I have not found standard-size (468x60 and smaller) rich-media
banners to be any more expensive than animated .gif's. What
you really want to pay for is *targeting*. If a publisher
tries to charge higher rates for rich media, I walk. True, if
yours will be the first rich-media ad served by the publisher,
some work will have to be done on their side. But then they'll
be able to market rich-media ad-serving to their other clients!
The file size contraints are generally the same too, but one of
the nice things about Flash is the small file size.
A few notes - you will need to ensure that your rich-media file
has been rigorously QA'd, because fixing your code is not the
publisher's responsibility. This includes testing across
browser platforms (I recommend using Flash 5 to create your ads
- it has a higher acceptance level in common browsers than later
versions). You will also need to provide a .gif backup for
users who do not have the Flash plugin. Make sure the publisher
is sniffing for the plugin to know which ad to display, and that
they are doing this *before* loading the rest of the page.
Otherwise, the ad will load last and the user will likely never
see it. Even worse, if the publisher isn't sniffing, users
without the plugin will see the dreaded broken image X! And I
guarantee they'll charge you for that (bad) impression.
Last note, expect longer lead time in getting the ad up in
comparison to animated .gif's.
Hope this is helpful!
Kelley Mitchell
Received on Fri Feb 01 2002 - 07:41:03 CST
