Create Native Ads With Images

Yahoo Native ad formats combine a variety of assets provided by advertisers in order to produce rich, compelling ad experiences. These ads are displayed alongside page content, which provide interaction and engagement superior to traditional display advertising.

Harness the beauty of large images for vivid, personal and emotional brand storytelling across desktop, mobile and tablet.

Think Native

While clearly marked, native ads look and act just like other content on any given page. When advertising appears naturally in content of any kind, it creates a seamless experience for users and increases engagement, improving performance for advertisers.

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The best native ads come from well thought out strategy. Think about what you want to accomplish with your images. Prepare a brief outline of the criteria for native ads, and the outline should answer these questions:

Identify Your Overall Brand Message

  • What campaigns are needed to convey the message?

  • Is the goal a direct response, to raise brand awareness, or both?

  • Which images best support each of these goals?

  • Do you need different images for different strategies?

Use high-quality photos that are “on brand.” You want your images to be simple, and to the point, so that they stand out from all the spam out there. As you formulate your plan, keep the following in mind as you are choosing the images to best meet your campaign goals.

  • Be relevant

  • Be bold. Use images that are strong and enticing.

  • Be clean, simple, and persuasive.

Important

Be sure to include a good call to action. Test your call to action to make sure users know exactly what will happen next when they click a link. Be strong and enticing, but not so strong as to drive users away feeling they have to commit too early on.

Demos

Check out these demos to view how native ads work best with images:


pepsi-real-sugar

Pepsi with Real Sugar.


coors-light-axis

Coors Light Axis.


axe-dark-gold

Axe Dark & Gold Gel.

Tips for Maintaining Brand Consistency

Make sure your images are consistently on brand. Brand consistency is especially important for retargeting ads so users have a consistent experience as they engage further with your brand. As you develop your brand’s “voice,” images should:

  • Be relevant to the product or service you are advertising.

  • Match the look and feel of the website.

  • Include colors that coordinate well with the page background.

  • Include your company logo in every image.

  • Include a link that leads to a relevant landing page.

If you have branding guidelines, make sure your image colors are 100% on brand by using branding department’s hex codes or RGB codes for background colors, drawings, calls to action, and other design elements.

Definition of a High-Quality Image

A high-quality image has the following characteristics:

  • Crisp and high-resolution.

  • Bold, with effective colors.

  • Image quality is apparent in all ad sizes.

  • Clear, and resized correctly to fit the ad shape, not cut off.

  • Easy to recognize.

You may also want to study the cultural and emotional implications of different colors.

Technical Requirements

Verizon Media recommends using high-quality PNG files for your native ads. Include a rectangular image (1200 X 627 pixels) with a 1.9:1 aspect ratio, and a square image (627 X 627 pixels) with a 1:1 aspect ratio (optional).

Large Image: 1200x627 pixels

  • Larger images may be submitted as long as they maintain the 1.9:1 aspect ratio.

Basic Image: 627x627 pixels

  • Ideally, the Basic Image is derived from the Large Image. Advertisers have the option to provide an alternate image.

  • 1:1 aspect ratio highly recommended.

  • Basic Image will be scaled down to various sizes including 82x82.

Note

Animated GIFs are not supported.

Copy

We highly recommend that no Ad Copy or Text appear in the Image. There are other elements in the ad execution (title, description, etc) that provide ample opportunity for ad copy to accompany the image.

  • Images may not contain more than 20% text.

  • Font size must be between 30 and 45 points.

Proper Logo/Text Usage


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The Logo/text overlay on the image can be up to 20% of the total image size (though less is recommended). Different applications of this 20% area are represented by the purple shaded boxes in the two acceptable ads above.


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Know if Your Native Ads are Working

Yahoo Native recommends that you continuously test and rework your image strategy and update your images on a regular basis. Updating your images regularly will help:

  • Make sure your images stay current and relevant.

  • Give you valuable insight into the performance of images. Try out several different versions of each image and see which images perform best.

  • Keep up with a dynamic, evolving market.

Learn More

Check out Verizon Media Native Ad Formats & Specifications to learn more about what you can do, both with native ads with images and video.

For a deeper understanding of the power of Native, download The State of Native ebook here. The ebook (in PDF format, 10.7MB) addresses these important topics for Verizon Media advertisers:

  • State of the industry

  • Context is King

  • Value beyond the click

  • The next generation of native

Important

With Native advertising making up nearly 60 percent of all digital display spending in 2018 – a 10 percent increase over the previous year – Verizon Media continues to innovate on different native features and formats to offer advertisers powerful new options.