Turn Flash Ads Into a GIF, easily!

Turn Flash Ads Into a GIF, easily!
Crakrevenue-blog-Affiliate-Marketing

Webmaster

Written by

Papa Whale

PUBLISHED ON

September 2, 2015

Category

Webmaster

Google Chrome is the world’s most popular web browser—and any day now, they’ll be releasing a major update that essentially says SAYONARA to the Flash support we once knew.

Yep, you read that right — Chrome is ending its Flash support and it’s going to affect you and I, and publishers and affiliates everywhere—unless of course, we’re proactive about it.

What this means for you:

Flash content (such as flash banners) that is not central to a page will essentially pause, causing the flash creative to no longer display as intended for people on Chrome’s next release.

The solution?

GIFs! (and soon, HTML5).

Believe it or not, all browsers support animated GIFs. And let’s face it, GIFs aren’t what they used to be; they're no longer dated and tacky. There's been a major resurgence, and for good reason. GIFs are EVERYWHERE because GIFs are not only fun, but effective.

While our creative team works diligently towards HTML5 banners—animated GIFs remain the best flash ad alternative... and they’ve never been easier to make.

Thanks to these handy tools, maximizing exposure and increasing earnings no longer has to be a pipe dream!

GFYCat

GFYcat is a useful site revolutionizing how the web handles .GIFs

It is .GIF hosting, but with some dandy advantages:

  • Unlimited Size
  • Speed (8 times faster than the average gif)
  • Playback options (Reverse play, slo mo, pause, etc.)
  • Automatically converts to HTML5 video

GIFcam

GIFcam is a downloadable app that can be used on your computer to record anything on the screen, and turn whatever you see into a gif, in mere seconds.

Competitive Edge - Advertise Smarter with GIFs

In a previous lesson, we outlined the importance of uniquely naming your own advertisements, hosting them yourself, and staying clear of Adblock-trigger-words.

Have you seen other webmasters using flash banners to promote a campaign?

Of course you have! That’s because flash banners are typically the #1 choice in marketing today.

Why, you might ask?

First and foremost, they look awesome visually -- and secondly, it’s like a mini-movie on the visitor’s screen, conveying (hopefully) what your product is all about, and enticing them to click (if it looks appealing enough).

And here lies the problem with flash banners... For such a premiere method of advertising, there are still a couple of drawbacks at times:

1 - Flash + Mobile = FAIL

GIFs are superior to flash when it comes down to visitors on mobile devices because well, most of the flash ads just won’t show up. Simple as that.

We’ve talked about the record growth of the mobile market -- and with more and more people buying tablets instead of actual computers. Times are definitely changing, overlooking mobile traffic is not an option anymore.

And if this first reason wasn't already enough, here's another one...

2. Ad network hosting gets blocked quicker

With regard to Ad networks… unfortunately, any and every network in the industry will find their hosted flash banners blocked almost instantly. It’s just the way of the game now. And because the average affiliate relies on sponsors to host their flash creatives, this is where they feel the weight of the drawback.

.GIFs on the other hand, stay animated -- on any device!

Here’s one way to use the information in this article to jiff up your site!

  1. Find an existing flash creative that you really like
  2. Use GIFcam to record it on your screen
  3. Upload the .GIF to GFYCAT
  4. Use your link code to link to the .GIF … And that’s it!

More people will actually see your ads... and they will be animated as INTENDED!

To get a little more fancy, there’s a few lines of javascript you can implement, so the browser can best determine whether to display the .GIF, or the .GIF converted into HTML5 video. Please refer to these instructions on how to embed.

Pretty neat, eh? We just love these tools that know how to make our lives easier!

Do you have any other smart tools you're using that could deserve a spotlight here on the blog? We want to know!

Feel free to suggest in the comments!

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