Once you familiarize yourself with different banner ad sizing requirements, your business will have a competitive advantage in today’s banner ad market. Before we get into banner ad sizes that perform well, let’s set the foundation.
What Is Banner Advertising?
Banner advertising refers to ads being displayed using rectangular sizes that stretch across the top, bottom, or sides of an online platform—or sometimes right in the middle, as in, say, a social media platform newsfeed.
Keep in mind that the terms banner ad and display ad are often used interchangeably in the advertising industry, though they do have minor differences.
The most important thing to note to differentiate the two is that banner ads are a subcategory of display ads. Kind of like how a square is technically a rectangle but not the other way around. Display ads can be banner ads, interstitial ads, or video ads.
Marketing professionals have many options to connect with their audiences in today's advertising industry. Banner ads have been a reliable way for companies to amplify brand awareness since the beginning of the digital advertising era. The fact that they are still around says a lot.
The Best-Performing Banner Ad Sizes
There are a lot of different banner ad sizes to choose from, but the question we’re sure you’re asking is, “Which ones perform best?” The answer is that it depends on the platform, which we’ll detail throughout this article.
Let’s take a look at a few banner ad examples to get an idea of which sizes have been known to work well.
Leaderboard Banner Ad Size: 728 x 90 pixels
Leaderboard banners typically appear at the top of web pages, which is appealing since they are visible immediately when consumers open a website. Though they are usually at the top of a site, they can be placed between web content or at the bottom of the page.
Due to the high potential for visibility, leaderboards have incredibly high demand in the market and can come at a premium price. This makes buying and selling ad spots easier due to sheer volume.
Mobile Leaderboard Banner Ad Size: 320 x 50 pixels
One of the most popular ad sizes for mobile are mobile leaderboards. You may see them labeled as anchor ads on Google AdSense. These ads are smaller than most mobile banner ads but are extremely popular since it creates a positive user experience. The mobile leaderboards stay in view on the screen while the user scrolls through the page.
Wide Skyscraper Banner Ad Size: 160 x 600 pixels
Wide skyscrapers, or large skyscrapers, are another popular banner size that you have probably encountered before. They are placed on the side of a web page and remain visible as users scroll through the site.
Medium Rectangle Banner Ad Size: 300 x 250 pixels
The medium rectangle banner ad is commonly known as the best performing out of all ad sizes. You get what you pay for, so this ad size is more expensive than others. This ad size is optimally placed for increased visibility and engagement.
The Best Banner Ad Sizes For Popular Platforms
Every social, SaaS, and app platform is slightly different and requires specific-sized ads to be optimized and look visually appealing on the page. You’ll have to keep these tips in mind depending on where you want to place your banners.
Standard Banner Ad Examples For Facebook
Let’s start with Facebook since it’s known to have the highest potential ad reach. Facebook should be part of your marketing strategy if you're serious about growth.
Here are the three most popular ad sizes for Facebook:
- Facebook Ad (1080 x 1080 pixels): This is the standard square ad and is known to be the best performing creative size.
- Facebook Link Post (1200 x 628 pixels): This is another popular Facebook ad size that gives your audience a substantial clickable area that leads directly to your website.
- Facebook Story (1080 x 1920 pixels): This is one of the newer ways to advertise on Facebook but is quickly growing in popularity. According to Facebook, more than 300 million people use Facebook Stories and Messenger Stories every day.
There are a handful more available sizes for Facebook ads, such as 1200 x 628 pixels. AdCreative.ai gives access to create your banners in every size that Facebook requires.
Standard Banner Ad Examples For Instagram
Instagram is owned by Meta, so it makes sense that the popular Facebook ad sizes (1080 x 1080 and 1200 x 628) are compatible with Instagram. However, the most optimal banner size for Instagram is 1080 x 1350. This ad size works best because it covers the whole screen to grab the user’s full attention.
Instagram Stories (1080 x 1920) are extremely popular as well.
Standard Banner Ad Examples For Google Responsive Display Ads
With Google Responsive Display Ads, you can upload your creative banner ads to run campaigns for websites, apps, YouTube, and Gmail. AdCreative.ai supports the following ad sizes that are optimal for Google Responsive Display Ads:
- Landscape banner ad size: 1200 x 628 pixels
- Square banner ad size: 1200 x 1200 pixels
Here are a couple of great tips straight from Google’s help page:
- Upload double-sized images. For instance, upload a 2400 x 2400 creative banner ad for a 1200 x 1200 ad slot.
- Check your ads for compatibility with Google Ads HTML5 validator.
Standard Banner Ad Examples For Google Display Ads
This one can be a bit tricky because the websites that take your ads from Google Display Ads dictate the placement of your ad. With that in mind, it’s best to optimize your banner sizes to match the top-performing ad sizes for Google Display Ads.
Google makes it clear that these are the top-performing ad sizes:
- Medium rectangle banner ad size: 300 x 250 pixels
- Large rectangle banner ad size: 336 x 280 pixels
- Leaderboard banner ad size: 728 x 90 pixels
- Half page banner ad size: 300 x 600 pixels
- Large mobile banner ad size: 320 x 100 pixels
Over 25 banner ad size variations are compatible with Google Display Ads. We’ve received a lot of requests recently to make all of these sizes available, and we hear you! These sizes will be live and available on AdCreative.ai soon!
Standard Banner Ad Examples For Google Performance Max Ads
Google Performance Max Ads is a new goal-based campaign type that lets a business access all of its Google Ads inventory from a single campaign. At a minimum, you need one square banner ad and one landscape banner ad creative to start.
However, you should follow these tips to optimize your Google Performance Max campaign:
- Add at least five versions of creative graphics (including 1200 x 1200 pixels).
- Include at least five text assets (four headlines, five descriptions).
- The more assets you have, the better.
From our experience, we’ve found that landscape ads perform better with Google Performance Max Ads. AdCreative.ai continues to add features to make it easy to optimize ads for Google.
Banner Ad Examples For Taboola
Taboola is one of the largest discovery platforms. It helps promote your brand with over 500M active users daily.
Keep these in mind to take advantage of Taboola’s sponsored content spots:
- Banner ad size: 1000 x 600 pixels minimum for all placement sizes
- Taboola automatically crops images depending on placement, so 16:9 ratio banners are preferred. However, you can still upload ads with a 4:3 or 1:1 ratio.
Banner Ad Examples For Criteo
Criteo is an open platform that lets you build new campaigns quickly. To get started, create banner signs with these sizes in mind:
- Horizontal banner ad size: 1200 x 628 pixels
- Square banner ad size: 1200 x 1200 pixels
- Vertical banner ad size: 800 x 1200 pixels
Horizontal and square banners created in AdCreative.ai are better, according to Criteo.
Banner Ad Examples For Teads
Launching an advertising campaign on Teads can boost your brand and put your ads in the spotlight. This platform is great for video ads because it doesn’t play your ad until at least 50% of it is visible to the viewer.
Teads follows popular social media layouts, so the following banner sizes are best suited:
- Square banner ad size: 1200 x 1200 pixels
- Landscape banner ad size: 1200 x 628 pixels
When you generate ads for Facebook and Instagram in AdCreative.ai, it’s easy to use the same designs in square and landscape mode to capture leads.
Banner Ad Examples For AdRoll
AdRoll recommends that you have these six banner ad sizes at a minimum, ready to go.
- Medium rectangle banner ad size: 300 x 250 pixels
- Half page banner ad size: 300 x 600 pixels
- Leaderboard banner ad size: 728 x 90 pixels
- Mobile leaderboard banner ad size: 320 x 50 pixels
- Wide skyscraper banner ad size: 160 x 600 pixels
- Billboard banner ad size: 970 x 250 pixels
The above list contains recommended banner ad sizes, but you actually have a better chance to increase your campaign’s reach if you upload additional ad sizes.
Here are the additional sizes you should consider:
- Banner ad size: 468 x 60 pixels
- Large rectangle banner ad size: 336 x 280 pixels
- Medium square banner ad size: 250 x 250
- Square banner ad size: 250 x 250
- Small rectangle banner ad size: 180 x 150
There are a lot of variations to consider when using AdRoll. Luckily, AdCreative.ai can generate everything for you quickly and efficiently.
Banner Ad Examples For Outbrain
Outbrain is an extensive ad network that helps your brand get discovered. \
Here are its recommended banner ad sizes:
- Image dimension: 1200 x 800 pixels (minimum 400 x 260 pixels)
- Standard campaigns banner ad size: 3:2 image ratio
- Carousel and app install campaign banner ad size: 1:1 image ratio
You will have no issues creating these banner sizes in AdCreative.ai.
Banner Ad Examples For LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a great social platform to grow your professional brand and reach.
Here are its recommended ad specs:
- Square banner ad size: 1200 x 1200 pixels
- Vertical banner ad size (1:1.91 ratio): 628 x 1200 pixels
- Vertical banner ad size (2:3 ratio): 600 x 900 pixels
- Vertical banner ad size (4:5 ratio): 720 x 900 pixels
All recommended banner sizes for LinkedIn are available on AdCreative.ai.
Banner Ad Examples For Pinterest
Pinterest excels as a social media platform that lets people share images.
Keep these specs in mind when creating banners for Pinterest:
- Square pin banner ad size: 1:1 ratio images are popular, especially in carousel style ads.
- Most popular banner ad size: 1000 x 1500 pixels
Pinterest ads are usually placed as one large image on top of three pictures, or “pins,” as users scroll through the feed. 1000 x 1500 banners are more successful because users are naturally drawn to the image since it takes up more screen space.
Get The Most Out Of Your Banner Ad Sizes
Every platform has a unique audience, and your product or service benefits from exposure across multiple websites, social media platforms, and pages. Remember, though, that advertising is not a one size fits all type of deal.
Mixing Up Banner Ad Sizes
The biggest mistake businesses make when launching marketing campaigns on multiple platforms is not taking their target audience into account. For example, Facebook demographics show that 25-34 years of age represents their largest group, while Instagram shows 18-24 years.
You will have to deep dive into where it is worth advertising and tailor your images and text to match the audience on that platform.
AI-powered advertising tools like AdCreative.ai make testing your ads easier by analyzing data quickly and predicting what will work best on each platform.
Let’s Make Banner Ad Sizes Simple
A lot goes into optimizing banner ad sizes. It can be overwhelming for business owners to navigate through all the requirements and manually tweak banner dimensions to work on each platform.
AdCreative.ai uses automation to minimize the stress of constantly adjusting ad sizes. Once you input your images and text, all you have to do is click on the sizes you want to create. Within minutes, you can generate hundreds of variations.
It kind of sounds too good to be true, right?
