It is widely understood and agreed in the online advertiser industry that wider ad sizes, such as leaderboards and MPUs, outperform their taller counterparts, such as skyscrapers. This is predominantly because of the User Interface (UI) which suggests that [endclip] wider ads are more reader friendly as it follows a users more natural and learned reading method, going from the left to right.
According to Google, readers absorb ad information in 'thought units' by several words at a time. Wider sizes let them easily read more content at a glance without dropping a line and returning the eye to the left margin every few words, which on the flip side is what they may have to do for a narrower advert such as a skyscraper.
Well positioned wide adverts can increase advertiser publisher earnings considerably. The sizes Google have identified as being the most effective are:
- MPUs in the 336x280 large rectangle and the 300x250 medium rectangle formats
- Leaderboards in 728x90 and the mobile friendly leaderboard in 320x50
- Half-page 300x600
These ads typically outperform the other sizes but while this is the case, the most important thing is that the adverts best fit your websites layout and that they complement each web page. It would be far better to use alternative sizes if they fit better in your website than trying to force the above sizes into your website design if it made the page too cluttered or uncomfortable to read.
At BarkWeb, we use DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) and AdSense to monetise client websites that want to be online advertisers. There are many ad sizes available on these platforms and it's best to seek expert advice to feed recommendations into your advertiser strategy. For example, a good tip is that it is far better to use a recommended ad unit rather than many smaller ad units next to each other. The emphasis should be on quality of ad unit, not quantity of them on the website.
There are also styles you can set in both Doubleclick and AdSense for your ads. Google have identified three of the most successful ad styles and seperated them by definition:
- Blend - makes the background and outline of the ads on your website the same colour as the background of your webpage so that it sits subtly on the site and easy on the eye.
- Complement - use colours that are in your brands colour palette but that are different to the background colour so that it stands out against the background but still fits in with the other colours that exist on your website.
- Contrast - choose colours that stand out against both your background and the other colours on your website. This means the advert will highly stand out from the rest of your content. Google only recommend using this technique for sites with a dark background and using light and bright colours in the adverts.
It's important to choose the right colour strategy for your website and this could vary depending on your ad placement and your website design. This way you can make the difference between ads being noticed, and clicked, and ads that your web visitors are blind to and skip. A good tip is to also consider changing ad placements over periods of time so that repeat visitors don't become blinded to the advert positions and start to block them out from their scanning of your website.
If you want to discuss online advertising or monetising your website in more detail please call Harryon 01323 735800 or email harry@barkweb.co.uk