Advertise in the Mac menu bar

The placement

MacAd is one ad per Mac, in the menu bar, beside the clock and the system icons. It sits outside the windows people work in, so it never covers what they are doing.

• Size on screen: 180 × 34 points, a rounded rectangle.
• File: a still PNG at 720 × 136 pixels (or 360 × 68), up to 10 MB. No animation.
• Text: a brand name of up to 12 characters and a short line of up to 42, matching the words in the image.
• Link: a secure https:// page of your choice, opened when someone clicks the bar.
• It is shown on light and dark menu bars, and the app previews both before you submit.

The people who see it chose to install AdChanger and are paid for the minutes your ad is on screen, so the bar is welcome rather than forced on them.

How you pay

You pay per verified minute, and for nothing else. The price is published and the same for every advertiser:

• GBP: £0.004 per verified minute, £4 per 1,000.
• EUR: €0.005 per verified minute, €5 per 1,000.
• USD: $0.006 per verified minute, $6 per 1,000.

Of every minute, 65% goes to the person whose Mac shows your ad and 35% to AdChanger.

• Your billing country, set once, fixes your currency: pounds in the UK, euros in the EU, dollars everywhere else.
• You add credit through Whop before a campaign runs, in payments of 10 to 10,000 in your currency. Whop takes the card; AdChanger never sees it.
• A campaign's budget is set aside from your credit in full before it starts and is spent one verified minute at a time.
• When the budget runs out, the bar stops. You are never charged more than your budget.
• You pay nothing for unfinished minutes, idle or locked screens, or while a person has paused, snoozed or stopped the bar.
• Budget you do not spend returns to your credit for the next campaign. Credit is not paid back in cash; the one exception is a payment for an ad that was rejected before a single minute ran.

Targeting

MacAd's targeting is built on what people choose to tell AdChanger and on what they are doing at that moment, not on tracking them across apps or websites.

• Places: any country in the world, regions or worldwide, with optional cities. A city is only used where enough people live there to keep them anonymous.
• The moment: the app in front of the person right now, such as Xcode or Figma. The app's name never leaves their Mac; only the match is used.
• What they do on their Mac: code, design, music and video, writing, running a business, money, study or games, and what they need, such as "first customers" or "exams".
• Interests: topics people picked themselves.
• Buying plans and life moments: a new Mac, moving house, a new job. Plans count less after 60 days and stop counting after 120.

While you plan a campaign, the app shows a rounded estimate of how many people fit, never the people themselves.

Targeting is only as precise as people's answers, and answers are optional. If nothing fits a person well enough, no paid bar shows, so you do not pay for filler. A bar someone has seen for hours gives way to another, so attention stays fresh.

Measurement

Every campaign reports verified minutes and spend, then each step people take:

• Seen: people whose Mac showed your bar for verified minutes.
• Noticed: people whose pointer rested on the bar.
• Clicked: people who clicked through to your page.
• Reached your page and became customers: measured with the click ID added to your link (as mac=) and the sales your website or shop reports.

A sale counts for your ad when it happens within 7 days of a click on it. If your bar carries a discount code, the app copies it for the person when they open the bar, and you must honour it.

Results by place and time are grouped: any group of fewer than 5 people is merged into "other". You never receive a list of people, names or emails.

Review and rules

A person reviews every ad, its link and the page it opens before it runs, and tells you why if it is not approved. A change to an approved ad is reviewed again.

AdChanger does not accept ads for:

• gambling or betting;
• adult sexual content or services;
• prescription medicines;
• politics or elections;
• speculative crypto or token investments.

Ads for things only adults may buy, such as alcohol or dating, are never shown to anyone under 18. Sensitive subjects get a closer look in review.

You must be 18 or over, be allowed to act for the business, and have the right to every word, logo and image in your ad. The full rules are in the terms.

Building the ad

You build the ad inside the AdChanger app, with a live preview at real size. You can place it in your own menu bar to see exactly how it looks next to the clock.

No designer is needed. The app gives you instructions to copy into an image-making AI, together with your logo and photos. The AI's image is usually wider than the bar; the app trims the empty border and cuts the bar from its middle at the exact size.

The advertiser pages in the app open only after Touch ID or your Mac's password, and each member of your team can be given their own role.

Getting started

AdChanger has not launched yet, and the UK is its first market; advertisers can run ads anywhere in the world.

To join the waitlist, email yigit@adchanger.net with the subject "Waitlist: advertising", your business name and website. The Mac app is being built and its download is not public yet; you get an email when it is ready.

How the earner side works is on Earn on your Mac; how the app handles people's data is on Is AdChanger safe?.

Questions from advertisers