We’ll level with you: compression wasn’t sexy. At least, it wasn’t until the series Silicon Valley gave viewers a fly-on-the-wall view as techies in California rallied to make Pied Piper, a revolutionary compression algorithm, a success on the open market.
Although Silicon Valley is a fictional series, it’s based on many truths. Here at Nexd, we think compression is not only sexy, but essential – and we want to talk about it. Compression, that is – and why you need to bear it in mind when creating ads.
These are the biggest changes in the ad world – are you prepared?
Why is compression so often a problem?
When a file is compressed, typically the program will delete part of the file’s information. This is a natural consequence of compression, but it can lead to later problems with resolution and quality.
How do you know that your carefully planned product shoot will look as good in the online release as it did when you got the high res photo files from your photographer? With most compression software, you don’t. You just have to hold your breath and hope for the best.
With Nexd ads, it’s a different situation. Thanks to our unique Asset Optimizer compression technique, we ensure that we don’t lose any visual clarity and quality even after we compress files to a tenth of their original size. You can be confident that your beautiful images still look slick when the ad is viewed online. When you add your creatives to Nexd Campaign Manager, you can be sure they’ll still look great.
Google is out to get you
There is another issue: Google’s recent heavy-ad blocking, particularly on its Chrome browser. We believe this is maybe the single biggest issue affecting the advertising industry right now, and it is not being discussed nearly enough, in part due to the many adtech companies’ hesitation to raise an issue that directly affects their customer base when they don’t have a solution.
What does this have to do with compression?
Google is trying to force ‘heavy’ or bloated ads, such as those rich media ads made with HTML5, off Chrome. There are several reasons for this – the poor user experience on slower devices, the annoyance factor of some ads that promise interactivity without delivering, and potentially a wish on the part of Google for advertisers to move towards platforms it approves of (or owns).
This all means that for an interactive ad to be featured on the world’s most popular browser, it has to be light. That’s where Nexd’s unique and effective compression comes in. Most adtech software compresses in some way, Nexd is the only platform that compresses up to 10x with no discernible change to the creative on any platform. If you want to check this out for yourself, contact our support team, and we’ll be glad to demonstrate how your ads will look as Nexd ads. You can even use our free online Asset Optimizer to optimize other files!
Your ads need a diet
The future of ads will be smaller, lighter, and more streamlined files. Ads need to go on a diet to fit into the requirements of giants like Google. This is unavoidable, and like any diet, you’ll hear from many people who just don’t want to do it right now – they’d rather wait until tomorrow, or next week, or someday.
We want to bring you a future-proof ad experience right now. Whether you’re one part of a larger marketing team, or you’re the head of a small startup that needs a way to create nimble, viral ads from scratch, Nexd has the solution to help you. Talk to us, and we’ll be glad to tell you more.