CREATIVE

Content: Homepage Advertising must meet the Yahoo! Ad Content Standards and Guidelines. Check with your Yahoo! Sales Representative for details. All creative is subject to Yahoo! approval.

• All content being advertised should be suitable for a mass audience.
• Creative must contain clear messaging.
• Creative must contain a clear/strong call to action.
• Creative must feature a clearly visible border or a high contrast background color that clearly distinguishes the ad from the content.
• Creative must contain brand attributes** in the first and final frame of flash and within the back-up gif. Logos/branding should be larger than 14% of the ad size; approximately 140x25 or 3,500 square pixels.
• Creative may not resemble or alter Yahoo! Homepage content at any time (i.e. resembling Yahoo! buttons or editorial content).
• The creative cannot appear to be a cutout with a dotted line.
• Weapons may not be shown in a threatening or violent manner.
• All seasonal/holiday creative must be relevant to the specific time of year.
• Images, logos, fonts must be of high resolution/good quality. Loud, clashing colors, poor resolution images and fonts, intrusive, high-annoyance design elements (e.g. pulsating, flashing, or blinking animation) are not allowed.
• If a coupon is featured in the creative, the ad cannot link to a page that requires the user to download software before printing the coupon as this is a poor user experience. If downloading software is required to print the coupon, the user must first redirect to the advertiser landing page. The user can then redirect to the site requiring the software download from the advertiser landing page.
• Offers made in ads or on landing pages must be clear to users and cannot misrepresent the true nature of the offer.
• Advertisers must ensure that any advertising offering “free” items discloses all material terms and conditions for obtaining the free item (e.g. advertising may not suggest that an item is "free" when receiving the item is in fact conditioned upon signing up for or purchasing the advertiser's good or service, unless that fact is properly disclosed).
• Yahoo! reserves the right to reject any ad on behalf of, or which directly promotes Yahoo! competitors' sites, products, services or activities contrary to Yahoo!'s competitive position or interests.
• Ads promoting age-sensitive products and services must be appropriately age targeted.
• Prescription drugs may only be advertised for uses approved by the FDA or Health Canada; "off-label use" advertising is prohibited. Yahoo! does not accept advertisements that state or imply that prescription drugs may be obtained without a prescription or on the basis of an online questionnaire or online consultation.
• Unacceptable Products and Services: please click for the list of unacceptable products and services

If you choose to run the same creative multiple times we suggest some of the following changes as an option to keep it fresh and compelling to users:

• New look and feel
• Different background color
• Different layout of the final frame
• Animation - change of sequence
• Different animation of copy/message
• Color of the copy/messaging
• Different images throughout the animation and on the final frame
• Unique offer
• Different copy or a continuation of the story with a slight variation
• Change the call-to-action

Technical

• The Yahoo! Homepage does not allow Third Party Ad Serving.
• Creative should be Flash 9 or lower and can be built in ActionScript3 (AS3) as long as source files are sent with final assets.
• Rollover functionality is subject to Yahoo! approval.
• For rich media executions, if initial animation exceeds low bandwidth file size limitations, bandwidth detection will be used. Please provide a high and low bandwidth version of the ad, see specs for details.
• For any execution that includes floating, floating is capped at one time per user.
• Any interactivity within an ad unit must be functional. For example, ads cannot contain imagery that appears clickable, such as drop down boxes or text links that look interactive, but are not.
• All audio must be user initiated.
• Initial animation must be kept to 15 seconds or less.

CPU Usage
Ideal CPU usage typically falls within 8-12%. When testing a Flash file for the Homepage, CPU usage after the initial loading of the file must be between 20% and 30%. An initial spike of up to 60% is acceptable in the first five seconds. (Idle CPU usage devised upon computer with a 2.0GHz Intel Pentium Processor and 512 MB of RAM running standard programs.

Submissions

• Final assets for creative must be submitted 5 to 15 business days prior to the execution date. Timing will vary by execution type, complexity of campaign and whether or not the Yahoo! Homepage Ad Tech team is building the creative. See specs and/or contact the Campaign Manager with specific timing questions.
• Rotation of up to 8 pieces of creative for standard flash ads for a full day event is allowed. Rotation of up to 4 pieces of creative for standard flash ads for a split day event is allowed. All other execution types (Interactive, Marquee Interactive, Floating and Custom Interactive) must use one piece of creative and cannot rotate assets.
• Creative development may be available - additional production time required. Contact Yahoo! Homepage Ad Tech Team for details.
• The News box and Today Module on the Yahoo! Homepage is editorially controlled. In determining what news is posted on the Homepage, the editorial team considers a wide range of criteria including: newsworthiness, relevance and interest to our audience. News is a primary driver of Homepage usage and we believe creating a trusted experience sets the stage for the largest, most captive audience for Yahoo! and our advertisers. Yahoo! cannot guarantee that positive or negative news content will be featured on the Homepage at any time during the advertiser's flight. These types of situations do not warrant a make good, given Yahoo!'s need to be unbiased with news content.

LANDING PAGES

• The offer in the creative must be present above the fold on the initial landing page and must be consistent with the creative messaging.
• Landing page(s) must be live for content review 48 hours prior to campaign launch. If the event runs over a weekend or on a Monday, the landing page(s) must be live by 12pm PST the Friday prior to launch.
• Landing page(s) must be able to support an estimated 15-20 users per second. Note: This estimation is based on peak traffic & performance; it is NOT an estimation of sustained traffic or activity throughout the campaign.
• No pop-ups/pop-unders on the destination URL or triggered from the back button allowed.
• If an ad links to a social networking page that requires sign-in or registration, it must be noted on the ad unit. Sign-in pages should be only linked to for a specific reason, such as for ads with age-restricted content.
• Landing pages cannot resemble simulated newspaper, blog, product reviews, TV news or similarly confusing websites.
• It is recommended that all landing pages be HTML5 compatible since this ad unit may display on tablet devices.

BROWSER
Rich Media Campaigns
The Yahoo! Homepage serves the full advertising experience to users with high bandwidth and Flash & JavaScript enabled. A low bandwidth experience will be served to all users, and a static backup experience will be served for JavaScript disabled users, those who don't have flash installed or are on a dial-up connection.

Bandwidth Detection:
Bandwidth detection will determine which version of an ad will be displayed to a user. A low bandwidth version must be supplied for any ad over low bandwidth max file size in order to accommodate these users or they will default to the back static gif/jpg.

THIRD-PARTY VENDORS
Ad Serving and Tracking

• All ads on the Yahoo! Homepage must be hosted by Yahoo!
• No third-party ad serving of any content (image, flash, html, JavaScript) is allowed.

• Approved third-party vendors are allowed to run a 1x1 tracking pixel & click tracking tags for each creative execution - see specs for details.

• Vendor approval requires 30 days lead time.

• Vendors subject to Yahoo! approval - contact Homepage Ad Tech Team for details.

Market Research Studies

• The marketing research vendor must be approved for the Homepage specifically and employ a methodology in line with our guidelines and process.

• Survey recruitment will be made via a text link on the Homepage. No survey pop-ups are allowed. The Yahoo! Homepage has final approval on all copy.
• Surveys must include a method for users to get back to the Yahoo! Homepage on all pages of the survey in one click; i.e. a "Return to Yahoo!" link
• All survey pages should include the research vendor's name and company branding. The first page of the survey must include copy detailing how the user's information will be used and a link to the vendor's privacy policy.

• Assets for the research study must be provided to the Homepage Ad Tech team 3 business days prior to the campaign date.

• No exceptions will be made for vendors who are unable to meet the necessary requirements.

U.S. BROADBAND COMPETITOR ADVERTISING RESTRICTIONS

Competitor advertising will be blocked from being served to current AT&T Yahoo! Users. This includes all broadband (DSL, cable, wi-fi, etc.) internet access companies and all telecommunications-related (cell, mobile, long distance, local service, etc.) advertisers.

MISCELLANEOUS

Advertisers must ensure that any advertising that claims to offer items for "free" fully complies with all state and federal guidelines with respect to the use of the term "free" in advertising. Any sign-ups, promotions or special offers must also adhere to these restrictions and guidelines.

Advertisers must ensure that any advertising offering "free" items discloses all material terms and conditions for obtaining the free item (e.g. advertising may not suggest that an item is "free" when receiving the item is in fact conditioned upon signing up for or purchasing the advertiser's good or service, unless that fact is properly disclosed).

The News box and Today Module on the Yahoo! Homepage is editorially controlled. In determining what news is posted on the Homepage, the editorial team considers a wide range of criteria including: newsworthiness, relevance and interest to our audience. News is a primary driver of Homepage usage and we believe creating a trusted experience sets the stage for the largest, most captive audience for Yahoo! and our advertisers. Yahoo! cannot guarantee that positive or negative news content will be featured on the Homepage at any time during the advertiser's flight. These types of situations do not warrant a make good, given Yahoo!'s need to be unbiased with news content.

** For interesting data on brand / logo placement within ads please refer to page 25 in this pdf document (How to optimize banner ad performance...).