AdWords Stops Taking Flash Ads Today

What changes today

From today, June 30, AdWords no longer accepts new display ads built in Flash. Google announced the date in February, and DoubleClick follows the same schedule.

Flash ads that are already approved keep running for now. From January 2 they stop being shown altogether.

Nothing in your account breaks this morning, and no warning will arrive in January when a campaign goes quiet. The ads will simply stop appearing.

Which makes this worth an hour of checking in the summer rather than a surprise in the new year.

Why Google is dropping Flash

Flash never ran on iPhones or iPads, and Android phones stopped supporting it years ago. A Flash banner shows nothing at all to most people browsing on a phone.

On computers, browsers increasingly block Flash or pause it until the visitor clicks. Apple has said the next version of Safari for Macs will hide Flash unless the visitor chooses to run it.

An ad that depends on a plugin many people lack is an ad paid for and not seen. HTML5, the standard web pages themselves are built with, runs in every current browser and on phones.

Where Flash ads tend to hide

• Remarketing campaigns set up years ago and left running.
• Seasonal campaigns paused since the last busy period.
• Animated banners a designer supplied as finished files.
• Old ad groups nobody has opened in a long while.
• Campaigns built by an agency that no longer handles the account.

The second causes the most trouble. A campaign paused in March and switched on again in November would run its Flash banners for a few weeks, then stop mid-season, with no Flash replacement allowed.

Checking an account

Open each display campaign in AdWords, paused ones included, and look at every image ad. Anything made in Flash, usually supplied as a file ending in .swf, needs replacing.

Some older Flash ads may already have been converted to HTML5 by Google. Do not assume yours were among them: check each ad, and look at how any converted version actually displays.

If someone else manages the account, ask them which display ads are Flash, what will replace them, and when.

What to replace them with

Image ads are the simplest option: a static picture, or a short animated image within Google's limits on file size and animation length. They run almost everywhere the Display Network reaches.

HTML5 ads can move and respond much as Flash ads did, built with web code instead of a plugin. They have to meet Google's technical requirements, so whoever builds them should check those before starting.

Text ads also run on the Display Network, and for many small businesses a clear text ad does the job without any artwork.

Whichever you choose, supply the sizes the network uses most, not just the single banner shape the old campaign happened to have.

A worked example

A ski tuning shop with two benches and a wax room, on the road up to a local hill, runs a display remarketing campaign from November to February, aimed at people who visited its site the previous season.

Its banners were made four winters ago as animated Flash files: a base grind, a fresh edge, the price of a full tune.

The campaign has been paused since March. Switched back on unchanged in November, it would have run until January 2, then stopped in the busiest weeks of the season.

The owner found this while looking at the account for another reason: every ad in the campaign was Flash, and none could be replaced with Flash after today.

The banners are being rebuilt over the summer as HTML5 and static image ads, in the common sizes, each pointing to the page for booking a tune rather than the home page.

While checking, the designer also found a Flash slideshow still running on that home page, blank on every phone. It is being replaced with ordinary photographs.

Rebuild the message, not just the file

A banner made four years ago may advertise prices, services or a phone number that have changed since. Replacing the format is a chance to check every word.

Display ads are glanced at, not read. One offer, the business name and a reason to click are about as much as a glance takes in.

And send the click to the page that matches the ad, so the visitor lands on the offer they just saw.

Flash elsewhere on your website

If your ads were built in Flash a few years ago, Flash may survive on your site too: an intro page, a menu, a photo gallery, a video player, a rotating banner on the home page.

Each of those is blank on phones and increasingly blocked on computers. The visitor sees an empty box or a message about a missing plugin, and often leaves.

To find it, open the site on a phone and look for gaps. On a computer, right-click anything that moves; a menu mentioning Flash means that part runs on it.

Replacing it with ordinary HTML, images and video that plays in the browser is work worth scheduling now, before more browsers make the decision for your visitors.

The counter-case

Many small advertisers have nothing to do today. An account running only text ads, or image ads in ordinary picture formats, is already clear.

A display campaign that is ending anyway can be left to run out. And there is no need to cram the rebuild into this week, since approved Flash ads keep running until January.

The deadline that matters is the next time you want to change a display ad, because from today that change cannot be made in Flash.

Check every display campaign, paused ones included, and replace Flash before you next need it.

Before the autumn

1. Open every display campaign, paused ones included.
2. Find the ads made in Flash.
3. Ask whoever manages the account what is affected.
4. Order replacements as HTML5 or image ads.
5. Rewrite the offer while you are at it.
6. Check your website for Flash on a phone.
7. Schedule its replacement with your developer.

Step one is where most accounts slip, because the campaigns that cause trouble are the paused ones nobody has opened since they last ran.

Where those clicks should land is also covered in Facebook ads aimed at a radius around the shop.

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