Mail Ads

Yahoo Mail Ads are a companion to the Native Ad and served exclusively in Yahoo Mail. On user-click, the Yahoo Mail Ad displays in the Mail message pane, displaying as if the user had opened a marketing email from the advertiser. Users can interact with the HTML content in the message, forward it to friends and family, save it to their inbox (where it will appear with other incoming email messages), or close it without taking any other action.

Yahoo Ad Tech Mail Ads turn the prominently placed top ad in the user’s inbox into a native ad that can be read, saved or forwarded, similar to an email. Mail Ads have demonstrated click-through rates as high as 4x industry averages.

Example

Note

The example shown in the video is of a sponsored Mail Ad.

How-To

Follow these steps to create Sponsored Mail Ads:

  1. Create a Campaign with the objective set to VISIT_WEB or MAIL_SPONSORED. Note that other objectives will not work.

  2. Create an ad group with a CPC bid for Native.

  3. Create a normal mail ad.

  4. Update the ad field called mailAssetUrl with a URL to a high-resolution image or a compressed HTML file. Note that the image can only be a 2MB JPEG or PNG image. A compressed HTML file must be a zip file and the maximum file size is 10MB.

  5. Set all levels to Active. If the ad passes approval, it will be eligible to serve within 24-48 hours.

Note

Yahoo Mail Ads cannot be used without a companion Native Ad. Ensure that you prepare Native Ad assets when building this unit.

Important

To address the issue of how Yahoo Ad Tech handles custom form fields in Mail Ads, note the following: Data is sent directly to the client. Yahoo Ad Tech does not store a copy of the data. Yahoo Ad Tech does not collect or store any form fill information. Data in form fields is passed directly to the advertiser website when the user submits the form within the Mail template.

Video Mail Ads

Video Mail Ads, which run on desktop and mobile mail apps, have higher completion and unmute rates, driving better performance for advertisers, with viewer impact comparable to YouTube ads. That means, you can scale your video delivery by optimizing for mail.

The advantage is that users are tempted with a brief animation in their mail inbox, and then served a large video unit in an email window.

How It Works

Video mail ads perform in the following sequence of events:

  1. The video plays in the small thumbnail area for 5 seconds, in this example as GEICO.

video mail ad

  1. Once the video completes playing for 5 seconds, it pauses with a play button overlay on top.

  2. When users click the play button, or the ad itself, it plays the video within the email preview panel:

video mail ad plays

Pricing & Billable Click Events

Video Mail Ads can be bought on a CPC or oCPC basis. (Note that CPV was disabled in 2017.) The billable click event is when the user opens the advertiser’s landing page.

The 3-second preview isn’t counted as a billable play event or an ad impression, so the advertiser is not charged for a view until the video plays for 3 seconds in the email preview panel.

For Android apps, this occurs when a user clicks on the mail pencil ad, which opens up a split screen experience that opens an advertiser’s landing page in one of the split screens.

For desktop and iOS apps, this occurs when a user clicks on the video itself, which in turn leads to an advertiser’s landing page. (This is essentially the second click, with the first click taking a user from the mail pencil ad to the video.)

Create Video Mail Ads

Follow these steps to create Video Mail Ads:

  1. Create a Campaign with the objective set to MAIL_SPONSORED.

  2. Create an ad group with a CPV bid type.

  3. Create an video ad ensuring to include your videoPrimaryURL. Note that videos are required to meet the below specifications:

  • Formats: .mp4 .m4v or .mov

  • File Size: 1GB maximum

  • Duration: 5 seconds minimum.

  • Aspect Ratio: Minimum 480x360p (4:3) or 480x270 (16:9). Recommended 640x480 (4:3) or 640x360 (16:9)

  • Video Bitrate: 300kbps. Recommended 500kbps.

  • Audio Quality: If the video has audio, then it must have 2 channel stereo and minimum 32kbps. Recommended 64kbps.

  1. Update the ad field called videoPreviewStartTime to set the preview start time. Default is 0 seconds. The duration of the video clip will always be for 5 seconds.

  2. Set all levels to Active. If the ad passes approval, it will be eligible to serve within 24-48 hours.

Learn More

For more detailed information on Mail Ad specifications, deliverables and guidelines, refer to Yahoo Native Mail Ads.