Yahoo! Answers Sponsorship
Last modified on September 6, 2010  |
300×250 | 300×250, 40KB SWF, Flash 10 AS3 or below, 25fps or below, 40KB JPG or GIF |
| Border | Required on all sides of the 300×250 creative if their colour tones do not contrast well with page background | |
| Advertiser logo | 120×30, 20KB static JPG or GIF | |
| Profile name | Should be the name of the partner, or the name of the person representing the the advertiser | |
| Profile image | 38×38, 5KB JPG, can be image of a person or a brand, must not be fictional characters or animals etc | |
| Profile description | 966 characters including spaces or less and written in first person | |
| Sponsor question | 110 characters including spaces or less for actual question, 1000 characters including spaces or less for question details | |
| Flash help | Find useful information like how to build a button in Technical Guidelines | |
| Third party serving | Not allowed | |
| Third party tracking | Click commands and one 1×1 pixel per 300×250 unit | |
| Turnaround time | 5 working days | |
| Guidelines | All ads must follow these Yahoo! guidelines |
Yahoo! Answers is one of the largest properties at Yahoo! and also amongst its peers in the world. It offers a unique category takeover whereby the advertiser engages users by becoming part of the Answers community and asking questions. This facilitates long term interactions between the advertisers and users and is a truly unique offering. Banner real estate also included!
High Level Guidelines
- All final questions, details, and profile descriptions to be posted on Yahoo! Answers must be approved by the Answers Editorial Team.
- Sponsored Questions & Answers should be knowledge seeking and genuine
- Good questions are open-ended, non-polarising, and prompt a deeper exchange of ideas/information related to the sponsor’s business or notable’s cause
- Good answers provide genuine knowledge and information and aim at answering the question asked as precisely and detailed as possible. If needed, they provide a reliable source to guarantee the accuracy of the answer
- Bad questions are veiled advertisements, frivolous, inflammatory, teasers, polling in nature or simply out of the realm of knowledge users would associate with the advertiser
- Bad answers are too general, off topic, or just a pretext to drive traffic from Answers to another site or property for commercial purposes, usually by linking to it without answering the question
300×250 Specifications
- Detailed 300×250 specification can be found here
- Expandable and Floating formats are not available as part of Yahoo! Answers takeover
Advertiser Logo Specifications
- 120×30 JPG or GIF (under 20KB)
- Must be static
- Is clickable to a landing page supplied by the advertiser
Profile Name Specifications
- Should be the name of the partner, or the name of the person representing the the advertiser
- Good examples: “Yahoo! Front Page” (name of Yahoo property), “Symantec” (name of company), “Marian, Symantec’s Internet Safety Advocate” (person representing company)
- Bad examples: “John D” (easily confused with a regular user), “Ollie the Owl” (should be a person, not an animal or mascot), “Mercury Mariner” (should not be an object)
Profile Image Specifications
- Image must be in JPG format and under 5KB, and for best results make it 38×38 pixels in dimensions and make sure it is clearly readable
- can be a photo or an avatar built through Yahoo! Avatars
- Image should represent the advertiser or the advertiser’s representative, whoever is the participant and main “voice”
- We discourage mascots, though if used it should be clear in the profile that the mascot represents the advertiser – the advertiser is the one participating, not the mascot
Profile Description Specifications
- 966 characters including spaces or less
- Written in first person, ie, as I or we
- It can describe the company, or it can be an introduction to the person representing the company
- Avoid using corporate boilerplates and try to sound “real”
- Can include links to your corporate website or to a special promotion
- Good example: “As a dedicated web user I was delighted to take on this new role as Symantec’s Internet Safety Advocate. I enjoy talking with consumers.” Real person, approachable, not too corporate, link to main corporate site, expresses interest in learning more and contributing quality content
- Bad example: “The psychological thriller ‘The Number 23′ stars Jim Carrey as a man whose life unravels after he comes into contact with an obscure book titled The Number 23.” No real person, standard movie boilerplate, overly promotional, not interested in knowledge-seeking or community building
Questions and Answers
- 110 characters including spaces or less for actual question
- 1000 characters including spaces or less for question details
- Questions & Answers should be knowledge seeking and genuine
- They must comply with the Answers editorial guidelines so don’t hesitate to ask the Answers editor to assist you in formulating or rephrasing the questions
- Question may remain open for a maximum of 30 days. Advertisers are strongly encouraged to choose a Best Answer within this timeframe. Best Answers that are chosen by advertisers carry more weight with the community and gives a stronger sense of participation vs. promotion. If no Best Answer has been chosen by the advertiser within the 30 day timeframe, the question will be put to vote and the community will be allowed to vote for a Best Answer
- Good examples (open-ended, non-polarizing, and prompt a deeper exchange of ideas/information): “How can the human race survive the next hundred years“, “How do we support and sustain girls’ interest in science and technology“, “What has locked you into making the same relationship mistakes again and again“
- Bad examples (chatty, silly, polling in nature, elicit one-word responses, veiled advertisements, have no knowledge value, or fall within the asker’s scope of knowledge): “Who should I sing a duet with“, “Which song do you hate the most and why“, “Can you stump me on one of my own movies“
- Question details are optional and not always needed. If they are though, it is OK to include information about why question was asked and to link to informative/educational sites directly related to question. But it is not OK to promote company blatantly or with links
- When selecting a best answer from user responses, please provide a short response (under 300 characters) to explain the reason. Comment must comply with Community Guidelines
Where can this run?
Yahoo! Properties
Flickr- my Yahoo!
- omg!
- Tablet Homepage
Yahoo! Answers- Yahoo! Cars
- Yahoo! Finance
- Yahoo! Front Page
- Yahoo! Games
- Yahoo! Groups
- Yahoo! Horoscopes
- Yahoo! Lifestyle
- Yahoo! Local
- Yahoo! Login
- Yahoo! Mail
- Yahoo! Messenger
- Yahoo! Mobile
- Yahoo! Movies
- Yahoo! Music
- Yahoo! News
- Yahoo! Shopping / Nextag
- Yahoo! Sports / Eurosport
- Yahoo! Travel
- Yahoo! TV
- Yahoo! Video
- Yahoo! Weather
- Yahoo! Web Messenger
Partner Sites
- AOL DE Email
- AOL DE Front Pages
- AOL DE Network
- AOL FR Email
- AOL FR Front Pages
- AOL FR Network
- Dailymotion
- laposte.net
- Last.fm
- musicMe
- Netlog
- Promiflash
- Softonic
- Sport24
- tiempo.com
- VEVO
- ViaMichelin.de
Other
- Run of Yahoo! Network (no DR)
- Yahoo! Direct Response
