Author Archives: Becky C.

Build your expertise. Get Studio Certified.


As an industry, we know that getting in front of the right user is just half the story. A campaign’s creative is a critical component that can make or break campaign success. And as the people who design and develop that creative message, creative agencies need to be experts at their craft, with a deep understanding of the tools of their trade and the ability to promote that expertise across the complicated ecosystem of players that compose the advertising landscape. 

Here at DoubleClick, we recognize this need and have spent the past year and a half developing a robust training and certification program for our creative agency partners. By becoming a DoubleClick Studio and QA Certified Partner -- a “Jedi” so to speak -- you put yourself in the driver’s seat to build creative faster, with fewer issues, and ship it on your own timeline. 

Our DoubleClick Studio Training and Certification program enables you to:
  • Work more efficiently by taking control of your turnaround times 
  • Build your expertise in the Studio product and keep your skills fresh 
  • Promote your expertise as a Certified Partner to prove you’re the best for the job 
Over a thousand people in the creative industry have already become Certified Partners, representing individuals and agencies across the globe, and every day we're adding more. Here are five of them to tell you a bit about their experience: 



Beyond the core Studio and QA certifications, you can hone your skills further and demonstrate your “specialist” abilities with additional badges, including Dynamic, Masthead, and VPAID badges. These advanced certifications can help you create innovative, out-of-the-box approaches to digital creative that can set you apart from the crowd. 

Ready to get started? 
Visit the Studio Certification page. You can take all of our exams through this portal. Each exam takes ~1-2 hours to complete and has accompanying training materials to help you if you get stuck. 

Still unsure? 
Every day for the month of March, we’ll provide tips, fun facts and case studies about DoubleClick Studio and the Studio Certification program. Check back here each day for a new, unlocked Tip of the Day. Today’s tip features Tom Miller, Founder and Owner of Creative Ocean, sharing his experience with Studio Certification. 

Posted by Becky Chappell, Product Marketing, DoubleClick

Take advantage of engagement metrics and larger file sizes with Enhanced Formats in DoubleClick Campaign Manager


Today, we’re launching Enhanced Formats in DoubleClick Campaign Manager, which allow media agencies to easily add engagement reporting to their standard banner ads and upload larger creative files (such as HTML5 creatives) to DoubleClick Campaign Manager directly. 

Digital advertising has moved beyond the impression and the click -- consumers can now interact with ads in more nuanced ways and advertisers need to be able to measure and understand these interactions. As digital creative becomes more interactive and built for multi-screen, it is also challenging publishers’ website specifications with larger and more complex files. Enhanced Formats provide an easy and inexpensive tool, built into your existing DoubleClick Campaign Manager workflow, that allows you to ensure all of your digital ads are built to accommodate the changing realities of the modern web.

Measure user engagement and interaction for every digital ad you create 
With Enhanced Formats, you can add basic engagement metrics and multiple exit links to your standard banner ads automatically. These will let you track metrics such as interaction rate, display time, the number of times people click on different exit links in your creative, and the breakdown of impressions that occur on various versions of your creative (back-up image vs. HTML5 vs. Flash.) 

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Enhanced banner in the DoubleClick Campaign Manager dropdown menu

Upload larger files sizes, such as HTML5 files
Instead of compressing your HD assets to meet publishers’ specifications, add a polite load image and load your heavy file after the rest of the website loads. That way you preserve your high-res assets without violating publisher specs. Because many HTML5 ads require larger file sizes, the polite load is essential for running mobile-compatible ads. You’ll also be able to pay a fixed price for your assets, rather than paying “by the KB,” so you’ll know exactly what to expect when invoices show up.

Upload mixed mode creative
Instead of showing a static backup image when Flash isn’t compatible, show a more robust HTML5 ad. Enhanced Formats support mixed mode creatives (creatives that include Flash, HTML5 and backup image assets.) DoubleClick automatically renders the correct assets, based on the end user’s environment. Metrics for each type of asset are available in the reporting tab. 

Fewer steps; elegant execution and reporting
We’ve simplified the steps needed to “enhance” your banners and built everything into the existing DoubleClick Campaign Manager workflow. 
  • Add multiple exits: DoubleClick automatically creates exits for the clicktags in a creative and lets you customize the reporting label for each exit. You only have to traffic one creative (as opposed to a creative for every clicktag), and you get all the exits alongside the rest of your metrics in the reporting tab. 
  • Batch upload: Upload a zip file full of assets and DoubleClick will automatically detect which assets go with which creative. Enhanced banners will be created for larger assets in the zip, and flash or HTML5 formats will be created for smaller assets in the zip. 
Less expensive than full rich media
With Enhanced Formats, you get access to engagement metrics, polite load, and larger file sizes at a lower cost. 

To add Enhanced Formats to DoubleClick Campaign Manager, please contact your account manager. Note that Enhanced Formats are only available in DoubleClick Campaign Manager, so if you’re still using DFA, ask your account manager about upgrading to DoubleClick Campaign Manager first. 

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Posted by Jordan Sumerlus, Product Manager, DoubleClick

“Making mobile work” for the advertising industry


Today, almost 50% of the US population has a smartphone* and one in five webpage views now occur on mobile devices.** Even though consumers have quickly incorporated these devices into their daily routines, advertisers haven’t necessarily followed suit. While a few of the savviest advertisers are taking advantage of the multiscreen opportunity, it’s time that the entire industry think critically about how to make mobile a first class citizen in their campaigns.

One key aspect of “making mobile work” is using mobile-compatible ad creative; HTML5 creative works on smartphones, tablets and desktops, allowing advertisers to build a single ad unit that can run across all screens. By using HTML5, advertisers open the door to cross-screen branding opportunities, as well as enable publishers to monetize their highly-trafficked mobile properties.

To call out this need, the IAB today published an open letter, signed by Google, 16 US publishers and six UK publishers, asking marketers to use HTML5 for their ad creative so that their campaigns can show up properly across screens.

This plea to marketers is the first step in a larger “Make Mobile Work” Initiative, in which the IAB, supported by Google and the other publishers, will provide additional resources to marketers to educate them on how to implement successful mobile campaigns.

By fostering the conversation and educating marketers, we hope the “Make Mobile Work” Initiative will invigorate the production of mobile-compatible campaigns, enable marketers to take advantage of the mobile opportunity, and provide publishers with the inventory they need to monetize their mobile properties.

Posted by Bonita Stewart, VP Americas Partner Business Solutions, Google

*source: eMarketer “US Mobile Phone Internet Users and Penetration, 2012-2017.”
**source: http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_vs_desktop-ww-monthly-201012-201312

MRAID Beta Program: Bringing scale to mobile rich media through in-app advertising


Are you an advertiser or agency running mobile in-app ads or are you interested in testing out in-app formats? 

We’re looking for advertisers or agencies willing to participate in an MRAID beta program, to run campaigns with impression volume against our tested networks and verify that the reporting and metrics are tracking properly. 

In exchange for helping us test out the metrics, we’ll wave rich media ad serving fees for the duration of the beta. (Note: we may see significant reporting discrepancies during this beta period.)

Requirements to participate in the beta:
  • Have our “Beta Feature” language in the Advertising Platform Agreement (APA) or have a separate Beta Feature Agreement 
  • Deliver HTML5 creative assets to DoubleClick
  • Run media with an MRAID compliant publisher or platform that has been tested by DoubleClick. (e.g. Greystripe, Millennial, Jumptap, New York Times, Mojiva, InMobi, AdMarvel). 
    • Be sure to ask your sales representative for an updated list of compliant publishers.
    • Don't see your desired publisher on the list? Point them to our DFA publisher certification so you can run in-app ads on their network or application. 
If you are interested in taking part in this beta program, please contact your DoubleClick Sales Representative.

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Background on MRAID:

Mobile rich media advertising has historically been difficult for agencies and publishers to execute on a large scale because every publisher has maintained different standards and specs for mobile ads. With so many different standards, an agency would have to create many ads, each tailored to individual publishers -- a very manual and unscalable process. 

To help make mobile rich media execution more scalable, the IAB developed the Mobile Rich Media Ad Interface Definitions (MRAID), which provide a standard for mobile rich media ads, so that all publishers can accept the same ad type (and agencies can build one ad to work across all the publishers.) 

DoubleClick Rich Media and Studio is MRAID compliant, meaning agencies that use DoubleClick have the ability to serve MRAID creatives to in-app inventory offered by publishers and mobile ad networks. We have already been working with a number of publishers, confirming their ability to support our test tags. Now, we need to run live campaigns with impression volume against these tested networks, to verify that metrics are tracking properly. This is the goal of the beta program.

Making creative more intelligent


Your media plan is only as good as your creative message. Once you reach the right people, are you telling them something they actually want to hear?
- Pete Crofut, Creative Platforms Evangelist, Google

For the past six months, we’ve partnered with iMedia Connection on a series of articles that explore modern storytelling and the ways that new digital technologies are making ad creative more intelligent. We laid out the challenges advertisers face, examined engaging and data-infused creative examples, and discussed how to make these ads captivating across screens, measurable and scalable. 

Today, we conclude this series with a final article, “Technology makes creative more intelligent,” which provides new creative examples and explains how the creative imperative fits into Google’s broader perspective on the "what,” "why" and "how" of modern brand building (entitled the Engagement Project.)

The tools and technology are available to help make your stories come to life online. Now’s the time to embrace the opportunity and think about your creative from a cross-screen, digital-first perspective, to craft messages that will engage people wherever they are. 

Posted by Becky Chappell, DoubleClick Marketing

DoubleClick Rich Media Hangout Series: Lessons from our Customers, featuring Project C


In the motion picture industry, you live or die by your movie trailer and your pre-launch advertising. With all the action-packed creative and large-scale campaigns competing in the same space, it’s quite a task to make innovative and attention-grabbing advertisements. Yet creative agency Project C embraces the challenge.

For our third installment in our DoubleClick Rich Media Hangout Series, “Lessons from our Customers”, we’ll be interviewing Project C, next Wednesday, 12/18 @ 2pm ET.

Joey Barrus, Director of Ad Media, Matthew Jordan, Director of Strategy and Production, and Jennifer Christiano, Project C Producer, will chat with Jeff Sundheim, DoubleClick Creative Account Executive, to discuss how they come up with the next big idea for their entertainment clients.

They’ll walk us through how they built the ad creatives for the major motion picture releases Thor, Despicable Me 2, and Anna Karenina, and which tools they used to make the creative come to life. Plus, they may even divulge some stories of Hollywood’s behind-the-scenes antics.

Join us next Wednesday, Dec. 18th @ 2:30pm ET / 11:30am PT.
RSVP for the hangout here.

If, like the rest of us, you’re just counting down the hours until you can leave for Christmas break, here’s some fodder to help you pass the time: Part one and two of our hangout series.

We hope you’ll join us!