What do I need to know about font licensing before uploading a creative to Adnami?
Learn how Adnami serves the fonts in your creative, and what licence you need to use them safely in live online ads.
Overview
When you upload a banner to Adnami, you're handing us every piece that makes it up: fonts, images, logos, and sometimes video. We host all of those files and serve them publicly to people who see the ad.
The most important thing to understand: Adnami hosts and serves whatever you upload, publicly, for as long as the creative exists. Making sure you're allowed to use each piece — especially fonts — is your responsibility as the uploader.
This article walks through what happens to your upload step by step, then explains what it means for licensing.
What happens when you upload a banner
- You upload a zip file containing the banner's code, images, video, and any custom fonts used in the text.
- We store the files on our servers at macro.adnami.io so they can be served to viewers anywhere in the world.
- The ad goes live. Each time someone sees it, their browser downloads the pieces directly from our servers — the same way every other website works.
- The campaign ends, but the files stay. Adnami does not automatically delete creative assets when a campaign finishes.
A few things to know about this process:
- We don't modify, hide, or protect your files. They are served exactly as you uploaded them.
- The files are publicly accessible — anyone with the URL can fetch them.
- Our Terms & Conditions make clear that you are responsible for ensuring every piece of the creative is properly licensed. Adnami does not check this.
What this means for fonts
Most font licences allow one of three things:
|
Licence type |
What it covers |
|
Desktop |
Designing on your own computer in tools like Photoshop or Figma |
|
Web |
Using the font on a live website so browsers render the text |
|
App / product |
Embedding the font in software you ship to others |
A desktop licence does not automatically cover web use. When a font sits inside your creative zip on our servers, browsers download it every time the ad is shown — that counts as web use, and usually needs a web or digital advertising licence. It doesn't matter how hidden the file is; serving it at all counts as use.
Because the file stays on our servers after the campaign ends, your licence must cover the whole hosting period, not just the active campaign dates.
How to stay safe
💡 Tip: If you only remember one thing from this article, make it this — confirm your licences cover online advertising for the full time your creative will be live.
- Use fonts that are free for commercial web use. Google Fonts is the easiest option — every font there is free for commercial advertising. Adobe Fonts, included with most Creative Cloud subscriptions, is also licensed for commercial web use.
- For paid fonts, check the foundry's own website — they will list which licence tier covers digital and web distribution. Many foundries sell HTML5 Ads & Emails licence. It's usually cheaper than a general web licence and is designed for exactly this case — running a font in an online banner for a set number of impressions.
- Flatten text to images when in doubt. If the text in your banner is exported as an image from design software rather than typed as live text, no font file is uploaded. You only need the basic design licence the designer already holds.