Creative specs

Overview

Native ads allow the advertiser to immerse their brand within the MSN sites to reach the right audience, at the right time, within the right context. This winning combination drives engagement, CTR, CPA, and more to enhance your campaign performance.

Getting started is simple. Upload an image, logo, copy, and URL into the AppNexus console (or integrated bidder) and the technology formats your content to match the unique look and feel of the publisher site whether it's displayed on a smartphone, tablet, or laptop.

Deliverables

Creative best practices for Programmatic Native

• Turbo-charge your call-to-action: Immediately highlight your main point with eye-catching wording to create urgency and drive engagement.
• Choose compelling images: People, particularly shown experiencing an emotion associated with your headline, increase impact. Also, avoid text overlays on image assets.
• Center main content: Avoid clutter and ensure important visual elements, particularly people, are centered in your image asset.
• Be bold with color: Use vibrant colors to create focus and interest in your native ads.

Example

MSN Homepage PC Web

Overview

Native ads allow the advertiser to immerse their brand within the Outlook site to reach the right audience, at the right time, within the right context. This winning combination drives engagement, CTR, CPA, and more to enhance your campaign performance.

Getting started is simple. Upload an image, logo, copy, and URL into the AppNexus console (or integrated bidder) and the technology formats your content to match the unique look and feel of the publisher site whether it's displayed on a smartphone, tablet, or laptop.

Deliverables

Creative Best Practice - Turbo-charge your call-to-action: Immediately highlight your main point with eye-catching wording to create urgency and drive engagement.

Examples

Outlook PC Web

Outlook Mobile Web

OVERVIEW

Microsoft Audience Ads allow you to immerse your brand within publisher sites to reach the right audience, at the right time, within the right context. This winning combination drives engagement, click-through rate (CTR), cost per acquisition (CPA), and more to enhance your campaign performance.

Getting started is simple.

• For image-based ads: Upload an image, copy, and URL. Microsoft Advertising will format your content to match the unique look and feel of the publisher site, whether it's displayed on a smartphone, tablet, or laptop.
• For Video & Connected TV ads: Upload your video creative, adhering to our video quality ratings that are outlined below. The quality of your video will determine where your ads can serve—the higher the video quality, the more premium placements you’ll be able to access. Note, Video & Connected TV ads are currently in open beta; so, they may not be available yet to all advertisers. Get in touch with your account team to know more.

IMAGE-BASED AD DELIVERABLES

CREATIVE BEST PRACTICES FOR AUDIENCE ADS

• Images are recommended to have no text or logo overlay for maximum flexibility.
• Some publishers prohibit the use of embedded text within images.
• Images can be cropped or used with headline overlays, which can result in issues if the image is text heavy.
• If text is required (e.g., legally required/logo issues):
  • Consider moving the text to the headlines instead of including in the image.
  • Use fewer words.
  • Use smaller font size.
  • Keep text centered.
  • Be sure to leverage the preview tool in the UI.
• Before submitting, ensure images and text look as expected in all ad preview formats using the preview tool in the UI and ensure that there’s no text overlay.
• The image must be clearly relevant to the product or service being advertised.
• Image assets used for Audience Ads share the same dimensions as Google Display Network, Facebook Audience Network, and Yahoo Gemini.

SAFE AREA

Publishers place “sponsored” or “ad” icons typically near the bottom of the image along with the headline and business name text. This should be considered when choosing image content.

Audience ads allow individual image cropping to support all aspect ratios for each ad experience. Using the preview tool is important to validate each ad experience. If your ad isn’t showing as expected in each aspect ratio, you can re-crop it.

Outlook.com web desktop (text)

Outlook.com mobile web (text)

Example

MSN homepage PC web

With Video & Connected TV ads, advertisers can reach their audience across a wide range of online video and Connected TV inventory. To access more premium online video and CTV inventory, advertisers need to upload higher quality assets.

Video assets are categorized in three ways: Fair Quality, Good Quality, and Excellent Quality.

Once you upload your videos to Microsoft Advertising, the system will determine which quality standards your video meets using a three-star rating—with three stars being the highest.

Use the below guidelines to understand what the requirements are for each of the different video qualities. If you wish to advertise on our most premium inventory, ensure that your video meets the Excellent Quality requirements.

*Denotes a required attribute, all other attributes are recommended for best results.

Attribute	Fair Quality	Good Quality	Excellent Quality
File size limit	2 gigabytes for video creatives (max size)	2 gigabytes for video creatives (max size)	2 gigabytes for video creatives (max size)
Video file type*	MP4, MOV, WEBM, MKV, VOB, OGV, OGG, AVI, QT, WMV, RM, ASF, M4P, M4V, MPG, MP2, MPEG, MPE, MPV, M2V, 3GP, 3G2, SWF, TS	MP4, MOV MP4 format is preferred.	MP4, MOV MP4 format is preferred.
Video bitrate*	2,500+ kbps	8,000+ kbps	15,000+ kbps for MP4 42,000+ kbps for MOV (720p) and 80,000 kbps (1080p) for MOV (Apple ProRes)
Video resolution*	960 x 720 1280 x 720 1440 x 1080 1920 x 1080	1280 x 720 1920 x 1080	1280 x 720 1920 x 1080
Video duration*	The duration must be between 6 and 60 seconds. We recommend videos to be one of the following: 6 seconds (minimum), 15 seconds, 30 seconds, 45 seconds, 60 seconds (maximum)	The duration must be between 6 and 60 seconds. We recommend videos to be one of the following: 15 seconds, 30 seconds.	The duration must be either 15 or 30 seconds.
Video frame rate	23.976, 24, 25, 29.97, 30 fps	23.976, 24, 25, 29.97, 30 fps	23.976, 24, 25, 29.97, 30 fps
Audio bitrate	128+ Kbps	192+ Kbps	192+ Kbps
Audio format	Audio sample rate: 44.1 or 48 Khz	Audio sample rate: 44.1 or 48 Khz	Audio sample rate: 48 Khz
Aspect ratio	4:3, 16:9	16:9	16:9
Audio sample size	N/A	N/A	16 or 24 bits
Audio channels	N/A	N/A	Two (stereo)
Audio codec	N/A	N/A	PCM or AAC-LC
Track conformance	N/A	N/A	File should contain only 1 video and 1 audio track
Duration conformance	N/A	N/A	Video and audio track durations should match with tolerance of 500 ms

Examples