2026 Ad Specs, Deadlines & Deliverables
Please refer to the quick links below to access the art specifications and deliverables related to your digital ad plan with The Financial Brand. Please ensure your deliverables are sent in a timely manner and in the exact format requested below.
Questions? Contact The Financial Brand team: [email protected]
Quick Links to Specs:
Deadlines
Here are the deadlines you need for all deliverables detailed below. The month in which your ad is scheduled to publish is indicated in bold type.
Important! Meeting deliverable deadlines is critical, as we are often unable to reschedule any items in your marketing plan. The delivery dates provided below ensure our advertising team has adequate time to review, build, and test your ads/emails. If you think you may miss a deadline, please email [email protected] immediately so we can discuss options.
January 2026 – Deliver on or before Monday, December 15th, 2025
Online Display Ads
Best Practices and Disclaimers
Important: All ads are subject to review and approval. Ads for live or virtual conferences will not be accepted.
Tip for success: Use headlines and copy that feels “editorial”. Webinars, podcasts, case studies and reports all make great content for advertorials and promo text ads.
Recommended: Use tracking links/UTMs or similar URLs. For the most accurate reporting, provide a unique tracking link for each ad location and/or landing page. If you are re-running an advertorial or promo text, you should still provide a new, unique URL.
Flex-Width Jumbo Banner
Sidebar Ad
Pop-Up Ad
Parallax Ad
Native Ad
Push-Up Ad
Exclusive Newsletter Sponsor
A and one promotional text location P in each issue.
Use these advertising locations to promote case studies, webinars, online demos, videos, blog posts, white papers — anything you like!
Best Practices and Disclaimers
Important: All ads are subject to review and approval. Ads for live or virtual conferences will not be accepted.
Tip for success: Use headlines and copy that feels “editorial”. Webinars, podcasts, case studies and reports all make great content for advertorials and promo text ads.
Recommended: Use tracking links/UTMs or similar URLs. For the most accurate reporting, provide a unique tracking link for each ad location and/or landing page. If you are re-running an advertorial or promo text, you should still provide a new, unique URL.
Promotional Text
Advertorial
Build Your Own Newsletter
Best Practices and Disclaimers
Important: All ads are subject to review and approval. Ads for live or virtual conferences will not be accepted.
Tip for success: Use headlines and copy that feels “editorial”. Webinars, podcasts, case studies and reports all make great content for advertorials and promo text ads.
Recommended: Use tracking links/UTMs or similar URLs. For the most accurate reporting, provide a unique tracking link for each ad location and/or landing page. If you are re-running an advertorial or promo text, you should still provide a new, unique URL.
Step 1: Provide Promotional Text
Promotional Text
Step 2: Choose Three Articles from
The Financial Brand
Click here to view our article archive. Do not select articles currently on the homepage or stories that have been published on the site in the last 30 days. Ideally, articles are not more than 18 months old, to ensure content is relevant.
Article 1 link
Article 2 link
Article 3 link
Step 3: Submit an Advertorial
Each must have a different graphic, headline and body copy. However, both advertorials can have the same link. Webinars, podcasts, case studies and reports all make for great advertorial content. Advertorials cannot promote a conference or other in-person event.
Advertorial
Custom Email Campaign
Best Practices and Disclaimers
Important: All ads are subject to review and approval. Ads for live or virtual conferences will not be accepted.
Tips for success: To help ensure your email loads properly and looks as intended, check responsiveness prior to sending.
Keep in mind: Emails cannot be co-branded. Please do not mention
The Financial Brand.
- Email subject line — Max. 60 characters (emojis not allowed)
- Summary/preview snippet — Max. 120 characters (emojis not allowed)
Preferred Format: Please provide HTML code — responsive for mobile. If your HTML code is not mobile responsive, we reserve the right to rebuild it in our own responsive template. HTML code must not include any script tags — JavaScript or otherwise
Alternate Format: If you are unable to generate HTML code for your email, please let us know ASAP.To expedite the construction of your Custom Email campaign, will need to submit:
- A rough layout of your campaign
- All copy in a Microsoft Word file (max. 400 words)
- All images as separate, individual Photoshop files. If you want to include a hero/header image, the dimensions can be no smaller than 550 x 316.
- Links to your landing pages
- Your preferred fonts
- Color callouts in Web-safe hex form (e.g., #AF0198)
- Any other design direction that may be helpful
Custom Articles
- Agreement on topic and structure of the custom article.
- Research and writing, including interviews with executives, SMEs, clients and other sources provided by you, subjects independently identified by The Financial Brand staff, as well as sourcing of relevant data and other supporting material.
- Review by you of an initial draft provided by The Financial Brand.
- Revisions or edits based on feedback from you.
- Your approval of final draft.
- We DO seek to understand the opportunities and pain points experienced by your target audience, and target story ideas that help the reader while speaking to the problem, which we can define from your brand’s point of view.
- We DO position your executives as experts, typically by quoting them.
- We DO include links to your proprietary research, data and case studies, where relevant. A product name might incidentally come in here, but it cannot come across as a pitch, but rather a truly organic part of the article.
- We DO maintain editorial credibility by describing the environment accurately, even if this isn’t how you might describe things in a sales brochure.
- We DON’T typically include product names or explicit brand messages, except when required for a reference to make sense.
- We DON’T quote executives explicitly pitching products.
- We DON’T use trademarks and other non-journalistic brand marks.
- We DON’T shy away from journalistic mention of the realities faced in the segment, even if it touches on points of skepticism you might avoid in an advertisement.
Contributed Articles
- Product announcements, leadership changes, or other corporate news
- Promotion of any brand or company or the use of a specific product or solution
- Controversial or tendentious content in the sole judgement of The Financial Brand.
- Headline: 8-12 words max, no more than 45 characters
- Short blurb: One- or two-sentence description of the article’s thesis and argument; no more than 24 words, 80 characters
- Long blurb: Two- to three-sentence description of the article’s thesis and argument; no more than 45 words
- Executive summary: Three brief, bullets of one to two sentences each, summarizing the argument of the article.
- Body copy: 1200-1700 words, broken into 2-4 sections with subheads
- Author’s bio: No more than 75 words at the end of each guest article.
- Max horizontal width: 620 pixels
- Image File Format: PNG or JPG
Whitepapers
- Focused on a single theme or topic
- Derived from content previously published in clients’ Custom, Contributed, and Editorial articles The content may be reorganized and rewritten by The Financial Brand.to create a coherent whole, subject to client approval.
- No new content will be created or added. For new content, ask about our Custom Reports.
