Introducing The Image + Text Ad Format

The Details

I am proud to announce a new ad format at BSA — Image + Text. The image + text ad format consists of a publisher defined image size, a title with a max length of 25, 50, or 100 characters, and a description with a max length of 80, 150, 250, or 350 characters. Included in the ad unit is a link, “ads by BSA”, that links back to the publisher buy now page (this link is optional). It’s similar in format to networks like The Deck, but much more powerful and flexible for both the advertiser and the publisher. For the advertiser it’s not an “all or nothing” situation – they will be able to buy ads the way they normally buy ads at BSA by selecting the specific sites they want to be on. For publishers they are able to control the price, size, number of ads they are willing to sell, and more – like they do for regular BSA ad zones. More importantly, there is plenty of room for creative interpretation of the unit as demonstrated in the “inspiration” section of this post below.

What does it look like?

Here are some screenshots of the new ad format in action.

On James White’s Signalnoise.com:

On Brusheezy.com from the Eezy Network:

How do I set this up?

This unit is available to all publishers right now. We encourage you to “make it your own” and get creative with the style and use of the unit. Since this is not strictly an image ad, it can be much more powerful if integrated nicely into your site. If you have an interesting implementation, let us know, and we will blog about it.

So, to get started: go to your publisher dashboard and click on the “add zone” link for the site you want to add this to. And, you will see a new option for “Image + Text”. Select this option.

Then, you will see other settings as you normally do, but there are two additional settings I’d like to point out:

• Max title length
• Max description length

We use defaults for this option to help standardize the unit for advertisers. In the screenshots above, the unit on Brusheezy.com has these set to 50 and 250 respectively. The SignalNoise unit is set to 25 and 80 respectively. In most cases, you will want Banners set to 1 and Max Banners set to some number greater than 1. This means that you will only show 1 ad at a time, but will sell multiple ads in rotation.

Inspiration

The unit is very flexible, and with a touch of CSS customization you can do some pretty cool stuff. Here are some additional samples we came up with that will hopefully inspire you to make this unit your own:

#1 – for this unit we set the image size to 235×250 and the max title & description length settings to 25 and 80 respectively. It’s positioned in the right sidebar and fills up the 260 pixel width.

#2 – for this unit we set the image size to 240×90 and the max title & description length settings to 25 and 150 respectively. It’s sized as a 728×90 unit in the leaderboard position. Maybe hot pink isn’t for you, but this shows how flexible the unit can be.

#3 – for this unit we set the image size to 60×60, with 3 ads showing at the same time. The max title & description length settings to 25 and 80 respectively. It’s sized as a 300×250 unit.

#4 – for this unit we set the image size to 120×90 and he max title & description length settings to 25 and 80 respectively.

Installing the ad code & styling the unit

When you are ready to install the ad code and style the unit to make it your own, click on the “Install Ad Code” link for this zone from your Publisher Dashboard. On this page, you will want to select the “Show test ads” option and set it to 1. Click save. Then, once the code is installed on your site, play around with the styles using Firebug.

Note for advertisers

If you fancy this unit, you will be happy to know that our forthcoming redesigned directory (Buy Ads section) will have a special filter for this new ad format. Sign-up for our newsletter or subscribe to this blog to be the first to know when it is live.

Questions? Please post them below in the comments, open a support ticket, or contact me directly: todd _at_ buysellads.com. Have fun :)