Yes, banner ads are still a thing if you’re looking to sell more products. Advertising through banner ads is also a surefire way to drive traffic. Which website banner size has the highest impact? Let’s demystify the process for you.
Across the spectrum of ad types, banner ads remain a cost-effective staple in online advertising campaigns, helping advertisers promote their products or services to targeted demographics. In this article, you’ll learn:
- What Are Banner Ads?
- How Does Website Banner Size Impact Performance?
- Standard Banner Ad Sizes
- Best Practices For Banner Design For Advertisers
- How To Optimize Your Website For Banner Ads
Next Millennium helps you put the right ads in the right places.
Do you wonder how much your website can make from ads? Here’s what you need to know.
What Are Banner Ads?
A banner ad, available in various banner sizes, is a form of display advertising. Banner ads are typically visually compelling ads placed either at the top of a website under the header, along the side of content, or across the bottom. The ad is embedded on a webpage and directs users to an external destination when clicked.
No matter which website banner size you choose, the primary incentive for banner advertising is to drive traffic to your web or landing page. You want them to download a case study, right? Or claim that exciting offer. Subscribing, aiding brand awareness, whatever the intended conversion, you can achieve your sought-after outcomes with strategic ad placements.\
Why Use A Standard Website Banner Size?
Let’s start by understanding a standard website banner size and why it matters. Though there are inherent limitations based on IAB guidelines, a standard banner is a fixed-size, static ad with a simple CTA inviting a user to click to a destination of choice. Standard banner sizes are typically the more popular, high-performing ads. What is the adage to follow if you want your ads to display correctly? Respect the guidelines and design to spec! Your goal should always be high-quality ad delivery across any platform and publisher’s sites.
How Does Website Banner Size Impact Performance?
In digital advertising, the premise is to serve ads to users at the pace of their visit. If web banner ad sizes are too small, users might miss them; too large, they might take longer to load and could impact their user experience. At that point, it’s a little like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, with the unfortunate result that none are “just right,” and they move onwards.
A banner ad can boost brand recall, especially on campaigns where multiple banner positions are chosen within a given page, tying the creative together. Smaller web banner size ads that fit more easily on various parts of a webpage may provide higher click-through when visitors spend more time on the content, having scrolled past the header. Let’s look at the most common banner sizes next.
Is your ad getting seen? The question is on everyone’s mind. Learn more about Ad Viewability and how to improve your ad’s performance odds of connecting to your audiences.
Standard Banner Ad Sizes
When building the perfect creative for an advertising campaign, remember how it translates across various web banner dimensions. Designing ads to display across multiple device types and platforms may require reformatting the creative. Look at ways to craft messages that can be adapted or edited down as needed. Choose readable fonts or crop images. The trick is to choose banner ad sizes that elevate your brand.
In working with an ad network, you’ll often find they have standard banner sizes they recommend due to proven track records with clients because they are top revenue generators. Here are the most commonly used banner ad sizes in the industry for desktop and mobile:
- Leaderboard Banner: 728×90
- Medium Rectangle: 300×250
- Large Rectangle: 336×280
- Skyscraper: 120×600
- Wide Skyscraper: 160×600
- Mobile: 300×50
Leaderboard Banner: 728×90
What does a user do when they come to a new site? Often, if not returning users, subconscious thoughts trigger like “What am I looking at,” and “Where do I want to go?” This process usually keeps a user hanging a moment before they scroll. The overall size and top placement put your ad front of mind, driving the metrics you care about most.
Leaderboard banner ads perform well on main content pages and forums, on desktops, or optimized for tablet pages.
Medium Rectangle: 300×250
The medium rectangle banner ad, or the 300×250 banner ad dimension, is on the list due to its versatile placement options in sidebars, within content, or at the end of content. Ad formats like text, image, or video ads perform well in 300×250 banners on desktop and mobile platforms. When embedded in text, it is also known as MPU or a Mid-Page Unit.
When targeted, well-designed medium banner ads complement the web page and site, which is a plus for advertisers and publishers. Because of the variety of placement options, closely following site guidelines helps ensure good user experiences.
Large Rectangle: 336×280
The large rectangle, or 336×280 banner, is advantageous for advertisers with detailed or higher user engagement ads, like interactive or video. It displays well in text and at the end of content, offering clear visibility to brand messages and offers. You can run the ad in a 336×250 ad slot, or advertisers sometimes use it as a multi-sized ad slot with a 300×250. The large rectangle ad unit is typically successful at commanding higher eCPMs and is price-friendly due to less competition for the ad slot.
Skyscraper: 120×600
The 120×600 ad, or Skyscraper banner, is the tall ad you see on the side of content within a website or mobile app, displaying as the user scrolls down the page. This banner ad size is perfect for creatives with long-form visuals or text, interactive content, or CSS animation to attract attention. Pair the interactive elements with a robust design and a motivating CTA for ultimate viewability, click-throughs, and conversions. For incremental revenue, place on multiple web pages within a site.
Wide Skyscraper: 160×600
The wide skyscraper banner offers the same benefits as the 120×600 but is more extensive, with almost a full vertical page height. Real estate! Its width allows for more complex designs, messaging, and interactive content than the standard skyscraper. As always, follow strong design principles, and consider linking the 160×600 with other banners like Leaderboards to attract visitors for high-impact message delivery. The ads generally command good CPM, though lower than the 300×250 or the 728×90. Consider running on multiple pages for the best returns and incremental revenue.
Mobile: 300×50
Mobile advertising continues to grow rapidly, giving publishers an ever-increasing opportunity to generate significant revenue. When deployed correctly, 300×50 Mobile ads are integral to any digital ad mix. The mobile banner ad can be static or animated and generally stays on the screen during a user visit, at the top or bottom of the screen, or slides in as an anchor ad. They mostly offer a great user experience by not disrupting content.
Want transformative ad units that beat benchmarks? Check out these Next Millennium Media ad formats.
Best Practices For Banner Design For Advertisers
Your audience wants what you’re selling. Don’t let ad blindness infect your campaign by serving up subpar banners. There are many ways to make your banner ads more effective and drive more conversions—like relevancy. Do your research, understand consumer pain points, and craft a banner that knocks user’s socks off.
Use bold visuals and short, pointed messaging; you have a better chance of connecting emotionally with visitors, so they’ll regret it if they miss your offer. Match banners to landing pages or web pages for easy connection to your offer when they click through with responsive design scaling your ad so it correctly adjusts for all sizes of screens. This action helps build trust. Lastly, test to find your best performers for more lucrative campaigns.
Concise Call-To-Action
An effective banner ad needs a concise call to action. First, decide what you want visitors to do—buy your products, explore your services, or download the Guide to Happiness. Then, write a CTA to ignite a reaction and inspire action. It needs to stand out. Be in their face and demand attention. No hiding behind the hook or the visual. It needs to be front and center and easy. Like a button that says, SHOP NOW. Tell them what you want them to do. Clarity is important. Test to weed out the weak ones. Find the one that tells them, “Don’t miss this one.”
Easy-To-Consume Design
Website banner dimensions demand a straightforward, easily digestible design, ensuring viewers understand key messages quickly. Use bold, high-quality imagery and visuals to support your brand and stand out on busy web pages. If promoting a product, show the feature they’ll love the most or a stat that highlights what they’ll gain.
Use easy-to-read fonts, sized appropriately so that users grasp your short, pointed messaging at a glance or a scan. Use humor or animation to make them stop and think twice. Keep it simple and easy to absorb, with a visible CTA front and center.
High-Quality Design
We want to make a positive impression on consumers and reinforce our brand reputation as advertisers. One way to do this is through high-quality design, pulling together all the strategies mentioned here. Sound design elements include imagery choices, original versus stock, if possible, for photos or illustrations, and color theory blended with strategic font choices and placement, all of which send your ads in the right direction for click-throughs. Following best practices for new design trends helps advertisers stay relevant, but remember, staying on brand is equally important. Working with an ad partner helps elevate your presentation and bring the originality that makes your ad stand out.
Rumors of their demise have been greatly exaggerated—banner ads continue to bring in consistent revenue for publishers and advertisers alike. Learn more about which Ad Formats Command the Highest CPMs.
Responsive On Publisher’s Site
We all cringe at the dinosaur-sized ad that spills off the edge of a user’s mobile screen because the website forgot it’s the 21st century. Responsive design ensures that banners adapt seamlessly to any device, delivering a polished, professional look no matter what screen visitors use. A device-friendly site keeps users engaged longer, making it easier for them to act on your offers. On the flip side, if your site isn’t responsive, you risk losing conversions as frustrated users bounce out. Plus, a responsive design can boost your site’s search engine rankings.
Adaptable To Other Platforms
Next-generation models will continue replacing traditional display ads, such as adaptive banners. With these ads, you specify the ad width and use this to determine the optimal ad size, maximizing performance by optimizing ad size for each device without a lot of added code. Design banner ads with adaptability in mind. You want happy viewers to interact positively with your ads wherever users go next.
Adaptive banners use fixed aspect ratios instead of fixed heights. This results in banner ads that occupy a more consistent portion of the screen across devices and anchor on the page.
How To Optimize Your Website For Banner Ads
If not strategically placed, ads can disrupt user flow, compromise the integrity of your content, and impact your site’s user experience and credibility. Here are a few tips to enhance a website for optimal banner ad placement:
- Define designated ad spaces that blend seamlessly with your content.
- Design for mobile responsiveness.
- Focus on SEO to increase rankings, visibility, and site visitors.
- Create or host content that attracts and retains visitors.
- Optimize web page load times and follow other technical considerations, such as leveraging caching for faster load time or avoiding unnecessary plug-ins.
By implementing these and other strategies, you will increase site traffic and create a more appealing platform for advertisers, leading to enhanced ad revenue opportunities.
Optimize Your Banner Ad Performance with Next Millennium’s Programmatic Solutions
Banner ads remain a crucial and effective tool for publishers to drive higher revenue. At Next Millennium, we understand that simply running ads isn’t enough—you need ads that break through the noise and perform at the highest levels. That’s why we offer more than just standard formats. Our in-house team crafts innovative, high-performing ad units designed to exceed industry benchmarks across our publisher network.
From offering new ways to increase your RPMs to ensuring seamless integration of our advanced programmatic technology, we empower you to maximize the value of your inventory. At Next Millennium, it’s about delivering ads that work harder and smarter—ultimately helping you grow revenue in ways that count.
Are you ready to take your ad revenue to the next level? Advertise with Next Millennium.
