If you have decided to use online advertising for marketing, you need to know which ad sizes to use and which to avoid. If a salesperson calls, then plenty of bold claims will come your way about that company’s own ad sizes. Don’t listen to them! We’re here to help you sort the signal from the noise in our guide to ad sizes for ad buyers.
Throughout our ad size guide, we explain the most common ad units of the moment. For each ad unit, we provide information about the ad unit itself as well as some advice directly for Ad Buyers.
Unfortunately, we can’t tell you exactly what would be best for you as marketing needs differ so wildly. We can, however, tell you which ad units generally perform the best. We can also point you to the cheapest ad units, as well as provide some other useful hints and tips.
For those who are just starting out buying ads, we generally recommend sticking to these three ad units:
- MPU – 300×250
- Leaderboard – 728×90
- Monster MPI – 300×600
This is because these three ad units are incredibly common across the internet (as they usually perform comparatively well). They are also cheap and easy to build, and generally available to buy from any website (excluding social media sites).
We don’t recommend the 120×600 or 468×60 in general. This is because they are just too small (they also usually perform badly). We also don’t recommend buying pop-up (or pop-under) ads as they are more annoying than they are effective.
Our general advice is: the larger the ad size, the better it performs. This is simply because more screen space is better at grabbing people’s attention. The exception to this rule is the MPU – which is still the best-performing ad size out there.
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However, this may not be the right path for you, so as always The Online Advertising Guide recommends experimenting and finding what fits your needs the best. There are some great deals out there on lesser-known ad units. If you can create them at a reasonable price, then why not test them too?
Ad Buying is a strange art form in that it feels like it should be all science. However your gut still usually plays a huge role in the decision-making process. If you feel a certain ad size will perform better – give it a go!
Back: Ad Size Guide