Key Points

  • Takeover ads are attractive to big buyers, making them a high-value piece of inventory for publishers, commanding upwards of $10-12 CPMs.
  • Playwire facilitates takeover units and demand for publishers, but publishers have to make their sites ready to run the units.
  • Fortunately, the process of preparing your site for takeover ads is fairly straightforward.

Takeover ads are big, splashy and really valuable for publishers. The typical CPMs from these premium units are enough to get pretty much any publisher excited, and the Playwire team is always excited to set up takeover ads on publisher websites.

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What are Takeover Ads and Why Should You Run Them?

Takeovers are one the most lucrative ad units Playwire offers for publishers. Advertisers will pay top dollar for the level of visibility they can get from this ad unit. Below are a few additional reasons why takeovers are one of the most effective units Playwire offers:

  • Takeovers are capable of commanding a $25-35 Pageview CPM
  • They utilize a package of 3 display ad units in addition to the skin, meaning when you run these packages, you are making significantly more off of your display slots than you can when selling them alone.
  • Takeovers do NOT create a negative user experience. In fact, takeovers can reduce ad clutter, actually improving overall user experience.

How to Get Set Up to Run Takeovers

And as much as we would love to do every part of it, we do need you to do a little bit on your end to prepare your website for takeover ads. But don’t worry — we’re going to cover everything in the article below, and we’re always here to get on a call and help you get this done. 

With that, let’s dive into how to prepare your website for takeover ads.

Don’t stop there — we have plenty more premium ad units to push your yield higher and higher. Reach out to learn about what you might be missing.

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Monsters & Critics Case Study

Takeover ads are a recipe for higher CPMs. And like any recipe, we have a list of ingredients. Here’s what you’ll need to prepare your website for takeover ads:

The Desktop Leaderboard

One of two ad units you’re going to need to do takeover ads is the desktop leaderboard. This unit is going to need to have the 970 x 250 size enabled. It’s going to need to be an above the fold (ATF) unit, too.

Place the desktop leaderboard at the top of the content in its own transparent container. The margins of your site must also be transparent. That way, the skin can blend seamlessly into it all around. You don’t have to do anything to make sure the proper skin is served because it’s actually served directly through this desktop leaderboard unit.

A Medium Rectangle

The second ad unit you’ll need in order to make takeover ads happen is a simple medium rectangle with the 300 x 350 size enabled. This one also needs to be an ATF unit.

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An Opaque Site Background

You also need to make sure that your site content has an opaque background. That prevents the skin in the background from bleeding through and wrecking the user experience of being able to read or see that content that is center stage. If your site has a footer, make sure that has an opaque background, too.

A 100-Pixel-Max Top Navigation

Does your site have a top navigation menu at the very top of the page? Not all sites have one, but if yours does, it will need to be a maximum height of 100 pixels in order to run takeover ads. If your site doesn’t have a top navigation, that is completely fine.

Site Content Width of 1,070 Pixels Max

This might be the most important ingredient on the list: Your site has to have a content width of 1,070 pixels maximum. Anything wider could prevent the takeovers from being fully visible or clickable.

 

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What Comes Next

When we hear from you that you’re willing and able to make the changes necessary to run takeover ads on your website, this is what comes next:

Implement the Changes

We’ll ask you to go ahead and implement the changes. These are mostly straightforward adjustments for most publishers, but remember: We are always here to help with any aspect of this process that is giving you trouble.

We Test Everything

Most publishers choose to make the changes on a single page or staging site and send us the link. Any way you want to do that is fine. Whatever form you send the changes to us in, we then test everything out to make sure it’s all working properly.We also get a preview link from Google Ad Manager to make sure everything looks proper there, too.

If anything needs to be adjusted, our Partner Success team will work with you to make sure it gets done. And once everything looks good on a preview link we’re good to go.

Ad Ops Takes It from There

This is where our Ad Ops team steps in and starts running high-value takeovers on your site. They make sure you’re maximizing your yield while running vertical-specific and audience-appropriate takeovers. And you sit back and let the revenue roll in.

Takeover Ad FAQs

We’ve covered the basic process of preparing your website for takeover ads, but you may still have questions. See below for the answers, or get in touch with our team.

Can I Do Takeover Ads Temporarily?

Absolutely. Because the adjustments you have to make to your site are relatively simple, they’re easy to undo if you decide that takeover ads aren’t a good fit for your audience or preferences.

Do I Have to Condense My Site Width?

Yes. And this is a major pain point for many publishers who simply don’t want to have to condense their content. But we will need the site to be 1,070 pixels wide at maximum to properly run takeover ads.

Can I Do Takeovers on Just a Part of My Site?

You can, and while it can create some reporting and tracking confusion, we are open to setting takeovers up on just part of your site. This typically works best if you only do homepage takeovers, but if you have different ideas, please bring it up. We’ll figure out something that works.

How Do Takeovers Work on Mobile?

Preparing to run takeover ads on mobile is actually somewhat simpler than doing so on desktop. That’s because you only need to have the 320 x 100 bottom rail unit enabled. That’s where the takeover will show, so once it’s enabled, you’re all set.

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Ready to Start? Reach Out

Preparing your website for takeover ads doesn’t have to be a headache. We’re here to make it as easy — and as profitable — as possible for you. Ready to get started? Reach out to our team.

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