Advertise with us

Advertise on GreatSchools and get your message in front of our large audience of engaged parents. GreatSchools can target your campaign by state or grade level; we offer all traditional ad units as well as newsletter sponsorships.

For more information about advertising, please contact the Media Sales team.

Advertiser guidelines and specs

Overall Advertising Acceptability Guidelines
All Advertising materials submitted to GreatSchools must be in accordance with existing advertising criteria and specifications, and are subject to approval of GreatSchools.

GreatSchools reserves the right to remove or reject any Advertisement that doesn’t meet our standards of acceptance, doesn’t comply with our policies and guidelines (including our Privacy Policy), or that does not comply with any applicable law or regulation. GreatSchools will attempt to negotiate changes with the Advertiser/Agency, however, if changes cannot be negotiated, the Advertisement will be declined. No change will be made without the written consent of the Agency/Advertiser.

GreatSchools maintains clear separation between editorial matter and its Advertisements, and reserves the right to label an Advertisement with the word “Advertisement” or “Ad” or “From our Partner” to make clear the distinction between editorial material and Advertising. The Advertiser name and/or logo must appear with all Advertisements. It must be clear to users that any Advertisement has been paid for by the Advertiser, and may not be mistaken as GreatSchools content in any way.

GreatSchools may decline to accept advertising that is misleading, inaccurate, fraudulent, makes unfair competitive claims, or doesn’t comply with our standards of decency and dignity (including but not limited to Better Business Bureau’s ‘top scam’ lists).

Advertisements containing the following will not be accepted:

Advocacy/Opinion Advertising

• Advertisements that attacks, criticizes or demeans any individual, race, ethnicity, religion, sex, institution, firm, business, profession, organization or sexual orientation will not be accepted.
• Any Advertisement that promotes illegal activities or actions are not acceptable.

Cigarettes/Cigars/Tobacco

• Advertisements for cigarettes, cigars, pipe tobacco, chewing tobacco and snuff are unacceptable.

Content Sensitivity

• GreatSchools may decline to run advertisements adjacent to any content that it deems sensitive, at the discretion of GreatSchools.

Firearms

• Advertisements for firearms, handguns, rifles and ammunition are unacceptable.

Language and “Good Taste”

• In the opinion of GreatSchools, any Advertisement that is indecent, vulgar, suggestive or otherwise offensive to good taste is unacceptable.

Political

• Advertisements that endorse an individual political candidate or political party will not be accepted.
• Advertisements that endorse a non-educational political proposition or policy will not be accepted.
• As an unbiased site, GreatSchools will accept Advertisements for ballot issues that are Educational in nature, subject to approval.

Simulation of Editorial Content

• Any Advertisement that includes elements usually associated with GreatSchools editorial content or is intended to mimic any element of GreatSchools will not be accepted.
• The use of typefaces, type sizes, colors, or other design elements that mimic the GreatSchools.org editorial content in any way is not acceptable.
• Where an Advertiser’s logo and style guide is similar to that of GreatSchools.org, both parties will come to an agreement that clearly distinguishes Advertisement from the GreatSchools.org product and/or content.

Unsubstantiated Claims

• Advertisements that offer “miracle” diet pills or regimens (i.e. those that claim incredible, unreasonable and/or unsubstantiated weight loss) are unacceptable.
• At our own discretion, GreatSchools may decline any banner Advertisement and any Google Ad Sense Advertisement that promotes or represents products or therapies that have not been proven safe and/or effective for children, especially- though not limited to- children with learning disabilities or AD/HD.

General Advertising Guidelines

Data Collection and Disclosure¹

• Advertisers and their agents must disclose to GreatSchools what data is being collected by them or their agent, what other organizations have access to the data, and how the data will be used.
• Advertiser should not allow their agents to disclose to other parties (not included in the ad serving chain) any data collected from their media placement for analytical purposes without permission from GreatSchools.
• Advertisers and their agents should not use data to retarget advertisements without permission from GreatSchools.
• Advertisers and their agents should not use publisher-provided data to retarget customers in a subsequent campaign, without a separate compensation agreement.
• Advertisers and their agents should ensure that all parties collecting data from technology placed within their own media placements adhere to the same usage and control restrictions to which they are held.

Animation/Looping

• All audio play and video play within banner units must be user-initiated on click.
• All other rich media ad expansion may be user-initiated on mouse-over.
• In Banners: Within ad units defined by fixed in-page dimensions, uninitiated animation can run for a maximum of 30 seconds without being re-initiated by the user, 3 loop maximum.
• Outside Banner: Animation spawned from a fixed dimension ad unit must automatically close after a maximum of 15 seconds and most have a clearly marked “close” button in close proximity to the animation.

Display Guidelines and Time Limits

• Expansion panel must be retractable by mouse-off and have clearly marked ‘close’ button.
• Full page interstitial ads that appear between pages can appear for a maximum of 15 seconds and must close automatically after that. Such ads must also include a clearly marked ‘close’ or ‘skip’ button.
• Ads that partially overlay page content can appear for a maximum of 15 seconds and must close automatically after that, and must include a clearly marked ‘close’ button.
• Survey Floating Ads: GreatSchools reserves the right to limit the number of Survey Ads that are spawned from the site at any given point.

Sounds

• All sound must be user-initiated on click.

Close Buttons

• Any ad or portion of an ad that appears outside of the confines of a fixed in-page ad space must include a clearly marked ‘close’ button.
• For ads that overlay a page, a clearly marked ‘close’ button must be included in close proximity to the overlay portion of the ad. The ad must automatically close after 15 seconds.
• For interstitial ads, a clearly marked ‘close’ or ‘skip’ button must be included in the upper right quadrant of the ad. The ad will automatically redirect after a maximum of 15 seconds.

Frequency Caps

• Frequency cap limitations can be imposed on all ads that overlay or interrupt editorial content. These frequency caps may vary by section and is at the discretion of GreatSchools.
• Frequency caps can also be applied to campaigns at advertiser request, on either a session, hourly or lifetime of a campaign basis. A maximum of one type of cap will be applied per campaign.
• All campaign level frequency caps on ‘directly sold’ campaigns must be applied through GreatSchools ad server. They cannot be set through third party servers.

Clicking to Other Websites

• All click interactions that initiate the load of a new web page must open that web page in a new browser window when clicked.
• A click thru can launch only one new browser window.
• Mouse-over interaction cannot link a user to a new web site.
• Any click-thru included with an ad must take users to the web site of the advertiser who purchased the ad space.

Deceptive or Obtrusive Functionality

• All functionality visually indicated within ads must be working and not designed to deceive.
• Non-functioning drop down menus, radio buttons and text boxes will not be accepted.
• Ads that change a user’s cursor must do so on mouse-over only.
• Ads must not modify any element of a user’s browser or computer settings.
• Ads must not “follow” the users mouse.

Creative Submission

• All ads, including ads running through third party code, must be submitted to GreatSchools for approval.
• Ads for new campaigns or mid-campaign changes that require new creative to be uploaded into the GreatSchools ad server should be provided for testing and review according to normal lead time requirements: 3 business days for standard ads and 5 business days for rich media.

Technical Specifications

General Guidelines

• An active URL must be provided with all creative and cannot exceed 128 characters.
• Alt text must be provided and cannot exceed 50 characters.
• Maximum Z-Index is 500.

Flash Guidelines

• Recommended Flash Version: 9
• Wmode must be set to ‘opaque’.
• Please refer to Adobe’s recommendations
  • Best practices
  • Designers guide
  • Additional information
• SWF file is required.
• GIF/JPG fallback gif is required; Maximum file size is 40k.
• Do not hardcode URLS.
• Include target URL associated with the correct “clickTag” designation.
  • Please attempt to limit clickTags to one per creative.
• The entire unit should be clickable, not just the final frame and animation.
• Flash ads must include clickTAG tracking containing the following actionscript:
  On (release){
getURL(clickTAG, "_blank")
}

Video Guidelines

300k Specs

Total data rate

• 300 kbps.

Audio

• Sound will be site initiated upon play.
• Codec: Fraunhofer mp3.
• Data range: 48 kbps.
• Sample size: 16.
• Sample rate: 44100.
• Channels: mono.

Video

• Codec: On2 VP6 Pro
• Method: 2 Pass VBR
• Data rate: 252 kbps
• Frame size: 480×360
• Maintain aspect ratio: yes
• Frame rate: 29.97 frames/second

500k Specs

Total data rate

• 500 kbps.

Audio

• Sound will be site initiated upon play.
• Codec: Fraunhofer mp3.
• Data range: 64 kbps.
• Sample size: 16.
• Sample rate: 44100.
• Channels: mono.

Video

• Codec: On2 VP6 Pro.
• Method: 2 Pass VBR.
• Data rate: 436 kbps.
• Frame size: 480×360.
• Maintain aspect ratio: yes.
• Frame rate: 29.97 frames/second.

Third Party Tab Guidelines

• GreatSchools must be able to see each ad rotated through a given tag (max of 5 creatives rotated).
• Username/password must be provided to view daily reporting within third party platform.
• Default images must be in place for users who are not flash –enabled.
• Third party servers should contact GreatSchools at least 1 business day prior to rotating new ads in an existing ad campaign and provide the new ads for review.

¹This section is in compliance with IAB suggested best practices. For more information, see “Data Usage and Control Primer: Best Practices and Definitions”, May 2010