Where does that interactivity reside? Primarily in the overlays you add in the Mixpo Studio.

Overlays play a key role in an Xspot’s appearance and appeal. The better you are at working with overlays, the better your Xspots will be.

In case you haven’t discovered them yet, here are three key overlay efficiency tips.

• Turn on the grid.
• Move overlays together.
• Preview at 300×250.

Turn on the grid

Overlay placement and alignment affect Xspot appearance and influence viewer interaction. Turning on the background grid gives you a more refined level of control.

Using the grid to align overlays in the Studio

Clicking the Grid control, outlined in red in the picture above, turns the grid on and off.

Move overlays together

You spend time carefully placing and aligning overlays. Then, because you add new creative or decide the overlays don’t appear at quite the right time, you decide to move them.

If you move each overlay individually, all the time you originally spent getting the relationships and alignments just right is wasted.

Fortunately, you can select multiple overlays and move them all at the same time.

Multiple overlays selected on the Timeline

To select all overlays, click the T at the left end of the Timeline. To select multiple overlays, select the first, and then press CTRL (or the Command/Apple key on a Mac), and then select the others.

Preview at 300×250

Just because overlays look fine in the Studio preview window doesn’t mean they’ll look fine in a banner-sized live ad.

Before you leave the Studio, use the handy preview feature to see how your overlays look in a 300×250 box.

Preview at 300x250 in the Studio

Clicking the Preview control, outlined in red in the picture above, turns the 300×250 preview on and off.

For more efficiency tips, see the Best Practices section of Help.

No doubt about it. Mixpo Version 3 represents a significant change from the previous version. But, you’re unlikely to find the transition particularly burdensome. Why?

First of all, rest assured. Live ads won’t be affected.

In addition, behind the scenes, you’ll experience:

• The same familiar settings organized better
• A redesigned product with a simpler workflow
• Easier creation in a refined Studio
• Great product support in case any questions or confusions arise.

Tip You might also want to visit the completely redesigned and reorganized Help Center.

Same settings organized better

You don’t lose anything in the new version. All of the settings you’re familiar with are still there. You just have a lot more control over which settings you see when.

For example, take a look at the redesigned Publishing page. The new page is made up of sections that collapse and expand.

Publishing page with most options collapsed

Each expanding section gathers a group of related settings together.

Choose Thumbnail and Customize Player section expanded

You see all related settings only after expanding an Advanced column on the right.

Advanced options expanded

Redesigned product with a simpler workflow

In the new version, we’ve taken the guesswork out of the publishing process, that is, the process of getting from a VideoAd you put together in the Studio to a live ad running on a website or ad server.

For example, on the Publishing page, we clearly distinguish the essential steps (labelled Steps 1, 2, and 3) from the optional steps.

Basic VideoAd information - the 1st essential step

After naming a VideoAd, you can easily preview the ad yourself and send a preview page link to the advertiser.

Preview - the 2nd essential step

With the ad approved, you’re ready to copy and embed the ad tag. You can easily customize the tag so it works on https pages, a variety of ad servers, and websites that use iframes.

Copy Ad Tag - the 3rd essential step

The optional steps are always there if you want to choose a thumbnail, customize the Player, share a VideoAd with other members of your team, and more.

Easier creation in a refined Studio

The Studio looks pretty the much the same as it always has but it works even better.

You’re familiar with overlays – text, image, and video objects that transform TV spots into interactive online VideoAds ready for the Web.

In Version 3, text overlays are a lot easier to manage.

For example, you can quickly edit text for all overlays in one convenient list.

Edit overlay text in one place

And, you can control the appearance and behavior of all overlays on one handy Set Styles page.

Set all overlay styles on one page

Take the Version 3 plunge

This post just scratches the surface of the new Mixpo release but stay tuned. In this blog, over the next few weeks, I’ll go deeper and cover many useful new features and refinements in more detail.

(Want to start exploring new features on your own? Visit the Create page, and then click Where can I get a good thumbnail image?. Or, visit the Publish page, and then click What version of the ad tag do I need?)

As you begin working with the Version 3, we’d love to get your feedback.

Questions or concerns? Contact support.

Why do I care about landing pages?

Here are two examples of the new landing page designs. Click a thumbnail to see more detail.

Green color theme

Red color theme

What do I have to do to take advantage of the new designs?

Nothing. We automatically assign new landing page designs to existing VideoAds.

Because the new designs are so interesting, however, we recommend that you take the time to find out what your options are.

How do I preview and choose a new landing page design?

To select landing page colors and layouts:

1. In the Dashboard, in the Your VideoAds list, click a thumbnail to display any published VideoAd’s landing page.

2. At the top of the landing page, click the green Edit Landing Page button.
3. Select color theme options to preview each of the 6 color themes.
4. Select layout options to preview each of the six layouts.
5. When you’re happy with a color theme and layout combination, click Save.

Because of this, it’s key for you to know exactly how a VideoAd will look at the 300×250 banner ad size.

We’ve just added a control in the upper right corner of the Studio preview window that makes it easy for you to toggle between the full window and the 300×250 size. This convenient toggling allows you to identify problems without leaving the environment where you can fix them.

As you can see in the following picture, the control looks like the full screen control in the Player.

Preview set at full size

When you’re looking at a full-size preview, clicking the control results in a 300×250 preview.

Preview set at 300x250 size

Clicking the control again returns the preview to full size.

I’d like to read a blog post about creating overlays that work at any embed size.

Show me the Help topic about previewing VideoAds.

Tip After you create a VideoAd, you may want to give the advertiser an opportunity to preview it at banner ad size. An easy way to do this is to set up a blog using Google Blogger™ or another free blogging service. In the Mixpo Publisher, set the embed size to 300×250 and copy the embed code. Paste the code into a new blog post, and then send the post’s URL to the advertiser.