Introducing expandable ads on AdSense sites

We're excited to introduce to you expandable ads, a new type of ad that can appear on your pages. Expandable ads are rich media ads that can expand beyond the original size of the ad unit, following a user-initiated action. This creates more real estate for the ad, allowing for more interaction from interested users. For instance, expandable ads may stream a movie trailer, show video game clips, or display various views of an item for sale.

Expandable ads will be served as third-party ads and will be created by Google-certified rich media vendors for the top display advertisers in our network. And like other Google ads, you'll earn based on whether the expandable ads on your site are priced on a cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-impression (CPM) basis. Keep in mind that you'll generate earnings from CPC expandable ads when a user visits the advertiser's landing page, and not when a user simply clicks to expand the ad.


We thought you might have more questions about the launch of expandable ads, so we've addressed a few key points below:

Will expandable ads alter my site's layout or be disruptive to my users?
No. In order to protect the publisher and user experience, we've created several policies around how expandable ads work:

• Ads will expand only after a user clicks and interacts with the ad. Mouseovers or rollovers won't trigger the ad, in order to prevent accidental expansions.
  
• An expandable ad won't expand more than double its width or height.
  
• Once expanded, the ad will appear as a layer over the page content so that your content will not be modified or shifted in any way.
  
• The user may close the expanded panel at any time.
  
• All expandable ads must comply with our standard AdWords image ad policies.
  

How can I show expandable ads on my site?
You're automatically eligible to receive expandable ads if you've added the AdSense code directly into your site's source code and you've enabled image ads. Please note that expandable ads are currently only available to specific advertisers located in the U.S., who can bid on specific sites where they'd like their ads to appear.

You won't need to upload any special "iFrame-buster" files from third-party vendors onto your own servers to allow these new types of ads to expand on your site. Although we don't currently offer expandable ads for all ad serving solutions, we're actively working to support more implementation methods soon, and we thank you for your patience in the meantime.

Can I filter specific expandable ads shown on my site?
Yes - like the other ads on your pages, you can use your Competitive Ad Filter to block contextually-targeted expandable ads. Please note that for third-party ads, we recommend using the top level domain (e.g. 'example.com' instead of 'example.com/sample.html'). Additionally, you'll still be able to use your Ad Review Center to block specific placement-targeted expandable ads. In the Ad Review Center, expandable ads will be classified under the "Rich Media" ad format.

To learn more about expandable ads, please read our FAQs.

Updated eligibility section for accuracy

Posted by Courtney Chin - Third-party Ad Serving Specialist