Specs, Specs and More Specs: How the Online Advertising Industry is Standardizing

Ten years ago, life was easy. The main ad unit on a website was a 468×60 pixel banner. Today, there are more options than ever before for online advertising. This makes it difficult for both publishers and advertisers to sell and purchase media. Trying to gather specifications from various websites has been a daunting task. However, more and more publishers and advertisers are paying attention to efforts for standardizing new media.

An organization at the forefront of standardizing online media is the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB - www.iab.net). The IAB is an association dedicated to the interactive industry and has been around since the early days of the Web. Ten years ago, when I was first experimenting with selling ad units, the IAB had only six ad banner sizes specified. Now with all the different technologies and formats available, the IAB has actually released an online database of ad units for 88 major publishers on the Web. There are so many options available now; a database is required to organize them!

For the purpose of this article, we’ll just take a look at some general categories. Here is a list of some of the major categories listed at the IAB website:

• Ad Unit Guidelines
• Broadband Ad Creative Guidelines
• Email Guidelines
• Pop-Up Guidelines
• Rich Media Guidelines
• Universal Ad Package
• Broadband Video Commercial Measurement Guidelines

Again, this is a partial list. We’re not even discussing emerging media! In the list above, Rich Media Guidelines are becoming more important due to the performance lift of Rich Media over traditional banners. The formats listed within this category include, UAP Units, In-Page Units, Expandable Units, Over the Page Pop-Up Units, Over the Page Floating Units, Between the Page Units and In-Stream Units (In-Stream is now being referred to as Broadband Video Commercials). Each of these formats has different specs for dimensions, file size, animation lengths, interactive controls, audio controls and more. Broadband Guidelines are just as complex with specifications for placement, dimensions, aspect ratios, encoding rates, commercial length, controls and more.

Even with the industry making strides towards standardization, the numerous choices available really call for guidance by an expert. In order to take advantage of what online advertising has to offer, I strongly recommend consulting with experts in the field. Doing so can mean the difference in launching a campaign on time and within budget. Not to mention maximizing ROI by effective strategies and media buys. Everyone is now making the switch from traditional to interactive. Consult with the experts to help navigate the interactive space and earn higher returns on your marketing investments.

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