Digital Specs

Standard IAB Ad Units

Ad Units	File Size/Load	Expansion/Direction	# of Loops/ Sec per Loop	Frames/Loop	Sound	3rd Party
300×250/ 300×600	40k or 40k initial/ 100k polite	672×280 – Left and Down	3 / 30 seconds – 90 second total	Unlimited	User initiated	Yes
728×90/ 970×90	40k or 40k initial/ 100k polite	970×250 – Down only	3 / 30 seconds – 90 second total	Unlimited	User initiated	Yes

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Custom Ad Units

Ad Units	File Size/Load	Expansion/Direction	Time live	Frames/Loop	Sound	3rd Party
640×480 Superstitial	60k	N/A	15 seconds	Unlimited	No	Yes

Homepage Hero Specs

The Homepage Hero Takeover package is unique to IDG Consumer & SMB websites, and requires some custom creative. We’re happy to help you create these assets, or take your already created pieces. See the required assets for both options below.

Option #1 – Client supplies everything:

Leave Behind/Presenter Logo
- Company logo – .AI or .EPS
Hero Unit
- 1130×500 image, JPG / PNG / SWF file, less than 125KB
- Click-through URL and tracking pixel

Option #2 – IDGCSMB creates some or all of the units:

Company Style Guide
Company logo
- .AI or .EPS
Any associated Fonts
URL to a webpage that you would like us to base the “look & feel” of the unit on
Hero Unit background image
- 1130×500
- JPG / PNG / SWF file, less than 125KB
Optional Items:
- Product Images / General Creative (i.e. Banners) - .PSD or High Res .jpg, .gif, .pdf or .png and associated Fonts
- Flash Creative - Native .FLA
- Any call to action you would like us to use (50 characters or less including spaces, for some ad units it may be less)

Please take note that timelines are all based on receipt of the SIO, client creative assets, and timely approvals. If there are any delays then the live date will be impacted.

Homepage Hero Quick Facts

Ad Unit	Size	Provided by	Client Tracking	Lead time including approvals
Content Hero	1130×500	IDGCSMB	1×1 pixel & URL	72 hrs if client supplied otherwise 10 business days
Leave Behind/ Presenter Logo	N/A	IDGCSMB	None	72 hrs if client supplied otherwise 10 business days

Category Sponsorship Specs

The Category Sponsorship packages are unique to IDG Consumer & SMB websites, and requires some custom creative. We’re happy to help you create these assets, or take your already created pieces. See the required assets for both options below.

Option #1 – Client supplies

Company logo – .AI or .EPS
Chart Flyout:
- Preview Image = 60×120
- Text copy if submitted separately:
  Title: Up to 50 characters, including spaces
  Description: Up to 100 characters, including spaces
- Full Image area = 596×120 (Graphic includes the preview and any copy)

Option #2 – IDGCSMB creates some or all of the units:

Company Style Guide
Company logo
- .AI or .EPS
Any associated Fonts
URL to a webpage that you would like us to base the “look & feel” of the unit on
Optional Items
- Product Images/General Creative (i.e. Banners, .PSD or High Res .jpg, .gif, .pdf or .png and associated Fonts)
- Flash Creative (Native .FLA)
- Any call to action you would like us to use (50 characters or less including spaces, for some ad units it may be less)

Please take note that timelines are all based on receipt of the SIO, client creative assets, and timely approvals. If there are any delays then the live date will be impacted.

Category Sponsorship Quick Facts

Ad Unit	Size	Provided by	Client Tracking	Lead time including approvals
Chart Badge	N/A	IDGCSMB	1×1 pixel & URL	72 hrs if client supplied otherwise 10 business days

Client Creative needed for custom ad units created by IDGCSMB

These are the products (all should have simple functionality, meaning only one click through and limited animation if any):

Leave Behind/Presenter Logo
Sponsored Products (Post or Review)
Video IMU

Client Assets needed, as many as possible (items in Bold are required):

Company logo – .AI or .EPS
Product Images/General Creative (i.e. Banners) - .PSD or High Res .jpg, .gif, .pdf or .png and associated Fonts
Flash Creative - Native .FLA and associated Fonts
Video - MP4 preferred but will accept .FLV
URL to a webpage that you would like us to base the “look & feel” of the unit on
Any call to action you would like us to use (50 characters or less including spaces, for some ad units it may be less)
A re-direct URL for the user to click to
Impression and click tracker

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Rich Media

Flash
Must have clickTag. All Flash creative must have a backup static image for non-Flash users (30k or less file size)
Please send click-thru URLs separately and do not imbed directly into Flash

Third-Party Vendors
We accept all 3rd-party tags. We prefer DoubleClick InRed, javascript, or iframes (in that order).

All Rich Media
1. Must have a close button visible at all times
2. Sound must be user initiated
3. Expandable units must not exceed the specs above.
4. Mouse over/Mouse off is accepted for expandable unit.

Video
1280×720 (16:9)
Uncompressed .mov, .avi, or .mpg file. Video will be re-encoded
15 sec preferred, 30 sec max
1×1 Tracking pixel
Click Tracker/Click-through URL

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Pre-Roll Video

Resolution: 562×316 (1024×576 full screen)
Aspect Ratio: 16:9
File Size: We don’t have a hard limit on file size, but we do require the bitrate to be under 1500kbps. Most files will hover around 6MB per clip.
File Format: We convert everything to M4V and OGG, but we can generally read any other format
Frame Rate: 29.97 FPS
Codecs Accepted: We use h.264/aac for our M4V clips, and theora/vorbis for OGG. We can accept most codecs as input though, since we use ffmpeg for our conversions

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Text

Sponsored Post	Headline: 50 characters, including spaces Description: Up to 70 characters, including spaces 1×1 Tracking pixel Click Tracker/Clickthrough URL Image – 140x88px
Today’s Special Offers	Title: Up to 50 characters, including spaces Description: Up to 100 characters, including spaces Click Tracker/Clickthrough URL

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Third Party HTML E-Mail

Content Requirements:

All advertisers must provide company contact information either directly in the body of the email or in through a link. That contact information must include an email address and/or phone number.

All software advertisers must include system requirement specifications for their product either in the body of the email or through a link.

All email creative ads must clearly display the sale price of the product or service being promoted.

All messages must include unsubscribe copy for insertion in the footer of the email blast. This must include advertiser’s physical address, as well as an unsubscribe e-mail address and/or link to where a user may unsubscribe. The copy should read as follows:
This email was sent from PCWorld. Your email address has not been shared with Company XYZ. If you wish to have your email address excluded from future mailings containing promotional content from Company XYZ please click here. Company XYZ is located at:123 Main Street, Suite 987, Town, ST 12345.

Technical Considerations:

Please be aware that recipients use different platforms, browsers and e-mail clients. Hence, not all recipients will be able to view HTML e-mail. It is required that you also provide a text version of your message.
Do not use frames or rich media in HTML messages. JavaScript is not allowed, as many e-mail clients and applications will strip out the code, rendering messages unreadable.
Do not use CSS (Cascading Style Sheets); rather, make sure your table, font and other definitions are hard-coded in HTML.
There is no limit on the number of urls you include in your message.

Graphics:
Please be aware that up to 50% of email readers will view your message with the images turned off. We recommend your call to action and other important information about your offer are not presented only within images, but are displayed in the text of the creative as well.

Graphics that are referenced in the HTML file must be hosted on the Advertiser’s server(s). Please make sure to verify that the servers can handle the traffic generated by the mailing.
Graphic images in an HTML file are referenced to the URL where the images are stored. Each URL that references an image must be fully qualified.
Please optimize any images you use for the Web. This will keep the file size of the email down which helps deliverability and rendering.
To improve download response time, limit the number of images used in a file. The more images that are used, the longer the download time.
Use “alt” tags for the more prominent graphics referenced in the HTML messages. An “alt” tag lets you display a text message while a graphic is loading. Recipients who use an e-mail program with an Auto Preview feature, such as Outlook, will view your message instead of just the file name.

Message Design:

The design of your message is the most important element in the success of an HTML e-mail campaign. It would be helpful to keep the message to the width of the screen so recipients do not have to scroll across to see the entire design. In order to make the message viewable to the majority of users, we suggest that HTML messages are set-up in a table with the width set to a maximum of 700.
Above all, keep the HTML simple, with no JavaScript, no rich media (flash, video, etc.) and no CSS.

Other Considerations:

All HTML messages will have a branded (PCWorld, Macworld or TechHive) header and footer added.
We are not responsible for making changes to a Mailer’s HTML message. We ask that it be complete at the time of submission for approval.
HTML creative is due five business days prior to the scheduled deployment date for approval and testing.
We will honor any suppression file that you provide.

Other

HTML Newsletter
300×250 Static Image (No animated GIFs)
Clickthrough URL

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Submissions Guidelines

Files may be added to our Ad FTP folder:
Host: ftp.pcworld.com
User ID: adops
Password: rememberme
All creative must function uniformly on both Mac and PC platforms as well as multiple browsers
such as Internet Explorer, Safari, and Mozilla Firefox.

Creative Deadlines:
Banner 2 business days prior to launch date
Flash: 5 business days prior to launch date

Note: If creative does not conform to spec, it will not be placed online, which may delay the launch date.
For publisher-served creative, the maximum amount of creatives that can be served is 4 per placement.
If you plan to swap or rotate multiple creatives on PCWorld, please consider using 3^rd-Party tags
so that you may swap the creative on your end.