End of august 2020, this update will go in effect
Google announced Chrome will start blocking heavy, resource-draining advertisements by the end of August 2020. The original statement can be found here. An ad will be considered heavy if the user has not interacted with it (has not tapped or clicked it) and/or if it meets any of the following criteria:
- Uses the main CPU thread for more than 60 sec in total
- Uses the main CPU thread for more than 15 sec in any 30-sec window
- Uses more than 4 MB of network bandwidth
With these upcoming changes, we would like to encourage our clients to consider alternative ad experiences in Mobile Web environments, especially if they include auto-play video. We recommend switching to tap-to-play video experiences or reducing the quality and/or length of the video asset itself. Additionally;
Avoid using large assets.
Reduce the usage of auto-play settings (e.g., in Video, Swipey, Swipey Group and Transition components).
Always load assets after user interaction in Expandable experiences (e.g. move videos and other large assets to the expanded unit).
Be careful with custom coding. Do not include any extra Javascript code that might trigger high CPU usage, and avoid using custom code to load large external assets into your creative.
As always, reach out for questions.