Google recently launched a new feature in AdWords that lets advertisers convert Flash ads to HTML5, potentially saving time and money.
“In this increasingly multi-screen world, it’s important for marketers to easily run ads that reach people on different devices,” says Google Display Ads product manager Ashley Jiang. “But with different specs and standards across platforms, this can currently be difficult, especially for marketers who’ve invested in engaging rich media ad units. Since Flash isn’t supported on many tablets, and building a new ad in HTML5 can be expensive and time-consuming, often marketers’ rich media ads aren’t able to run on tablets.”
“Advertisers can now generate an HTML5 version of a Flash image ad with the click of a button, right within the Image Ad upload flow in AdWords,” says Jiang. “Because HTML5 ads can appear on browsers and devices that are incompatible with Flash, running an HTML5 version of an image ad alongside the Flash version in AdWords extends reach across devices. In this initial release, these converted HTML5 ads will show only on iPads, though we hope to extend support to additional tablet and mobile devices in the coming months.”
In the section on converting ads in Google’s AdWords help center, the company does note that ads may not be 100% identical to the Flash ads. You can, of course, preview it though. Filters and blending are not supported.