The Acceptable Ads Committee is excited to announce the release of our updated mobile-specific acceptable ads criteria.
Over the last several months, the committee has gone through a thorough process to establish the new criteria. We began by commissioning a study on mobile ads user experience, followed by a full review of the study results with all members of the committee (researchers, advertisers, and user representatives). We then published draft criteria and collected feedback for a period of a month. Today, we’re finally releasing the criteria.
Mobile-specific Acceptable Ads Criteria
Placement Requirements
- Static ad types (e.g. 6×1 banner and 1×1 tile ad without animations) are allowed to be placed anywhere on the mobile page. For an example of a 6×1 ad, this time placed on top of the content, please see this; here is an example of a 1×1 ad unit.
- Small ads (6×1 banner or smaller) are allowed to be placed as a sticky ad on the bottom of the screen. Other formats are not allowed to stick. For an example of a 6×1 sticky ad unit, please see this.
- Large ad types (e.g. “native” tile ads) are only allowed to be placed under the primary content on any page. For an example of this type of ad unit please see this.
Size
Ads shown on mobile screens are bound to the following size restrictions:
- Ads implemented on the scrollable portion of the webpage, before or inside the primary content of the page, may not occupy in total more than 50 percent of the visible portion of the webpage.
- Ads implemented as a “sticky ad” have a maximum height restriction of 75px or 15% of the screen height. All sticky ads must include a close button or some other easily-identifiable closing mechanism.
- Ads placed below the primary content may not exceed the height of 100% of the screen height (i.e. the ad may not be more than one “full scroll” height).
Animations
Animations are allowed for the 6×1 ad type when placed as a “sticky” ad on the bottom of the screen. Animations have to comply with the LEAN standard for animations.
What’s Next
The Acceptable Ads Committee is an independent non-profit with members from across the digital spectrum — user representatives, user experience researchers, advertisers and agencies, technologists, and more — who’s job is to establish the acceptable ads criteria. eyeo, the company behind Adblock Plus, then implements the criteria into the acceptable ads standard, which is then used by a number of ad blockers.
In short order, more information will be available as the team at Adblock Plus begin the process of incorporating these new criteria into the acceptable ads standard.
In other news, the next AAC meeting will be held on October 8th. Stay tuned for more!