Microsoft Advertising SDK for Windows Apps

In September at the BUILD Conference in Anaheim, CA, Microsoft shared the Windows 8 developer preview with thousands of eager developers.  Then yesterday, in San Francisco, Microsoft outlined a variety of monetization options for developers including details for the Windows Store as well as confirming that Windows 8 will support advertising in applications.

Well today, I’m happy to announce the release of the technical preview version of the Microsoft Advertising SDK for Windows 8. For a developer like me this is a great day! The technical preview SDK gives developers the ability to begin experimenting with integrating advertising in their Windows 8 apps as well as a chance to try out some of the new exciting ad formats.

As most of you know, Windows 8 offers an unprecedented scale opportunity for existing developers to embrace the app marketplace model.

At Microsoft Advertising, our focus is to enable best-in-class ad products which in turn will enable you to delight your users in new and innovative ways. We will be working with the top advertisers in the industry to ensure not only beautiful immersive experiences (figure 1), but also demand for traditional IAB standard display (figure 2) and Text ad formats (figure 3).

Figure 1. New Full screen Immersive Rich Ads

Figure 2. Standard Display Ad formats in the Grid App Template

Figure 3. Standard Text Ad formats

How to Get Started with Windows 8 Metro style apps using HTML

Being respectful of developers’ time, the SDK is very simple to use and can be integrated into your new Windows applications with a few quick and easy steps.

The first step is to download and the install the SDK from here.  For existing Windows Phone 7 SDK users, these steps and the SDK API should be very familiar.

In order to receive live ads from real advertisers, you need to register and setup your account at https://pubcenter.microsoft.com/ (figure 4). 

Integrate the SDK by adding a reference to the newly installed Microsoft.Advertising.winmd assembly. Also, copy the Ads folder (Found in Program Files (x86)/Microsoft SDKs/Advertising for Windows8) to the root of your application.

Finally add a script reference to the Ads/ad.js file and integrate the following code snippet into your application at the location you want to place your advertising.

NOTE: The ad control requires that you declare the “Internet (Client)” capability in your application manifest which allows the ad control to fetch the ads over the internet.

Once you have signed up in PubCenter, you can replace the ApplicationID and AdUnitID with the values issued by PubCenter.

Figure 4. PubCenter Sign-up

It is as simple as that!

The technical preview version will support the following ad sizes for live ads 300x250, 728x90, 250x250,160x600. In “test mode” additional experiences, including full screen ads can be enabled. (See the help file for the full list)

It is important to note that during the technical preview we will not support payout for developers as applications would only be running in local emulator mode. However in the near future, we will provide more details on payout, so you can know when to expect your first check in the mail.

In my next post, I will share the steps required to integrate advertising in the Windows 8 style apps using XAML as well as details on the upcoming Beta version of the Ads SDK.

Until then, please play with the SDK and let us know what you think! We look forward to your feedback.

Best,

Ian Ferreira, Principle Development Manager, Ads R&D, Microsoft.

Helpful Links:

·         Register your Windows 8 app on https://pubcenter.microsoft.com. Please email or visit this community and ask questions once you have registered.