Introducing Status Is Down Ads: self-serve advertising for brands offering solutions
Status Is Down has launched a self-serve advertising platform, giving businesses a new way to reach people exploring the services and websites they depend on. Advertisers can create campaigns, choose relevant categories and manage a prepaid budget from a business-account dashboard.
The platform brings campaign creation and reporting into one place, with text ads, uploaded banners and an AI-assisted creative workflow. Advertisers choose between paying for viewable impressions or clicks, starting with US$100 of Ads Credit. Every ad goes through review before it runs.
Reach a relevant audience without losing context
People visit Status Is Down to check service availability, understand reported disruptions and find information that helps them decide what to do next. Advertising offers businesses a way to introduce relevant products within that context, without pretending to be an outage notice or an official message from the service being checked.
Ads currently run across Status Is Down service, website, email-alert and category pages. Campaigns can target all categories or the specific categories an advertiser selects. With 65 categories available, a business can focus its campaign on areas relevant to its offer, such as cloud hosting, payments, gaming or streaming. Category targeting is a contextual choice, not a promise that every visitor will be shopping or that a campaign will deliver a particular conversion rate.
Advertisements are clearly labelled “Ad”. SID’s advertising policy requires accurate claims, a working destination that matches the creative and content the advertiser has the rights to use. Impersonation, fabricated outage alerts, phishing and deceptive download buttons are not accepted.
Build your creative, or use AI to get started
Businesses can write a text ad or upload their own image banners. Text ads support a headline of up to 30 characters and a tagline of up to 90 characters, and adapt to the available placements.
Image advertisers can supply standard formats including the 300×250 medium rectangle, 300×600 half page, 160×600 wide skyscraper and 320×50 mobile banner. Desktop leaderboard and billboard formats are also supported. Uploading additional supported sizes makes a creative eligible for more placements; it does not guarantee delivery.
If you do not already have advertising creatives, choose “Image ad” in campaign setup, then select “Design with AI” instead of “Upload my banners”. Enter a public HTTPS page and click “Generate designs”. Pick one of three AI-written starting points based on the page’s title, description, logo and main image.
Then edit the headline, tagline and button text, and adjust “Style & color” using Brand color, Clean light or Photo. You can replace the logo or image before choosing “Use these banners” to create all six banner sizes in your campaign. Select “Continue” to complete the rest of the campaign setup and submit for the normal manual review. The designer is available at no separate fee and does not use Ads Credit.
SID demonstration generated on a test server using the same campaign-builder code and public SID Ads page, with a comparable test model. Live wording can vary. The Photo style reuses the page’s existing image; it does not generate new photography. No real advertiser, campaign or result is shown.
The designer lays out banners from existing brand assets; it does not generate photographs or artwork. If a website blocks automated access or lacks suitable images, advertisers can upload their own. The advertiser must still check the copy, rights and destination before submission.
Choose your bid and keep control of spending
Status Is Down Ads offers two bidding models. Cost per thousand impressions, or CPM, starts at a minimum bid of US$3 per 1,000 viewable impressions. Cost per click, or CPC, starts at a minimum bid of US$1 per click. These are minimum bids, not guaranteed fixed rates or a promise of results.
For viewable-impression billing, at least half of the ad must remain visible for one continuous second in an active browser tab. Known bots and automated traffic are excluded, and repeated or automated clicks are filtered.
Campaigns use prepaid Ads Credit. The minimum first top-up is US$100; subsequent options include US$50, US$100, US$250 or a custom amount of US$250 or more. Unused credit remains in the wallet for future campaigns. Campaigns are constrained by both their budget and the credit available, rather than spending beyond those limits.
Review, launch and measure in one dashboard
After creating an ad, advertisers choose their targeting and schedule, fund the wallet and submit for review. An approved campaign can start immediately or on its selected start date. Review is required, so creating a campaign does not mean it is instantly serving.
The dashboard reports viewable impressions, clicks, click-through rate and spend, with daily statistics for each campaign. It does not provide conversion tracking. Advertisers can pause and resume campaigns, adjust budgets and bids, and update targeting or end dates. Changes to the ad creative go through another review before running. Approval times are not guaranteed.
Start advertising on Status Is Down
Self-serve advertising is available to business accounts. Create a SID business account, open Advertising in your dashboard and build your first campaign. The Status Is Down Ads page explains the current formats, pricing and policy before you add credit.
For more platform announcements and tools, explore New on SID.
Image credit: Image: Status Is Down