Update about our ad units following Chrome Heavy Ad Intervention

Google announced that as of the end of August 2020, they would start blocking in Chrome ads that are resource-heavy and use an egregious amount of CPU or network bandwidth.

As consumers are increasingly frustrated with ads that disrupt their experience, interrupt content and slow browsing, this kind of announcement is good news for the industry.

Which kind of ads is concerned by this measure?

Will be considered heavy - and therefore will be unloaded - ads with which the user has not interacted, and which meet one of the following criteria:
• Use the main thread for more than 60 seconds in total
• Use the main thread for more than 15 seconds in any 30 second window
• Use more than 4 megabytes of network bandwidth

What does it mean in practical terms?

When an ad reaches the limits stated above, the ad will be unloaded and replaced by a message stating that the ad was removed because it used too many resources. When announced in May 2020, only 0.3% of ads exceeded the threshold fixed by Google.

Are Sublime ad units concerned about this announcement?

At Sublime, we have always strived to deliver formats that respect the user experience, and our Technical Specifications are compliant with the Better Ads Standards from the Coalition for Better Ads.

In this respect, our ad units will not be blocked in Chrome even if they include the most creative features possible.

As to weight:
• We use market-standard assets, both for video and images.
• Sublime tags do not exceed 100kb

As to CPU:
• Even though our tag contains lot of logic and creativity, taking up half of the CPU time for 30sec is a high bar which Sublime does not exceed.

Next steps to continue combining digital & creativity

Creativity takes many forms, and as the technological revolution pushes forward, there is now no excuse for a lack of creativity in your digital campaigns. Nevertheless, to make the most of it, brands and agencies need to follow rules:

• Avoid using large assets
• Load assets after user interaction in Expandable experiences
• And always select the right partner to embrace creativity at scale.