Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
Types of Ads
When it comes to creating online banner ads, you have options for
the format in which you will build them and the top-level, bird
'
s
eye view of those options are standard Flash and rich media.
Standard Flash
I
re going to
tone down their ads to simple animations with nothing more than
a couple of images and some text. Because we aren
'
m going to stick with Typical Motors for now and we
'
t going to
include any high-profile extras like video, this is a good time to use
what
'
s generally called a standard Flash ad. Standard ads are the
most basic of all the Flash ads you
'
re simple, straight-
forward, and get the message across. Your standard Flash ads will
usually consist of a small animation, a couple of lines of copy with
acalltoactionsuchas
'
ll build. They
'
and one or
more clickable areas. These ads are usually constrained to a file
size limitation of 30
“
click here to visit our site,
”
40k and are served by either an ad-serving
companyordirectlybythesiteonwhichtheadisrunning(see
more on ad-serving companies and site-serving ads in Chapters 6
and 7). Keep in mind that while some sites allow you to utilize
more file size, standard banners are not the place to try to squeeze
in anything like audio or video.
-
Rich Media
If you
'
relookingtohaveaudioorvideoinyourads,orifyoufeel
'
-
you
ll need more than the 30
40k file size allowed by standard
'
Flash ads, you
ll need to move them over to a third-party rich-
media company (I will discuss several of them in Chapter 6). These
companies have technologies in place that allow you to have much
morefilesize,interactivity,video,audio,andsoforth.Theyallow
you to build a much richer experience. In addition to the features
I
ll need the rich-media companies to serve
your banners if you plan on creating anything like expandable or
floating ad units. Again, I
'
ve just mentioned, you
'
ll discuss more about those later in the
topic but as a quick explanation, both of those banners do exactly
what you
'
d think: Expandable ads expand to a larger size when a
user rolls over or clicks on them and floating ads
'
“
float
”
over the
main content of the page.
ALERT!
When you are planning and working on a banner campaign, always
remember that choosing rich-media banners over standard Flash ads can
cost more. However, also remember that the added benefits of rich-media
banners may very well be worth the extra expense.
