file size limit for HTML5 .zip files, but if you have a linked Campaign Manager account, uploaded .zips can't exceed the maximum image size set in the Campaign Manager account's settings.
  • Download size: The total file size of all creative files downloaded by a person's browser when an ad serves is limited to a maximum of 5 MB.
  • Cookies: A maximum of 25 cookies can be set per creative.
  • HTTP calls: A maximum of 100 HTTP calls are allowed per creative.

Please adhere to all other guidelines issued by the IAB.

Technical requirements for mobile interstitials

  • Dimensions: Any MRAID, image, or HTML5 creative with proper dimensions should be eligible for targeting to interstitials if they meet specific exchange requirements of size and creative type. However, the most prevalent interstitial sizes are 320 x 480, 768 x 1024, and 300 x 250.

    On Google Ad Manager, creative sizes can fit within a range based on screen dimensions and a set percentage threshold. Display & Video 360 will select the largest eligible creative where possible.

  • Formats: Image and HTML5 creative file formats are supported.

    Please note, 0 x 0 flex-sized creatives served by third-party ad servers are not currently supported for mobile app interstitial inventory.

Content requirements

Ads must be distinguishable from a publisher's content. Ads can't appear as if they are actually content or links on a publisher's site.

Prohibited content

The following content in ads is prohibited:

  • Tobacco, weapons, nudity, defamatory/hate content, illegal activities, profanities, or spyware.
  • Offers of free gifts, links to quizzes and surveys, misleading claims, and references to sex or sexuality.

For more information, see Restricted products and services.

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