In this section of the Beginner’s Guide, we will briefly describe how you can publish your ads by first downloading them to your computer, and uploading them to your selected network.
Downloading your ads
Aside from directly pushing your ads, you can also take matters into your own hands by downloading and uploading your ads. This is available for a lot of networks, the complete list can be found here.
In order to download your ad set successfully, it is required to first determine what type of file you want to use in your campaign. The file types you can choose from are:
HTML5: the standard file type most commonly used in display campaigns. The reason is simple: There are very few limitations attached to them and give by far the most creative freedom. This file type is supported by all networks.
AMPHTML: in our system, this is only supported for Google Ads. The ads allow for all types of animation, except pulse animations. Also, it does not support JavaScript. Meaning that there are no possibilities for custom widgets or other JavaScript related features. Sinds medio 2018, AMPHTML is the default ad type for new Google Ads accounts, making this feature more and more important. In order to get a deeper understanding of AMPHTML and its benefits, please check out our blog article on this file format.
PNG and JPG: These files are mostly used as backup images for HTML5 ads. Backup images are shown when the user’s browser doesn’t support HTML5. This is an edge case and some networks like Google Ads even stopped supporting them. However, you can decide to go for this file type when you want to use a static image file as the main ad in your campaign. In that case, we recommend you to use PNG files. This often has the best cross-browser support and quality, since JPG and PNG files support 16 million colors.
GIF: This file format is also often used as a backup image. But in addition to PNG and JPG, GIF files can include animation. GIF files show a snapshot of each slide added to your ads. This is required to keep your files within the 150KB file size limit. When you use Bannerwise and you decide to use GIF, animation is not included. We also don’t recommend using GIF files for display ads because the files are very heavy, and they only support 256 colors, resulting in distorted images.
Choose a network
When you’ve determined which format you want to export your files in, you can start your download. First, it’s time to select a network. You may already know which network you want to use, but if you aren’t sure, we recommend you to get in touch with your account manager.
Start your download
Go to the “hub” and click on “manage”. Here, you select “Ads” to see the full list of ads you have created.
Find the ad set you want to publish and click on “publish”.
Now it’s time to select a network and pick a publishing option. To download your ads, click the middle button that says “download”.
Select the files you want to export and the file type (e.g. HTML5). When you’re ready, click the “download” button in the lower right corner. Your download will immediately start.
While downloading your ads, we will make sure that all the correct metadata, such as clicktags, are added to your ad files, depending on the selected network. On top of that, our system crops, resizes, and minifies all assets without losing any quality. The goal here is to keep under the 150KB file size limit when possible.
Discover more
You now know how you can download your ads. If you are still not sure which option suits you best, please contact your account manager to learn more. You can also read another section of our Beginner’s Guide, for example on Pushing your ads, or Generating third-party tags. It’s up to you!