Display Advertising

We believe advertising on Skype helps fill a creative gap by providing brands access to a platform that has broad reach and global engagement, while also supporting large-format, rich and interactive ads.

Advertising on Skype gives brands a unique opportunity to be part of the Skype experience, which has enabled millions of people around the world to do things together when they’re apart through voice and video calling, instant messaging, conferencing, and more

Skype has approximately 30 million concurrent users at peak times. Skype had more than 170 million average monthly-connected users for the three months ended 30 June 2011. This excludes connected users via our joint venture partners.

Currently, advertising on Skype is available in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, United Kingdom and United States. (As at Feb 2012)

We don’t publicly disclose those figures.

We believe our ad space is attractive for a wide range of branded advertisers marketing products or services in industries such as: airlines, automobiles, banking, beverages, broadband, consumer goods, electronics, hotels, food, gaming, movies, travel and more.

Currently, the ads appear in the Home tab of Skype, but we may show ads elsewhere in future.

We are currently offering a large-format 650 x 170 pixel expandable to 650 x 340 pixels masthead unit, as well as an IAB standard 300x250 available to advertisers on a daily sponsorship basis. The ads may be interactive with audio or video.  Currently, the ads appear in the Home tab of Skype, but we may show ads elsewhere in future.

We may share some simple, non-personally identifiable information with our advertisers, such as users’ location, gender and age.

All users with Skype 5.1 for Windows and higher and Skype 5.4 for Mac and higher will see the ads. We don’t disclose exactly how many users have specific versions of the Skype client.

We prohibit ads for alcohol, cigarettes, adult content, gambling, and some direct competitors – very similar to most online advertising.

Skype is known for great value with its low-cost calls to mobiles and landline phones along with group video calling, and free Skype-to-Skype voice and video calls, as well as instant messaging across desktops, mobiles and TVs. Advertising will help us continue to invest in great products.

Currently, advertising on Skype is available in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, United Kingdom and United States. (As at Feb 2012)

The customer experience is paramount.  Currently, we’re offering a premium opportunity for daily ‘Home’ sponsorship in select markets, so you can expect that only some of you may see ads occasionally.  

We will not share any of your personally identifiable information with advertisers.

However, making sure that you see relevant ads is important, both for you and for our advertisers. If you’re in the US, for example, we don’t want to show you ads for a product that is only available in the UK.

To help do this, we share some simple, non-personally identifiable information with our advertisers, such as your location, gender and age.

Yes. You can opt-out of allowing Skype to share certain non-personally identifiable demographic data with advertisers from your privacy settings.

The majority of people who will see ads are our non-paying users. We’ll test and evaluate what is appropriate for both our paying and non-paying users.

Our priority is to ensure that ads are respectful of your Skype experience. You will not see annoying pop-up ads or flashy banners in the middle of your conversations. As we roll out ads on a wider basis, we’ll continue to test what works and what doesn’t, and make adjustments along the way.

Currently, the ads are large-format 650x170 pixel masthead, and a smaller 300x250 ad unit within the Skype Home tab, but you will only see one ad or the other on a given day - only one ad a day.  We may experiment with different formats, sizes and places where we may want to show ads in the future.

Today, ads are only visible on our Skype for Windows and Skype for Mac software (version 5.1 Windows and 5.4 Mac or later).