Google: Flash Ads Are Finally Going Out, HTML5 Ads Are In

Flash-based ads will no longer be accepted starting January 2, 2017.

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After taking many steps in this direction, Google announced Tuesday that it will finally stop serving Flash formatted display ads.

As of June 30, 2016, advertisers will no longer be able to upload new Flash ads into AdWords or DoubleClick. The final hit will happen on January 2, 2017, when Flash ads will no longer be eligible to run on Google’s ad networks. All display ads are to be built in HTML5.

Oddly, video ads built in Flash won’t be affected by these deadlines, the company says. There’s no word when similar changes will affect video.

This is the final of many steps Google has taken to rid its systems of Flash. Google began auto-converting Flash ads to HTML5 on mobile devices that don’t support Flash in February 2015. In September, Google started pausing Flash-based ads by default in its Chrome browser. Last January, YouTube made the HTML5 player its default.

Amazon stopped taking Flash ads last fall. Flash creator Adobe has itself made it clear it’s moving away from Flash to HTML5, rebranding Flash Professional as Animate CC in December.

Google said the move will “enhance the browsing experience for more people on more devices.” Advertisers are encouraged to migrate their ad formats to HTML5 ahead of the deadlines.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Ginny Marvin
Contributor
Ginny Marvin was formerly Third Door Media’s Editor-in-Chief, running the day-to-day editorial operations across all publications and overseeing paid media coverage. Ginny Marvin wrote about paid digital advertising and analytics news and trends for Search Engine Land, Marketing Land and MarTech Today. With more than 15 years of marketing experience, Ginny has held both in-house and agency management positions. She can be found on Twitter as @ginnymarvin.

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