Online Standard Ad Formats: Official Advertising Formats And Sizes For Web Banner Ads

Banner, leaderboard, skyscraper, small rectangle. Just like for newspapers and print magazines, also on the Web advertisers and publishers have defined over time an official set of "online standard ad formats". Such ad formats represent the full range of visual and text-ad sizes available for use on public web pages. Photo credit: Marc Dietrich edited by Daniele Bazzano If you are a web publisher, blogger or other media outlet on the Internet, and are interested in monetizing your published assets, you may want to familiarize yourself with this illustrated list of standard online ad formats. By knowing with are the standard ad formats to be utilized on web pages, you can:

a) Brief more effectively your web designer when in need of creating new ad areas b) Offer more ad opportunities to your own direct customers c) Utilize the standard "creatives" that your customers may have designed for other campaigns (without requiring them to design custom sized ads for your site only) d) Tap into the opportunities offered by ad networks, who rely heavily on these specific ad formats

Officially, the standard online ad formats you see on the web today, have been originally established by the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau), an authority founded in 1996 to increase the quality level of the advertising marketplace in the US. The most common online ad formats are banners, flashing or animated ads on the top of the screen, skyscrapers, vertical usually found at the left or right side of a webpage, or the square box, which is found in the majority of Web 2.0 sites like Mashable! or ReadWriteWeb. Standard ad formats are the heritage of the print advertising medium in which advertising agencies have long established a fixed, common structure for advertising spaces, to manage orders ad productions costs more efficiently. The main references for online standard ad formats are the IAB's Ad Unit Guidelines and Google AdSense Ad Formats which have been directly derived from the already existing ones. For online ad formats all dimensions are always measured in pixels and the recommended file weight is about 20-40k. In this mini guide you can find a visual gallery of all the standard, official, ad formats utilized on the Internet.

Online Standard Ad Formats

Rectangles and Pop-Ups

• Medium Rectangle - 300 x 250

  This is one of the more common ad formats on the web. Its main characteristic is to be well-integrated into content, associating your message with highly specific site-related articles.



• Square Pop-Up - 250 x 250

  Despite being very profitable for advertisers, users find them very annoying. Pop-up ads usually open in a new window and you usually need to close them before you can view the page's content. That's why almost any browser now includes a pop-up blocker by default.



• Vertical Rectangle - 240 x 400

  One of the newest formats introduced by IAB. It combines the usual rectangle characteristics with a bigger size. It can be placed either at the right or left side of a webpage.



• Large Rectangle - 336 x 280

  A larger version of the rectangle ad. Well-integrated into content, provides highly site-related ads and is immediately visible to users.



• Rectangle - 180 x 150

  A smaller version of the classic rectangle ad. Well-integrated into content, it should be providing highly relevant ads to the readers.



• 3:1 Rectangle - 300x100 *NEW*

  One of the most recent ad formats introduced by IAB. Very similar to the banner ad but larger in size.



• Pop-Under - 720x300 *NEW*

  Pop-under ads are very similar to pop-ups. Tough they generally annoy users less because they appear in a new minimized window, instead of a bigger flashing box, in my opinion they really suck. Stay clear of them as people get really pissed off at these. As a matter of cat, often readers don't even notice such pop-unders until they close the main browser window. And in any case, remembe: Just like standard pop-ups, pop-unders are blocked by pop-up blocker softwares.

Banners and Buttons

• Full Banner - 468 x 60

  The classic 468 x 60 pixel banner is the workhorse of web advertising. It is found in the vast majority of sites and is still one of the biggest money makers because of its very popular and effective above-the-fold positioning which provides exceptional visibility.



• Half Banner - 234 x 60

  Half the size in width of a classic 468 x 60 banner, it provides the same benefits of visibility while being less intrusive.



• Micro Bar - 88 x 31

  The less intrusive ad format of all. Its above-the-fold positioning provides good visibility without disrupting user's experience. Very well-integrated into site content.



• Button 1 - 120 x 90

  Buttons are kind of square-shaped ads that usually enclose links to interesting products for users. They are also very non-intrusive



• Button 2 - 120 x 60

  Slightly larger than the Micro Bar ad, this button supplies the same features of visibility and integration into the site content while resulting less intrusive.



• Vertical Banner - 120 x 240

  The same as the classic horizontal banner ad, but vertically oriented. Visible and not very intrusive.



• Square Button - 125 x 125

  Slightly bigger ad format than the Button 1.



• Leaderboard - 728 x 90

  Leaderboards are very common in sites as they provide very good visibility. Slightly larger than banners ads, normally appear at the top of the page. They allow advertisers to usually use regular-size banners in the same space, so they are easy to work with.

Skyscrapers

• Wide Skyscraper - 160 x 600

  A high impact ad usually displayed at the right side of the screen. Skyscrapers are becoming more and more common as a less intrusive way to attract users who are annoyed by the banners ads.



• Skyscraper - 120 x 600

  Smaller in width than the usual format of skyscraper ad, the 120 x 600 ad is very useful when visualized on lower resolution screens.



• Half Page Ad - 300 x 600

  Very intrusive ad usually placed at the right or left side of a webpage. It provides good visibility but it may result annoying for users who have a large part of the screen occupied by such an advertisement.

Originally written by Robin Good for Master New Media and first published on September 12th 2008 as "Online Standard Ad Formats: Official Advertising Formats And Sizes For Web Banner Ads".