When you create ads, Google will show various ad formats. You can choose one of them, preview the ad and get the JavaScript code. Once implemented, Google will measure the performance of your AdSense account and show improvements and recommendations for optimizing the revenue. Choosing the size of your AdSense is one of the important factors affecting user experience as well as your revenue. In this article, we will explain how to choose ad sizes for your site’s layout.
Available Ad Formats
Selecting an ad size depends on the maximum available ad space and where exactly you want to place it on your site. Google will show the following broader categories of ad units and each category will have ad units of specified sizes.
- Display ads
- In-feed ads
- In-article ads
- Multiplex ads
- Search engine
Display Ad Sizes
Earlier, Google used to offer specific sizes and recommend mobile optimized ad sizes. However, this has beed removed and now you have an option to create responsive or fixed ad unit. Though responsive ad size will remove the hassle of defining manual width and height dimensions, it will create cumulative layout shift problems as the height is not defined.
Let’s take examples of ad placement as shown below covering different types of ad sizes on a page. If you want to use a specific size for an ad slot on your page, then make sure to select “Fixed” ad size option and define the required width and height. Google will show a warning that fixed sizes may reduce the earning due to lesses inventory. Though this is true, you can always choose the standard sizes like 728×90 or 300×50.
Bigger Vs Smaller Ad Sizes
If you are confused on selecting bigger and smaller ads, then it is necessary to understand how Google choose the ads to be displayed on your site. We explain this with a simple example here.
Assume advertiser A has chosen to place ads on your site with the below details:
- Ad size – 336×280 Large Rectangle
- Bid amount per click – $0.50
Another advertiser B also choose your site to place targeted ads with the below details:
- Ad size – 300×250 Small Rectangle
- Bid amount per click – $0.75
If you have placed ad size of 336×280 large rectangle on your site, Google will still display the smaller rectangle ad of 300×250 since it has higher bid amount. So, as a rule of thumb, always select larger ad sizes to cover more inventories of ads with higher revenue. This is the reason Google recommends to use responsive ads as it can accommodate various sizes. However, it also works for custom fixed ad sizes which means any smaller ad size having higher bid will be served to fill your custom ad size.
Finding the Better Choice
If you are not sure about choosing the ad size, select the bigger sized one fitting your ad space or simply go for responsive ad size. The reason is that responsive and larger ad sizes will have more inventory than smaller ad sizes ensuring high ad coverage and the possibility of higher revenue.
When you use fixed ad format, Google will automatically suggest to run an experiment with responsive ad unit and show the difference in estimated revenues. You can choose to run the experiment with variations and select the one generating more revenue.
Points to Note
Though there are no certain rules to choose particular ad size, here are some tips for better understanding:
- Avoid using custom ad size (like 640 x 400) when using fixed size which will result in reduction of revenue since there may not be any bids from the advertisers for your custom size.
- You can use Auto Ads so that Google will automatically determine the placements and sizes for your layout. Google also offers a Site kit plugin for WordPress site for this purpose.
- When using fixed size, make sure to test your site on mobile devices to confirm the ad units are showing properly. Otherwise, you may need to show bigger unit on desktop devices and smaller on mobile devices and control the visibility with CSS media queries.
- As mentioned, responsive units will create layout shift problems and you may need to define the height on your layout using CSS to overcome this.
- Certain individual ads are restricted to use one unit per page. For example you can place only one ad unit of horizontal banner of ad size 970×90 on a page (besides other ad units).
I think Google Adsense has stopped showing Ad sizes, I am trying But not able to see Ad size like- rectangular, leaderboard etc. UPDATED- Aug 2018
Can You Help me with that? How to get rectangular size or leaderboard size (728*90)
You can create a display ad and select or set your size.