Interactive Ads — AMP for Email

Interactive Ads are MailAdx ads that readers can use inside the newsletter — vote, answer, open a question, calculate, reveal a code, pick a slot or submit a consented form. They are built with AMP for Email, so the interactive version shows in Gmail, Yahoo Mail and AOL Mail. Every other reader sees a static version of the same ad from the HTML part of the email. For the product overview and live format demos, see Interactive Ads.

How Interactive Ads work

An AMP email has two versions of the same message: an AMP part (text/x-amp-html) that AMP-capable mail apps render, and an HTML part that every other mail app shows. An interactive ad unit gives the publisher a snippet for each:

• AMP snippet — static and identical in every send. When a reader opens the email, the mail app fetches the ad section from MailAdx and the ad server decides then, using the same waterfall as display and native ads. Re-opening the email fetches a fresh decision.
• HTML fallback snippet — for the same placement. It serves the creative's required static fallback as a native image, so Apple Mail, Outlook, forwarded copies and emails older than 30 days still show the ad.

Cookies are stripped in AMP email, so the reader is identified the same way as in display and native tags: the eh merge tag carrying the SHA-256 hash of the lower-cased email address. A missing or invalid hash gets no ad.

Formats

Any format can carry a countdown (“ends in 2 days”); the end time is also enforced when the ad is chosen. Calculators use formulas from a vetted MailAdx template library (EMI, SIP or savings, ROI, price × quantity) — never advertiser code.

Setting up an interactive ad unit (Publishers)

1. Check that your sending platform supports AMP for Email (beehiiv, Substack, Kit, Ghost and Mailchimp do not).
2. Create an ad unit with Format = Interactive.
3. Set the position (top, middle or bottom) and slot: top and middle units use a fixed height; a unit placed directly above your footer can be elastic, which grows to fit the ad and collapses when there is none.
4. Choose the formats you accept, your theme and your label (Sponsored, Partner or Advertisement).
5. Declare your sending addresses. A unit cannot go active without at least one, and it serves nothing to emails from other senders.
6. Optionally choose a free house module (reader poll, rating or feedback) to fill a fixed slot when no ad wins.
7. Copy the snippets: the component scripts go in the AMP <head>, the style rules in your <style amp-custom>, the body snippet where the ad goes, and the fallback snippet in the same place in your HTML part.
8. Send a test to your own inbox and upload its .eml for the readiness check, then register your sender — see the AMP sender registration guide.

Platforms that use {{ }} in templates would otherwise swallow the ad's template, so the snippet is wrapped in your platform's raw/verbatim syntax. Platforms MailAdx has not verified get a generic snippet with a warning.

Readers type their email into lead forms. Prefilling it from your platform's merge tag is not available yet; when it is, it will be off by default, switched on per unit, and the address will be stored only if the reader submits the form with consent.

Creating an interactive creative (Advertisers)

1. Go to Creatives → New → Interactive and pick a format.
2. Fill in the builder; the live preview runs the real AMP runtime with phone, desktop and fallback views.
3. Fill in the required static fallback — headline, body, image or logo, button — prefilled from the interactive fields.
4. For lead, subscribe and RSVP formats, add your privacy-policy URL (HTTPS, required).
5. Submit for review. Automated checks run first: field lengths, HTTPS links, images, a reachable landing page, lead fields from the allowed list, exactly one correct quiz answer, RSVP slots in the future, a coupon pool or shared code, two to eight carousel slides.
6. Create a line item with Format = Interactive and choose delivery: AMP + fallback (default) or AMP only. Targeting, deals, frequency caps, pacing and budgets work as for other formats.
7. For lead formats, set up Leads → Delivery: webhook URL and secret (with a test button) and the daily digest email.

Leads

• Lead fields come from an allowed list: name, company, job title, phone, city, PIN code, and one single-choice question — up to three per form, plus email.
• Never allowed: passwords, payment data, government IDs, health, religion, caste, sexual orientation, political opinion, children's data.
• The consent box is unticked by default and its text is generated by MailAdx. Each lead stores a consent record: exact text, advertiser, privacy URL, publisher, impression and time.
• Delivery: the Leads table and CSV export, a signed webhook (HMAC-SHA256, retries, delivery log) and a daily digest email.
• One lead per email per line item. The email is stored encrypted; personal details are deleted after 90 days and only a count is kept.
• The advertiser is the controller of its leads; MailAdx processes them on its behalf. Publishers see lead counts only.

Measurement and billing

• Impression — counted when the ad's render pixel loads, not when the mail app fetches the slot. One per decision. AMP email has no viewability measurement.
• Fallback impression — the static version served in the HTML part; reported separately.
• Engagement — the first interaction of each type on an impression: vote, answer, reveal, form submit, slide 2 or later, question open, calculator use, click. Engagement rate = engaged impressions ÷ AMP impressions.
• Billing — CPM on each rendered impression, AMP or fallback, through the existing billing path. Engagements and leads are never charged; realised cost per engagement and per lead are shown for comparison only.
• Test mode — internal accounts are recorded in test mode exactly as for other formats; test leads are flagged.

Slot rules

Gmail measures the size of an AMP ad slot once, when it first draws it, and treats the whole email as on screen — so an elastic slot can only grow in the last 15% of an email, directly above the footer. Top and middle slots therefore use a fixed height. Each creative's worst-case height is computed when it is saved, and the ad server only serves a format the slot can show: carousels need a fixed-height slot, a fixed slot only takes creatives that fit its height, and an elastic tag anywhere but the bottom gets no ad. Content that grows after a tap (results, thank-you messages, codes) resizes the slot on that tap. When nothing fits, an elastic slot collapses and a fixed slot shows the publisher's house module, if one is set.

Limits of AMP for Email

• Renders in Gmail, Yahoo Mail, AOL Mail and Mail.ru — not in Apple Mail or Outlook.
• Only from sending addresses the mailbox provider has approved.
• The AMP part expires after 30 days, and forwarding removes it.
• The AMP part must stay under 200 KB.
• No cookies, no JavaScript, no video, no payments, and no third-party ad or analytics tags inside the email — all measurement is MailAdx's own pixels and form posts.

Policies

Interactive Ads follow the advertising policy, including its rules for interactive controls: no contests, sweepstakes or games of chance; poll results only from real votes; and no political or issue ads in this format. How reader data is handled is described in the privacy policy.