What is Native Advertising? Top 12 Best Native Advertising Platforms for Publishers

What is Native Advertising? Top 12 Best Native Advertising Platforms for Publishers

As a publisher, getting the most revenue while giving the best user experience to your visitors is one of your top challenges. Native advertising does precisely that, and leveraging the right ad network is one of the best ways to monetize your site. But how to choose the right one?

Here at CodeFuel, we did the heavy lifting for you and compiled a list of the best 12 Native Ad Platforms for Publishers and tips on choosing the right one.

Short in time? Here is our shortlist:

CodeFuel
Outbrain
Taboola
Nativo
TripleLift
Gemini
RevContent
MGID
Criteo
Linkedin Marketing
AdYouLike
Engageya
An all-in-one platform that allows publishers to monetize their digital properties through intent-based contextual advertising, premium publishers, and seamless integration.
Large reach, strict requirements for publishers.
A content discovery platform with a large pool of premium publishers.
Focuses on storytelling via native ads.
Native advertising platform which focuses on the quality of ads,
An ad network and a native advertising platform. It focuses both on search and native traffic.
Native advertising platform which focuses on giving advertisers and publishers more control over their ad spending and inventory
A self-service native advertisement platform that supports desktop and native mobile advertising platfrm
Geared toward e-commerce, with benefits for advertisers and publishers.
Caters to audiences of LinkedIn social network. It includes supported segmentation features and sponsored updates
Focuses on the European market and premium publishers.
Focuses on non-English speaking markets.

What Is Native Advertising?

Let’s start with a brief definition: The term native advertising refers to a type of ad resembling the look and feel of the organic content surrounding them.

A native ad is, then, a type of paid content that looks almost the same as the rest of the content on the page. Unlike other types of ads, they don’t disrupt the user experience.

Statistics on the Power of Native Ads

Native advertising platforms and their popularity is rising and with reason. The natural feel of native ads makes them very appealing to consumers. Here are some mind-blowing statistics about the power of native advertising platforms:

  • Native advertising spend is expected to reach over $98 billion in 2023. (Insider Intelligence)
  • 68% of consumers say they trust native ads, vs. 55% of consumers of social media ads. (Outbrain)
  • The global native advertising market is expected to reach $650 billion by 2032. (Meetanshi)

Who created native advertising?

The first native advertising was made by John Deer, an agricultural company, in the early 1900s. They used advertorials, which are articles that would promote their products. With the appearance of the Internet, native advertising jumped into the 21st century.

The term native advertising appeared for the first time in 2011. In our times, we can see sponsored content and native ads that blend with the surroundings. Popular websites like BuzzFeed, Forbes, and social media platforms are examples of using the best native advertising here.

What Are Native Advertising Platforms?

Native ad networks or network is a software platform that acts as a medium connecting buyers and publishers with the goal of buying and selling native ads. The platform enables media buyers to set the criteria for the ads, buy ad space and manage campaigns. These software solutions are also called native advertising platforms.
It sounds similar to an ad exchange, right? Yes, they have similar goals, but they work differently. An ad network acts as an intermediary, collecting and selling the publisher’s inventory to media buyers. Ad exchanges, on the other hand, are marketplaces where both buyers and sellers can transact directly.
A native ad platform is a type of ad network that deals exclusively with native ads.

What Are the Three Types of Native Advertising Platforms?

A native advertising ecosystem usually consists of platforms designed for advertisers, for publishers, and a platform that helps them meet.

Demand-side platform

This type of advertising technology software simplifies the bidding and buying of ad inventory for advertisers. A DSP uses programmatic advertising and real-time bidding to automate the purchasing process.

Supply-side platform

These platforms work similarly to DSPs but for the sellers’ side. This ad-tech software helps publishers offer their ad inventory to advertisers. SSPs collect the inventory from publishers and offer them to advertisers. 

Ad exchange

An ad exchange is an online marketplace for ad inventories. Advertisers, publishers, SSPs, DSPs, ad networks, and agencies use ad exchanges to buy and sell ad space.

12 Best Native Advertising Platforms

1. CodeFuel

CodeFuel

CodeFuel is an all-in-one platform that allows publishers to monetize their digital properties and maximize their revenue. Publishers can leverage multiple ad types, including search, and shopping ads, via intent-based monetization. That means users get ads served at the right time, in the right channel, and in the right way.

The comprehensive platform is designed specifically for publishers. A pool of over a thousand premium publishers and 9 billion searches annually results in a strong monetization rate and ROI.

Features

  • Intent-based ads
  • Monetizes websites, extensions, and applications
  • Multiple ad formats
  • Search feed option
  • Search mediation
  • Performance tracking and analytics

Pros and Cons

Pros
Enhances the user experience
Integrates with Microsoft Bing, Google AdSense, and Yahoo.
Increases conversions and engagement
Cons
Not suitable for small publishers.

2. Outbrain

Outbrain

Outbrain native ad network is known for being fairly exclusive with their publishers. Outbrain works with publishers like CNN, The Guardian, MSN, and others. Outbrain works with publishers like CNN, The Guardian, MSN, and others. Among the requirements is that a publisher must have a million monthly visits. The Outbrain platform reaches 1.3 billion users worldwide.

Features

  • Top publishers
  • Massive reach
  • Multiple targeting options, including lookalike audiences.
  • Strict quality requirements for both advertisers and publishers.
  • Analysis and optimization options for your ads.

Pros and Cons

Pros
Easy navigation.
High traffic
Valuable content
Multiple optimization options
Ideas for social media posts
Cons
Terms and conditions vary rapidly
Poor support
Limited customization of ad formats
Targeting can be generic

3. Taboola

Taboola

Taboola was one of the pioneers of native advertising. They have a large pool of premium publishers for their content discovery platform. The list includes NBC, Business Insider, and Fox.

Taboola offers an audience of 500 million active users. Advertisers can segment the audience by filtering by location, device, and operating system. The data features include third-party data visibility and optimization and the news feed.

Features

  • Pool of premium publishers and sites
  • News Feed
  • Multiple targeting and segmentation options
  • Campaign performance measurement
  • Works with Tier 1 countries

Pros and Cons 

Pros
Easy to set up campaigns
User-friendly interface
Multiple options for targeting
You can target lookalike audiences
Cons
It is difficult to navigate between campaigns
No performance whitelisting
You cannot block multiple websites

4. Nativo

Nativo

The Nativo platform focuses on helping brands “tell their story” and increasing the publisher’s revenue via native ads. Nativo collaborates with the best advertising networks, with 600 brands and 400 publishers. Although it may seem small, most ads they serve are cookieless.

Features

  • Cookie-free ad delivery
  • Native ads
  • Deep campaign analysis
  • Header bidding
  • Optimization tools for publishers
  • Traffic estimations for successful campaigns

Pros and Cons

Pros
Ease of use
Native campaign delivery
Extensive reporting
Cookie-less ads
Cons
Limited audience targeting
The campaign set up as a learning curve
The interface is confusing

5. TripleLift

Triplelift

TripleLift is a platform that delivers quality ads to get the best results. It has strict quality requirements for publishers. It works with premium companies like BuzzFeed, BBC, and eBay. One of its unique features is that it uses computer vision to analyze the ads and determine which elements should always be on show.

Features

  • Multiple ad formats
  • No minimum traffic requirements
  • Optimized bidding algorithm
  • Real-time insights on the user experience

Pros and Cons 

Pros
Easy to use
Multiple ad placement options
Seamless integration with all sites.
Cons
Limited optimization options
UI is not user-friendly
Not cost-effective

6. Gemini

Gemini

Yahoo Gemini is an ad network and amongst the best native advertising platforms. It focuses both on search and native traffic. Gemini reaches 2 million daily impressions and 1 billion monthly users. This platform features multiple native ad formats working on desktop and mobile.

An interesting feature of Gemini is that it supports importing data from Google ads and Excel files.

Features

  • Multiple native advertising formats
  • Wide range of targeting options
  • Automatic traffic estimation
  • A large pool of publishers
  • Real-time analytics
  • Precise targeting

Pros and Cons 

Pros
Could use more features
Poor interface
Poor customer support
Cons
Limited optimization options
UI is not user-friendly
Not cost-effective

7. RevContent

RevContent

This fairly new native advertising platform focuses on giving advertisers and publishers more control over their ad spending and inventory. Advertisers get cookie-free targeting, A/B testing, and brand safety. The platform offers publishers more page views and consistent ad revenue.

Features

  • Works with both advertisers and publishers
  • Quality requirements for websites
  • Native formats including interactive
  • Direct deals availability for premium users
  • Ad fraud protection

Pros and Cons

Pros
No minimum traffic requirements
Easy to set up
Easy to use
Cons
Poor support
Lacks targeting options
Ad fraud protection is not good

8. MGID

MGID

One of the first self-service native advertisement platforms, it supports desktop and native advertising. The platform works with publishers and advertisers worldwide. It offers different types of native ads, videos, and widgets.

One of the main features of MGID is that is very publisher-friendly. It doesn’t have minimum traffic requirements, which makes it a good option for small websites.

Features

  • Open web inventory
  • Smart and in-content impact widgets
  • Selective bidding
  • Multiple formats available
  • AI-based programmatic optimization

Pros and Cons

Pros
Easy to use
Simple UI
Tailored solutions for advertisers, publishers, and affiliate marketers
Cons
Time for approval
The ads create latency
Slow platform

9. Criteo

Criteo

Criteo Commerce Growth is one of the top-rated native advertising solutions according to TrustRadius reviewers. Although this platform is mostly geared for advertisers, and e-commerce, it has benefits for publishers too. The platform features over 22,000 advertisers and thousands of publishers. Advertisers can launch, manage and review campaigns with easy-to-use dashboards.

Features

  • Retargeting
  • Acquisition of commerce
  • Dynamically retarget users based on past behavior
  • Creating and running display campaigns
  • Good visibility and reporting
  • Cross-channel campaign management

Pros and Cons

Pros
Easy implementation
Ease of use
Reaches relevant audiences
User-friendly interface
Cons
No free trial option
Targeting features limited to retargeting
Doesn’t have analytic dashboards
Video features are limited
Support is slow

10. Linkedin Marketing

Linkedin Marketing

This marketing platform focuses on reaching audiences through the LinkedIn social network. It includes supported segmentation features and sponsored updates. The B2B advertising platform works mainly with text ads under PPC and CPM pricing models.

Features

  • Audience targeting/ demographics
  • Campaign management/reporting
  • B2B targeting
  • B2B advertising
  • Lead generation

Pros and Cons 

Pros
Campaign manager simplifies management
Audience targeting is very precise
Easy setup and management
Great native B2B targeting
Cons
Costly
Poor customer support
Complex user experience

11. AdYouLike

AdYouLike

This native advertising platform is focused on the European market and premium publishers. They feature a pool of high-level publishers such as Rolling Stone, Bloomberg, The Guardian, Cosmopolitan, and Vogue.

They offer a unique feature in native stories format, leveraging artificial intelligence to offer semantic targeting and deliver contextual ads.

Features

  • 200 million unique visitors
  • Traffic from multiple tiers
  • AI-powered targeting options
  • Offers direct buying from publishers and networks

Pros and Cons

Pros
Very easy to use
High-level content
Cons
Slow updates
Limited customization options

12. Engageya

Engageya

This content engagement and native advertising solution is unique in that it focuses on non-English speaking markets. This platform has 40 billion unique monthly impressions and more than 5000 publishers, including Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, and CNN Greece.

Geared to publishers, it uses maintenance-free widgets publishers can add to their sites and receive native ads. Publishers can manage their ad inventory and access.

Features

  • Vertical targeting
  • Multiple ad types
  • Non-English speaking markets
  • Control over ad inventory and formats.

Pros and Cons

Pros
Cost-effective
Engagement enhancement capabilities
Cons
You can’t set a spending limit on advertisement

Choosing a Native Advertising Platform

You’ve browsed through the list and are still unsure what to look for when choosing among native advertising platforms. You should consider factors unique to your business, such as your advertising budget, the network’s geolocation, or specialization.  Here are some basic factors to consider:

Check the setup

The network may seem a right fit, then you want to set up the software, and the nightmare calls to tech support start. Before agreeing to a network, ensure they have the right setup procedure for your organization. For instance, if your organization uses more than a few devices, a cloud-native solution, or at least one with cloud capabilities, is the right.

Ads Quality

Ad networks are not safe from ad fraud, and sometimes the quality of the ads may suffer. You must review the quality of the ads the platform serves before committing. Even without fraud, you should check the ads comply with your site’s quality standards regarding aesthetics and content.

Requirements

Traffic, budget, and market tier are some of the requirements that vary greatly from platform to platform. Before signing up for a platform, check you meet all their requirements.

Pricing Model

Publishers must carefully review a platform’s pricing and payment models. Nobody likes to have surprise delays in payment. Check the pricing model, if it is CPC or CPM, and the payment terms, including the payment methods. You don’t want to be stuck without payment because they don’t accept PayPal or direct bank transfers.

Why Are Native Ads So Effective?

Research shows native ads are a very effective advertising technique. The magic of native ads? You may not even notice they are there. You surely come across native advertising several times a day. Unlike typical ads, which can feel intrusive to users, native ads adapt to the context and make users more comfortable. 

Native ads feel more trustable to users by appearing as a softer alternative to other ads. Another thing that makes native ads so effective is that it gives more control to publishers, so they can manage how the paid content fits with their audience.

Want to learn more about Native Advertising?

Check Native Advertising Explained – What Is It and How it Works

Why Is Native Advertising an Effective Technique for Publishers? 

Publishers sometimes hesitate when choosing a monetization option for their sites because they feel the online ads are too intrusive. Online ads can annoy users and disrupt the experience publishers work so hard to craft.

Native ads solve the problem by presenting a seamless approach to advertising. The ad is there, but it doesn’t annoy the user. Native ads show in a format familiar to the user, enhancing the experience instead of disturbing it.

What are the benefits of native advertising?

Native advertising provides a seamless experience for the user, making them more likely to engage with the content. It also increases brand awareness and builds customer loyalty. Native advertising has been shown to have higher engagement rates and better conversion rates than traditional display advertising.

Native advertising also offers a more targeted approach to advertising. Advertisers can create content that is specifically tailored to their target audience, ensuring that the right message is delivered to the right people. This results in a higher likelihood of conversion and a better return on investment (ROI) for the advertiser.

Another benefit of native advertising is that it is more cost effective than traditional display advertising. Native ads often have a lower cost per click (CPC) or cost per impression (CPM) than display ads, making them an attractive option for businesses with limited advertising budgets.

Native advertising can also help to improve search engine rankings. By creating high-quality content that is relevant and valuable to the target audience, businesses can improve their search engine optimization (SEO) and increase their visibility online.

In addition, native advertising allows businesses to leverage the credibility and authority of established publishers. By partnering with reputable publishers, businesses can increase their brand awareness and credibility, while also reaching a wider audience.

Overall, the benefits of native advertising include:

  • A seamless user experience
  • Higher engagement rates and better conversion rates
  • A more targeted approach to advertising
  • Cost-effective advertising option
  • Improved search engine rankings
  • Leveraging the credibility and authority of established publishers

Trending Native Ads Formats

There are multiple native ad formats, for example, sponsored content. The following three are gaining traction in the last year as the most popular.

Promoted listings

These ads are typically used on e-commerce sites, such as e-Bay and Amazon. They look like other listings, but they would have a label of “sponsored.” As such, they don’t disrupt the browsing experience.

Let’s see an example of promoted listing. I searched on Amazon.com for an insulated tumbler. Among the listings resulting from my search is one with the label “sponsored.” It looks exactly the same as the other listings, and you wouldn’t say it’s an ad if not for the label.

Promoted listings

Native Paid Search 

Promoted search results are also examples of native ads. In this case, the paid content is displayed on top of organic search results on the SERP page. Sometimes, search ads appear on the side of the SERP page too.

In-feed social media ads

You probably will recognize this format from your social media feeds. These ads are placed in the middle of your social feed and completely resemble the social network’s format. For example, sponsored Instagram stories or sponsored TikToks.

These ads are among the most popular ways to create brand awareness.

Content recommendations 

A content recommendation widget is a small software app that suggests content to visitors based on their interests. In native advertising, content recommendations integrate into the page, blending with the existing content.

You can see an example of content recommendation on CNN.com, where you can see at the end of the page a section called “Paid Content,” which uses the Outbrain content recommendation engine.

Content recommendations

How CodeFuel Increases User Engagement and Conversions with Native Advertising 

CodeFuel goes beyond being a native advertising solution, offering a comprehensive monetization platform for digital properties. The CodeFuel platform delivers intent-based native ads that improve the user experience, increasing engagement and conversion rates.

Our AI-powered system captures the context of the website, application, or extension to deliver ads that align with the user’s intent. The platform leverages premium content and publishers through MSN, as well as programmatic bidding, which ensures a high yield for the publishers.

Start monetizing today with CodeFuel and discover the power of intent.

FAQs

1. What Is Native Advertising Software?

Native advertising software is a technology solution that focuses on helping advertisers to buy native ads. Advertisers can then make ads that match the target website content, therefore, are more relatable for the users.

With native advertising software, organizations can create and manage campaigns with sponsored content and ads that blend with the site’s context. Advertisers can create native ads, and programmatically buy native advertising inventory, accessing native ad networks and platforms.

2. How much does it cost to run native ads?

The rates for native ads are similar to display ads. It will depend on the pricing model, but, for instance, CPM rates run at $10-$20 per thousand impressions. These rates may vary greatly depending on the industry and the ad network.

3. What is self-serve advertising?

Typically, media buying agencies purchase the advertising space for their clients. These days, many ad networks and ad exchanges work under a self-service model. In this model, advertisers can directly purchase ad space from publishers via the automated platform.

4. Is PPC native advertising?

PPC (Price per Click) is a pricing model for digital advertising used for several types of ads. In this model, the advertiser pays a fee every time one of their ads gets clicked by a user. This model is popular among marketers using native advertising because of the effectiveness of native ads.

5. What are the best-paying native ad networks?

One of the ways to rate the best-paying networks is to look at their minimum payout threshold. For publishers, the lower the threshold, the faster they get paid. Considering this, Revcontent, with a $50 minimum payout, would be the most effective, and Yahoo Gemini, with $250, would be the less convenient.

Companies like Outbrain, Nativo, and AdYouLike are also among the best-paying native ad networks.

6. Which businesses use native advertising?

Leading global companies like Netflix and RedBull are among the heaviest users of native advertising. But using native advertising platforms is not exclusive to large corporations. Small and medium publishers may also benefit from implementing native advertising. After all, improving the user experience benefits organizations of all sizes.

7. What is the difference between native advertising and display advertising?

Native advertising blends into the platform where it appears, while display advertising stands out from the content on the website or app. Native advertising is less intrusive and more engaging for the audience, while display advertising is often seen as annoying or disruptive.

8. Banner vs. Native ads which ones are better?

According to research, more than half of surveyed users prefer native to banner ads. Our research showed that native ads are 18% more effective in conversions than banner ads.

Why Should an Advertiser Consider Using Responsive Display Ads

Why Should an Advertiser Consider Using Responsive Display Ads

A Google Responsive Display Ad (RDA) campaign runs what the search engine giant calls responsive ads: display ads capable of automatically adjusting their size and format to fit ad spaces.

Learn the value of running a Google Responsive Display Ad campaign and how RDA advertising can benefit your business, help you promote your brand, and boost your revenue. 

What is a Responsive Display Ad (RDA)?

Responsive Display Ads (RDAs) are one of the many options of other ad formats and other display ads campaigns advertisers can choose to advertise their products, brands, and services with Google Ads.

At first glance, Google Responsive Display Ads appear to be just another responsive display and advertising system for advertisers. However, Google RDAs offer to advertisers a unique value proposition: they are designed to adjust to a given site’s ad spaces automatically using machine learning (ML).

How Do Google RDA Ads Work?

Google RDA will detect the sizes and formats of all available ad spaces on a given website and adapt your responsive ads’ size, appearance, and layout to these other ad formats and slot size beforehand. RDAs eliminate the need for advertisers to create ads and manually adjust creatives to each space.

Ads served through the Google RDA system are created automatically and assembled from individual assets created and uploaded by the advertiser using Google’s machine learning (ML) algorithms. This technology ensures the display ads and videos it creates showcase the best and most appealing elements.

Assets advertisers can upload to Google RDA include:

  • Short headlines (30 characters or less)
  • Long headlines (up to 90 characters)
  • Brand or business name
  • Call-to-action (CTA) text
  • Product descriptions
  • Logos
  • Images in square (1:1), landscape format (1.91:1), or portrait format (9:16)
  • URLs to video assets

When Google assembles the advertiser’s assets using responsive display ads into a functional display ad, it will create a fully functional display ad designed to fit any screen size with standard Google Display Network display ad size.

Common Google RDA ad formats on desktop websites:

Resolution
300 x 250
336 x 280
250 x 250
200 x 200
300 x 600
160 x 600
468 x 60
970 x 90
Format name
Inline Rectangle
Large Rectangle
Square
Small Square
Half-Page
Wide Skyscraper
Leaderboard
Wide Leaderboard

Common Google RDA ad formats on mobile sites and properties:

Resolution
300 x 50
320 x 50
320 x 100
250 x 250
200 x 200
Format name
Mobile Banner
Mobile Banner (variant)
Large Mobile Banner
Square
Small Square

Top 6 Benefits of Responsive Display Ads for Advertisers

Advertisers choosing to promote their brands, products, and services through Google Responsive Ads (RDAs) may find this advertising method beneficial in six significant ways: ease of setup and configuration, better reach, improved CTRs, enhanced mobile ad performance, better performance monitoring, and better dynamic retargeting.

Understanding how Google RDA can benefit advertisers and what they stand to gain with a well-configured, properly-tuned RDA campaign is crucial to using this platform as efficiently as possible.

1. Fast Setup and Easy to Configure

One of the most immediate benefits of using Google Responsive Ads (RDA) is a fast setup and configuration phase, creating the vast difference in time and effort required to set up an RDA campaign compared to traditional ad campaigns.

The ease of setting up and configuring a campaign is especially beneficial for advertisers with limited access to web designers, dedicated web developers and programmers, and other individuals capable of creating high-quality ad creatives.

The primary advantage of using Google RDA is the convenience of letting Google to automatically create ads, to build and configure your ad creatives. This represents a significant time- and money-saving benefit for many advertisers, as the ad network will automatically create ads, adjust, and place fully functional display ads on their behalf, with little to no manual tuning necessary.

Following the network’s and Google Display Network (GDN) recommendations regarding assets is crucial to obtain the best results with Google RDA. Creating and uploading high-quality assets helps ensure Google’s systems can combine them as efficiently as possible and generate appealing responsive display ads.

Best Practices to Setup Image Assets

Below are some best practices and recommendations advertisers should follow when uploading assets to Google RDA:

  • When uploading landscape images, ensure the resolution is a 1.91:1 ratio (1.91 times as wide as they are tall). While the minimum allowed resolution is 600 x 314, the recommendation is to upload images at least twice as large, with a resolution of 1,200 x 628 or better.
  • While the minimum size for square image assets is 300 x 300, the recommended size is four times larger or better: 1,200 x 1,200.
  • Portrait images are ideal for tall and narrow display ads, such as half-page or wide skyscrapers. Although the minimum allowed size for such assets is 600 x 1,067, consider uploading images at least 1.5 times larger. Google’s recommended size is 900 x 1600.
  • Always use the highest-quality images at your disposal. Avoid blurry, hard-to-read, skewed, excessively filtered, or otherwise visually compromised assets.
  • Remember that Google’s systems will assemble images, pictures, logos, and text for you. Avoid including images or photographs with text and logo already baked in, as it may result in repeated or visually disruptive logos.
  • Upload at least 3 to 5 images for each product you want to be featured on a responsive ad. It helps avoid repetition and ensures ads can efficiently present your product for all GDN display ad sizes.
  • When uploading product images, ensure they fully showcase the product with less than 20% of blank space around it. It helps ensure your products remain within the generated display ad’s focus without issues.

2. Better Reach

The primary benefit of using Google Responsive Display Ads is the possibility of generating quality display ads, responsive display advertising that can fit in any ad space using any standard GDN format. In specific instances, Google RDA can also let you benefit from advanced features, such as adapting your own assets to create text-based ads, auto-generated video content, and native ads.

These features are convenient for advertisers looking to use their assets in a wide variety of ad types and formats. Consequently, RDA ads are an efficient solution to maximize the reach and visibility of their ad campaigns, ensuring brands, products, and services are promoted on the most digital properties possible and to the broadest target audiences.

For example, an advertiser looking to promote sportswear products can upload assets to Google RDA and let the system automatically determine the best display ads for digital properties such as lifestyle blogs, fashion websites, sports-focused social media platforms, and high-relevancy mobile applications. This solution lets the advertiser reach audiences from all these sites in different combinations and platforms, maximizing visibility.

3. Improved Click-Through Rates (CTRs)

Advertisers using Google RDA and optimizing their ad campaigns by following the network’s best practices and asset recommendations generally see the best measurable results.

RDA campaigns built using sufficient high-quality, high-resolution assets experience the best engagement rates, increasing click-through rates (CTRs) and contributing to boosted conversions and revenue.

Additionally, a well-tuned Google RDA campaign typically performs better than most traditional display ad campaigns. The performance difference is partly due to Google’s machine learning (ML) algorithms automatically testing, evaluating, and optimizing each new ad variation it creates.

Leveraging Google RDA’s functions and capabilities helps advertisers ensure only the best-performing versions of Google display ads are displayed on each website, blog, app, or digital property reached.

4. Enhanced Performance for Mobile Ad Serving

Another significant benefit of using Google RDA to serve ads is improving your ad campaign’s performance on mobile devices and digital properties. 

Advertisers must create assets specifically for mobile ads when running traditional ad campaigns, with few avenues to reuse or recycle the same assets and content. Developing mobile-friendly assets can be time-consuming and expensive, especially for smaller advertisers with fewer resources.

With Google RDA, this constraint is eliminated. Google’s machine-learning algorithms will adjust the size unlimited placement and format of the ads it creates to fit mobile-friendly ad spaces on different devices without requiring you to create new or mobile-specific assets.

5. Individual Element Performance Monitoring

When using Google RDA to manage your ad campaigns, you can monitor the performance of each element and asset your ads use with the ad asset report function.

Google RDA monitoring systems compare asset performance in relation to other assets of the same type. For example, headlines are only compared to other headlines, whereas product descriptions can only be compared to other product descriptions.

One of the most critical elements of the ad asset report is the Performance column. This function is where you can monitor the performance of your assets and determine which ones contribute to your ad campaign’s success. Each asset receives a performance rating, indicating how much it contributes to your campaign’s overall performance.

Optimizing your assets to ensure they receive the best ratings is essential to boost click-throughs, conversions, and revenue, increasing your ad campaign’s overall performance.

Google RDA tracks asset performance using six ratings: Pending, Learning, Low, Good, Best, and Unrated. Here’s what each rating means:

  • Pending: Assets with the Pending performance rating do not currently have any performance metrics that Google can use to measure its performance. It typically appears on new or unused assets. 
  • Learning: Google assigns this rating to assets with some data already collected but doesn’t have enough to provide a definitive rating. According to Google RDA guidelines, assets with a Learning rating must have collected at least 5,000 impressions over 30 days to obtain a different rating.
  • Low: Google assigns this performance rating to the worst-performing assets in a given category. Google recommends replacing assets rated Low with others to improve your ad campaign’s overall performance.
  • Good: This performance rating is equivalent to a Medium rating, between Low and Best. Google recommends optimizing this asset or adding more of the same type for your campaign to improve its overall performance.
  • Best: This is the highest performance rating, shown on assets with the best performance for its type. Advertisers should strive to ensure as many of their assets have this rating. Google recommends adding more assets with similar attributes to boost the ad campaign’s performance.
  • Unrated: The asset performance tracker will show a pair of dash symbols (–) to indicate an asset is currently Unrated. Three possible symptoms can cause an asset to be Unrated: Not enough assets of the same type to compare it with, the asset is inactive, or the asset doesn’t receive enough web traffic to measure its relative performance accurately.

6. Ideal for Dynamic Retargeting and Prospecting

Dynamic retargeting, also known as dynamic remarketing, is a retargeting system provided by Google Ads to help advertisers show relevant ads to users and viewers that have previously visited a website or used a specific mobile application.

Unlike standard remarketing, Google’s dynamic retargeting system automatically captures user data to show tailored ads, letting viewers see promoted products and services they’ve browsed while visiting the website or app.

Ads served through Google RDA are designed to function alongside Google’s dynamic retargeting function, automatically adjusting the ads displayed to retargeted users by using the assets corresponding to the products and services they browsed or viewed before.

This strategy makes it a highly effective tool for advertisers looking to reduce cart abandonment rates and convince previous visitors to purchase a product or convert.

Google Ads also allows advertisers to add dynamic prospecting to a dynamic retargeting campaign. Dynamic prospecting lets Google RDA use its machine learning (ML) algorithm to predict what a user is likely to purchase or be interested in based on what the customer is browsing and demographics data, such as age, gender, or income.

In practice, dynamic prospecting displays highly targeted ads using similar principles as dynamic retargeting but toward users visiting for the first time, letting you benefit from Google’s ML-powered systems for first-time and returning visitors.

Build an Efficient and High-Performing RDA Campaign with CodeFuel

Although starting an ad campaign with Google Responsive Display Ads (RDA) is fast and easy, one of the more challenging aspects of managing an RDA campaign is ensuring you have high-quality assets for Google’s systems to use. If you need assistance creating, modifying, and optimizing assets to ensure they receive the highest performance ratings, CodeFuel is here to help.

Leverage the skills and resources of our digital advertising team and let our experts help you create ads with high-quality assets and find the best ways to monetize your digital property. We are committed to ensuring your business’s growth and the performance of your ad campaigns. Contact CodeFuel today to get started.

How to Make a Banner Ads

How to Make a Banner Ads

As one of the oldest forms of digital advertising, banner ads remain a common way for advertisers to promote their brands, products, and services. According to the latest statistics, the worldwide banner ad spending in 2022 was over $147 billion and is projected to grow beyond $207 billion by 2027.

In this article, you will gain an understanding of how to build efficient and effective banner ads that is critical, regardless of the size of your business. Learn how to create eye-catching ad banners, ensure they target your audience, and grab the viewer’s attention.

What is Banner Advertising, and Why is it Important?

Banner advertising is a form of digital advertising using predominantly image-based assets to promote products and services. They are the Internet equivalent of physical banners and billboards.

Banner advertising or banner advertisements was the first form of advertising designed explicitly with the Internet in mind. The first banner ad was published in 1994. It took the shape of a long, rectangular image promoting AT&T services hosted on hotwired.com (better known today as wired.com).

This new advertising form revolutionized how companies and businesses communicate with their customers around the globe, showcasing the importance of leveraging the Internet to promote brands.

Differentiating banner ads from other ad formats

While banner advertising is no longer the only way for advertisers to promote their brands and products online, standard banner ads remain a cost-efficient form of display advertising that can boost conversions and revenue. Leveraging banner advertising and building efficient, eye-catching banner ads is crucial to get the best results.

How to Create an Efficient Banner Ad Campaign

Every high-performing banner advertising campaign has well-designed, adequately configured banner ads. Good banners should draw the user’s attention to the landing page and incite them to click. Follow the industry’s best practices to create efficient banner ads.

Find the Right Ad Spaces

Advertisers must ensure they have suitable ad spaces to place their ad creatives before building them. In the past, advertisers had to negotiate with publishers for each website or digital property separately, often resulting in lengthy negotiations delaying revenue streams.

Today, the best solution to find suitable ad spaces is to join an ad network and use the features of an ad server. These advertising technology solutions serve as automated intermediaries between publishers and advertisers, ensuring publishers get the highest-quality and most relevant ads and helping advertisers place their ad creatives on the best possible digital properties. 

Plan Your Banner Ad Campaign’s Objectives

Before creating image and text assets, plan how your banners will look and how you want them to present your products, services, or brand.

During the planning stage, ask yourself the following questions:

  • Who is the target audience for this ad campaign?
  • What are the banners meant to showcase or promote?
  • What assets will I need to promote my brand efficiently?

Each advertiser’s needs are different, meaning the specific answers to these questions will vary depending on your needs, to build brand awareness and ad campaign’s objectives. Once you have a plan for your banner ad campaign, you can move on to creating visuals and assets.

Build the Ad Creative’s Visuals & Eye-Catching Images

The next step is to build the visual assets necessary to develop your banner ads. Banners are a visual medium, making building these assets one of the most critical steps in the whole ad design and creation of banner designs process.

Although the creative process of designing banner ads depends on your objectives and needs, following these best practices is essential to ensure your banner ads are as efficient as possible.

  • Include a value proposition in the creative: Regardless of what you want to promote with your ad, ensuring the ad communicates an offer to the viewer as clearly as possible is crucial. For instance, statements such as “limited time offer” or “25% off” should be visible and easy to read.
  • Build a call to action (CTA): While CTAs are typically buttons or plain text, they must all invite the user to click with a short, two- or three-word sentence asking the user to complete the desired action. Examples of efficient CTAs include phrases like “Buy now,” “Get started today,” or “Click here.”
  • Use the right colors: Color theory is crucial when building visual assets representing your brand, product, or service in a banner ad. Many brands are associated with specific colors; color theory shows each color is associated with particular feelings or emotions the advertiser wants to convey to the viewer. Below are examples of emotions related to commonly utilized brand colors:
  • Red: Passion, activity, excitement, boldness, confidence, ambition, power
  • Blue: Trust, reliability, strength, dependability
  • Green: Nature, healing, growth, safety, balance
  • Cyan: Openness, modernity, ambition, spiritedness
  • Pink: Sensitivity, femininity, love, nurturing, possibilities
  • Orange: Instinct, optimism, freedom, sociability, motivation
  • Purple: Creativity, originality, individualism, unconventional
  • Gray / Silver: Balance, moderation, technology, authority, refinement
  • Select quality image assets: Regardless of the creative content you create for your banner ads, ensuring the image assets you use to build them are of the highest possible quality is critical. If your ad network imposes limitations on file formats, ensure your image assets have as high a resolution as the file size limits allow. Using low-quality assets harms your brand’s image, as it may appear unprofessional or cause viewers to assume the banner ad isn’t functioning correctly.
  • Consider using animation or rich media: You can build banner ads using various types and formats that can help you better convey your message. Most ad networks support standard banner ads that can support animated GIF images. While animated GIFs are limited in color depth and quality, they function everywhere and can help your banner stand out. You may also opt for rich media banner ads, allowing you to benefit from video playback, audio content, interactivity, and other more advanced technologies, provided your ad network supports them.

Create the Ad’s Copy Text 

While banner ads are predominantly a visual medium, most banner ads feature written copy. Text-based copy is necessary to communicate your offers, calls to action, and value propositions more efficiently, even in image-based ads. Without copy, your banner ads would contain no text and likely confuse viewers, almost guaranteeing they will never click on the most captivating banner ads.

The best practices when writing copy for your banner ads revolve around the same principle: keep the copy short, easy to read, and to the point. Even if you take advantage of rich media and use video or interactive visual elements to convey your offer, the ad’s copy should not force the user to read large quantities of text, even if it is well-written.

Regardless of what your web banner design is intended to convey, ensure your copy adheres to the following recommendations:

  • Keep it short. While banner ads do not have a maximum word count or character limits as text ads do, you still have limited space to display text, even when using animated or rich media banners. Avoid overloading the user with text and get to the point of your offer in as few words as possible.
  • The spelling and grammar must be perfect. If the average user can spot a typo or a grammatical mistake, they are less likely to click or pay attention to your offer.
  • Use the right fonts and colors. Choosing the right fonts or text colors for your banner is only partly about its visual appeal. The right combination can help your text become easier to read and attract the viewer’s eye more efficiently, increasing the chances of clicks and conversions.
  • Include statistics. Giving users numbers, percentages, and comparisons can motivate them to click on your banner and complete the conversion process. Statistics also increase the brand’s credibility and improve its image by appearing more professional.
  • Use search keywords. Even the copy text in banner ads can be picked up by search engines. Consequently, you can use search engine optimization (SEO) techniques and include relevant keywords to ensure users find their way to your ads from a search engine.
  • Offer the user a solution. The most successful ads usually convey a relatable message to the user and offer a way to solve their problems. Your banner ad must address their needs and present a product or a service in a way that conveys that your brand can help them satisfy those needs. Including terms such as “you” or “your” is commonly used to address the audience personally and build rapport with your customers.

Use the Correct File Formats and Sizes

Depending on whether your campaign uses traditional banner ads or rich media ads, your assets may include files of many different sizes and formats. Image assets may also be subject to resolution limits, requiring you to ensure your assets fit into one of the pre-approved image sizes or within a range of allowable resolutions.

If you’re using an animated banner or rich media ads, your banner ads may need to follow additional limits and conditions. For example, animated GIF creatives may need to fit within maximum animation length durations and framerates.

The best way to ensure your assets use the correct sizes and formats is to check your ad or Google display network and its guidelines and recommendations. For instance, image ads for Google Ads display ad campaigns must be in JPG, PNG, or GIF format, with a maximum file size of 150 kb. These ads must also belong to one of the allowed ad sizes per display network. Examples include the 200 x 200 small square, 300 x 250 inline rectangle, 160 x 600 wide skyscraper, 468 x 60 banner, or 320 x 50 mobile banner.

Test Your Banners

After deploying your web banners and launching your ad campaign for the first time, you should test and optimize them regularly.

The best testing tool for banner ads is the A/B testing process. Under this testing process, your banner ad design campaign can be divided into two versions: A and B. A is the original version featuring your current banners, whereas B features an updated version showcasing small changes or modifications you intend to test.

With A/B testing, a set percentage of your viewers will see Version B, whereas the others will see Version A. The objective of A/B testing is to compare each version’s differences and determine whether the changes implemented in Version B are more effective.

It is crucial to make only a few changes at a time when conducting A/B testing on your banner ads. One of the best solutions to accurately measure the performance of your changes is to ensure Version B is identical to Version A save for just a few clicks or a single, critical element.

Commonly tested and optimized elements include the following:

  • Calls-to-actions (CTAs): Your banner’s CTA is one of the most important elements of your banner ad, as it is designed to incite users to click with a short, concise phrase. Regularly testing and modifying your CTA can bring the most changes to your banner ad campaign’s performance, making it a critical part of your testing and optimization process.
  • Colors: Even changing a simple element, such as the color of your CTA button or copy text, can affect your ad’s performance. Test different combinations of colors to find the most efficient configurations.
  • Background elements: Banner ads may feature different background elements, such as photographs, detailed designs, simple patterns, or single flat colors. There is no single best answer as to which of these choices is the best for your banners.
    One ad may perform better with a simple textured background overlaid with ad copy, while another may benefit from a photograph or artwork used as a background element. Don’t hesitate to test different assets and measure your banner ad’s performance with each to find what works best for your campaign.
  • Value propositions: Besides the CTA, most of the copy in a typical banner ad will be spent on the value proposition due to the limited space for text. Regularly updating the wording without modifying the core message or intent can bring positive results if your banner ad campaign primarily focuses on showcasing value propositions to potential customers.

Common Banner Ad Sizes

Below is a breakdown of the most commonly used image resolutions in banner advertising. Each size has a specific name, helping advertisers and publishers identify banner types. Publishers can place ad spaces for specific banner sizes on their digital properties, and advertisers can adapt their creatives to each banner ad size used.

  • 468 x 60 – Banner
  • 300 x 50 – Mobile banner
  • 320 x 100 – Large mobile banner
  • 200 x 200 – Small square
  • 250 x 250 – Square
  • 300 x 250 – Inline rectangle, also called medium rectangle
  • 336 x 280 – Large rectangle
  • 728 x 90 – Leaderboard
  • 970 x 90 – Large leaderboard
  • 320 x 50 – Mobile leaderboard
  • 120 x 600 – Skyscraper
  • 300 x 600 – Mobile skyscraper, also called a half-page ad

How Much Do Banner Ads Cost?

Depending on the ad network, after an advertiser has developed their ad creatives and is ready to launch the campaign, they may have the option to choose from multiple monetization models.

Each model has its own uses and represents different methods of paying publishers to display ads on their digital properties. The most common monetization models for banner ad campaigns are CPM, CPC, CPA, and CPV.

Cost Per Mille (CPM)

The most common monetization model in digital advertising today is Cost Per Mille (CPM). Ad campaigns under the CPM model count the number of impressions generated, charging the advertiser a set amount for every 1,000 impressions the ad has received.

For example, if a banner ad campaign charges $2 CPM, it indicates the advertiser will pay the publisher $2 for every 1,000 impressions it generates throughout the campaign’s lifetime. If the campaign has generated 140,000 impressions, the advertiser will pay $280.

Cost Per Click (CPC)

One of the oldest digital advertising monetization models is Cost Per Click (CPC), also referred to as Pay-Per-Click (PPC). This model is the simplest to understand, charging advertisers a set amount every time a user clicks on the ad. The CPC model is one of the oldest, with the first PPC ad campaign launching on July 8, 1996.

A banner ad campaign with a listed cost of $1.25 CPC will charge advertisers $1.25 for each user that clicks on a clickable banner ad. If the campaign has generated 1,400 clicks during its lifetime, the advertiser will pay the publisher $1,750.

Cost Per Action (CPA)

Cost Per Action (CPA) campaigns are among the most versatile monetization options. This model charges advertisers whenever a user completes a desired action after interacting with an ad. CPA ads are among the most challenging to run because performance is defined according to the number of specific actions performed instead of views or clicks per web page. However, they can be highly effective for advertisers because they quickly attract and convert high-intent users.

In this context, “action” refers to a specific action defined by the advertiser that the user must complete. Examples of actions in a CPA campaign include:

  • Installing an app
  • Completing a purchase
  • Signing up for a newsletter
  • Completing a survey
  • Filling out a form
  • Watching a video

For example, a banner ad campaign costing $3.50 CPA will charge advertisers $3.50 for every user who has completed a desired action. If a CPA campaign generates 300 successful actions, the advertiser will pay $1,050 to the advertiser.

Cost Per View (CPV)

The Cost Per View (CPV) model is exclusively used on ad campaigns relying on video-based ad creatives. CPV campaigns measure performance based on the number of views generated instead of clicks, impressions, or actions.

Most ad networks supporting CPV campaigns will only validate a view after a user has seen at least 30 seconds of the video ad, sees it to completion if the video ad creative is under 30 seconds long, or interacts with it as with a CPC ad.

Banner ad campaigns monetized using CPV are relatively rare, as they require banners to support rich social media and use video creatives. However, well-configured CPV creatives can attract many high-intent users, making it one of the most potentially lucrative models for advertisers.

For example, a banner ad campaign with a listed price of $5.50 CPV will cost advertisers $5.50 for each validated view. If the CPV campaign generates 210 valid views, the advertiser must pay the publisher $1,155.

Additional Tips to Boost Your Banner Ad Campaign’s Effectiveness

While creating quality ad creatives and routinely testing and optimizing them is essential to ensure your great banner ad campaign’s performance, following these additional tips can help you maximize your banner ad campaign.

  • Ensure your banners’ visual hierarchy. According to design hierarchy theory, most viewers scan documents in a set order, generally top left corner, top right corner, center, then the rest of the document. Following the rules of hierarchy can help you determine where to place and organize your banner’s elements to attract a viewer’s eyes more efficiently. For instance, you can place your brand or company logo in the top-left corner, showcase the product or service in the center, and your CTA in the bottom-right corner.
  • Adapt the medium to your needs. While modern forms of banner advertising can integrate advanced animated images or rich media, they are also more expensive than traditional display banners with static images. Consider your options and opt for the most cost-effective solution. For instance, if you cannot convey your message more efficiently with rich media, opt for traditional static banners to reduce costs.
  • Offer incentives: One of the most efficient ways to ensure your banner ads will receive views, clicks, or other interactions is to give users incentives. Examples of incentives include price discounts on products for sale, a “buy one get one free” offer, guarantees, trials, or free samples.

Conclusion

Although today’s banner ads are available in a broader range of formats and can integrate more technologies and functions than in the 1990s, the essential principles of banner advertising haven’t changed. Publishers and website operators lend some of the space on their websites, apps, and digital properties to advertisers, allowing them to display various sizes and types of ads.

Create The Perfect Banner Ads with CodeFuel

Whether you plan to promote your brand, product, or services with banner ads, managing your campaign and routinely testing and optimizing your banners can be arduous without proper guidance.

Don’t go at it alone; contact CodeFuel’s digital advertising experts team. Our team has access to the resources and expertise to help you find the best ways to optimize your banner ad campaign, boost your conversion rates, and increase your revenue. Learn more about our services today.

What Is Rich Media:  Definition, Comparison and Examples

What Is Rich Media: Definition, Comparison and Examples

Rich media is a term used in digital advertising for ads that include advanced media features and technologies. While standard static ads have text or images, rich media ads use videos, animation, audio, and interactive content.

Rich media ads have become popular due to their higher performance over traditional static ads. Well-configured rich media ad campaigns result in higher user engagement and have been used to boost views, click-through rates (CTRs), and conversions.

Definition of Rich Media Ads

Rich media ad is an online type of digital ad that includes content designed to be highly engaging or generate user interactions, such as video, audio, or interactive elements.

Unlike standard display ads, rich media ads offer a more immersive and dynamic experience for users, increasing their interaction and response rates.

To better understand the importance of rich media ads in the digital advertising landscape, it is critical to compare them with traditional forms of digital advertising and contrast their capabilities.

How Rich Media Ads Differ From Standard Display Banner Ads

How rich media ads differ from standard, static banner creatives in multiple ways. Below is a breakdown of the most significant differences.

Static (Standard) Banner Ads
Contains plain text (HTML), a static image (JPG, PNG), or a basic animated GIF
Cannot support video content
Cannot support audio content
Cannot support interactive elements
Creative types limited by file formats
Limited analytics
Maximum size is typically limited to 150-200 KB or smaller
Supports a single click-through link
Rich Media Ads
Can support any text or image format
Supports all animated image formats (animated GIF, animated PNG, WEBP)
Supports video content
Supports audio content
Numerous creative types possible
Expandable to larger sizes
Supports detailed analytics and tracking metrics
Can support multiple click-through links

How Rich Media Ads Differ From Text Ads

Text ad refers to in-text advertising, which displays promoted content within text-based mediums. Examples include native ads on text-heavy sites, blogs, or search engine result ads.

While text ads can benefit advertisers looking to reach customers from search engine results, they are limited in format and capabilities. While they are very lightweight and easy for viewers to consume, most networks serving text ads impose strict limitations on the number of characters an advertiser can include in the creative. This character limitation means a text ad can convey only a small amount of information.

A rich media ad can fit in a small space, support expansion functions to make it larger and display its content more efficiently, and supports numerous file formats to convey messages to the viewer. Rich media ads are more space-efficient and can provide more information than any text-only creative.

How Rich Media Ads Work

Rich media ads use various technologies, making them more complex and versatile than traditional display ads. Below is a breakdown of some of the most critical technologies allowing rich media ads to function.

  • Ad Servers: Before placing and serving them on a digital property, ads must be stored on dedicated ad servers. The primary role of an ad server is to store an advertiser’s ad creatives in various sizes and formats, to be later delivered in real-time to publisher-operated platforms such as websites, blogs, apps, and other digital properties. Ad servers can also collect user data, providing analytics and performance tracking of each ad unit to advertisers. Ad servers are essential for monetization for publishers, as they can automatically fill their digital properties’ ad spaces with the best and most relevant ads.
  • HTML5: HTML5 is the latest generation of the Hypertext Markup Language, an essential technology and programming language used to display webpages. HTML5 is a worldwide standard supported by all browsers and operating systems. Because of this, ads developed in the HTML5 format can be displayed on virtually any device. This version of the HTML language is designed to support rich media ads, making it one of the most common languages used in modern digital advertising.
  • CSS3: CSS3 is the latest generation of the Cascading Style Sheets language, a set of modular standards dictating modern web pages’ styling, formatting, and appearance. Rich media ads can use CSS3 features to enhance presentation and optimization, ensuring they load faster on a wider array of devices.
  • JavaScript: The JavaScript (JS) language is the world’s most widely used programming language, estimated to form at least one part of 98% of websites. Web developers have used JavaScript since 1995 to introduce or enhance a webpage’s interactivity. Numerous rich media creatives use JavaScript features to serve ads more efficiently and create more complex and engaging creatives.
  • Tracking pixels: A tracking pixel, also called a pixel tag, is a 1 x 1 transparent image carrying specific pieces of code that loads alongside webpages, emails, or rich media ads. The code contained within these pixels is designed to gather user data, such as the operating system (OS), browser, client type, screen resolution, time spent, and IP address. Ads can use tracking pixels to collect analytics, user behavior data, and insights on the ad campaign’s performance.

Types of Rich Media Ads

Advertisers can create and implement various rich media ads in their campaigns. Each rich media ad format type serves different purposes and can help advertisers showcase their brands and products in multiple contexts, from desktop websites to mobile applications.

Video Ads

The video ad is the most common type of rich media ad. Video ads leverage moving images and audio to showcase a brand and its products, using similar principles to television ads but adapted to Internet-based digital properties, such as blogs, websites, and mobile applications.

Video ads attract the viewer’s attention using various techniques, with several categories of video ads available to advertisers:

  • Pre-roll in-stream video ads: This type of video ad plays at the beginning of streamed video content, such as a YouTube video. Pre-roll video ads are typically short (6 to 15 seconds) and skippable after a set period, usually 5 seconds.
  • Mid-roll in-stream video ads: Mid-roll video ads play near the middle of streamed video content, often between two distinct segments. Mid-roll ads can be longer than their pre-roll counterparts, with a typical maximum content length of 30 seconds.
  • Post-roll in-stream video ads: This category of video ads plays at or near the end of streamed video content. While most post-roll ads are 10 to 15 seconds long, some can be as long as 4 minutes. End-roll ads play after the viewer has seen the content they came for, making the longer formats less likely to bother them.
  • Outstream video ads: This type of video ad is displayed in a self-container player, making it possible to display on websites and digital properties that do not traditionally serve video content, such as news websites.
  • Overlay video ads: An overlay video ad plays over the primary video content, obscuring 10% to 20% to avoid distracting viewers from the content they came for. It uses the same overlaying system as subtitles and captions.

Rich Media Interstitial Ads

Although interstitial ads form their category of ads that can display text, images, and standalone video content, the most well-known form of interstitial ads features rich media. 

All interstitial ads are designed to display full-screen ads. While desktop interstitials exist, mobile interstitials are more widely used. They are designed to appear after the user has completed a specific action, creating a transition from one action to the next.

For example, an interstitial ad displayed inside a mobile game may appear after the user has completed a level or finished a game session, briefly interrupting them before they can resume.

Many rich media interstitial ads are fully interactive, leveraging various technologies to provide users with an immersive and engaging experience. Examples of interactive features include sample levels of a mobile game, snippets of an application or utility, show quiz questions or polls, and interactive video ads.

Expandable Ads

Expanding ads, also called expandable ads, are a specific form of rich media ads designed to have two sizes: a more compact initial size and an expanded size.

Expanding ads can be viewed as a modernized take on the classic, static banner ad. While they can adopt the same placements as banners, users can expand these ads by clicking or hovering the mouse pointer over the expanding ad’s placement, causing it to expand over a wider area and display the creative in a larger format.

Given how they function, these ads are considered action-driven; most expanding ads will only switch to their larger size once the viewer interacts with them. Consequently, they attract high-intent viewers and typically generate high user engagement rates.

While most expanding ads expand in a single, fixed direction (e.g., a rectangular ad expanding downward or to one of its sides), some networks offer multi-directional expandable (MDE) ads that can intelligently expand in any direction depending on their placement on the page.

Rich Media Banner Ads

Although banner ads are the oldest form of digital advertising, rich media versions of these traditional ad formats are available to advertisers who wish to continue using banners while benefiting from the advantages of rich media technologies.

For instance, a rich media banner ad can use traditional banner ad formats to play highly engaging or interactive creatives, introducing audio, video, and interactive ads to ad placements generally reserved for static images.

Pushdown Ads

A pushdown ad is a rich media ad designed to push a webpage’s content downward. Once a pushdown ad loads, it visibly appears to push or drag the content the viewer came for, making a dramatic and memorable entrance. Although it is a rarer type of rich media ad, it uses size formats similar to specific banner ads, such as billboards and leaderboards.

Although standard pushdown ads are designed to push the content down automatically once loaded, advertisers can configure them in many ways to change or enhance user experience.

For instance, some pushdown ads can be built to load only a small portion or a clickable button that expands and pushes the content only when the user interacts with it. This format combines the unique presentation of pushdown ads with the particularities of a user-clickable expanding ad.

As with other rich media ad formats, pushdown ads support multimedia content and ad creatives, including animated images, audio, video, and interactive features.

Lightbox Ads

A lightbox ad is an ad unit exclusive to the Google Display Network, first introduced for desktop-based digital properties in 2012 and later expanded to mobile.

The lightbox ad is a small ad on a webpage that a user can click, tap, or hover. When interacted with, a dimming layer partially obscures the content, and the titular lightbox loads, displaying multiple images, videos, or interactive elements.

Although it appears similar to an expanding ad at first glance, the lightbox ad is designed to draw engagement and retain user attention for longer. The dimming and displaying of multiple ad items help users transition away from the content and focus on the ad creatives, resulting in higher engagement rates than standard expandable ads.

Slider Ads

Slider ads, called carousels or rotating offers, resemble banners that automatically slide between multiple pieces of ad content. Although primarily designed for image-based content, slider ads combining image and video-based creatives are possible, granting advertisers high flexibility.

Most slider ads are designed to automatically switch to the next slide after a set period (e.g., 5 seconds). Many also feature individually clickable buttons letting players select a specific slide or switch to the next or previous slides.

Key Performance Indicators To Measure Performance

When measuring your rich media ad campaign’s performance, attention to the correct data points is critical.

  • Impressions: The number of times an ad was displayed on a webpage, regardless of whether the user has interacted with it.
  • Views / Plays: The number of times a user actively viewed an ad. This KPI may be referred to as the number of plays on video-based ad creatives instead.
  • Engagement rate (Interaction time): A percentage representing the number of interactions divided by the number of impressions, views, or plays, depending on which type of engagement is being tracked.
  • Completion rate: The number of users that completed an ad, such as watching a video ad to the end or using an interactive ad for a given period. A sister KPI is interaction time, which tracks the time spent viewing or interacting with an ad.
  • Click-through rate (CTR): A percentage representing the number of clicks an ad has received divided by the number of impressions.
  • Conversion rate: A percentage representing the number of users completing a desired action (e.g., purchasing a product) divided by the number of ad clicks or interactions.
  • Revenue: An estimation of the average amount earned per successfully converted user.

Best Practices for Using Rich Media Ads

The best way to maximize your rich media ad campaign’s performance is to follow the industry’s tips and best practices:

  • Mind the user experience: While rich media ads offer numerous possibilities to capture a viewer’s attention and engagement, excessive use of rich media features can cause your ad creatives to become intrusive or annoying, harming your KPIs in the long term.
  • Make it mobile-friendly: Over 60% of all world wide web traffic comes from mobile devices, making it critical to ensure your ad creatives are optimized for mobile users.
  • Clear calls to action (CTAs): The best way to ensure your ads drive users to convert is to ensure the ad informs the user on what to do, from purchasing a product to answering surveys.
  • Use quality creatives: All image, audio, and video assets in your rich media ads should be of the highest quality and resolution allowed by the ad network to ensure your ads have a clean and professional look.
  • Test, optimize, repeat: Rich media ad campaigns must be regularly tested, modified, optimized, and improved to obtain the best results and performance.

Conclusion

Traditional digital advertising uses principles introduced in the early 1990s. They primarily use elements such as text or static images with hyperlinks to present viewers with a message or a product. While technically simple, lightweight, and easy to implement, traditional digital advertising is limited, as it cannot display more than plain text or images.

Rich media can use multiple layers of content and technical elements to create more engaging and visually appealing ads. Widely used rich media ad format examples include audio, video, and interactive content.

Rich media ads are typically powered by HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript technologies to provide a multi-layered advertising experience. Some rich media ads can even be games, such as demonstrations of mobile games displayed in ads. Additionally, most rich media ads feature more advanced analytics and tracking tools, allowing advertisers to gain better insights into their ad campaign’s performance.

Create and Manage Your Rich Media Ad Campaign with CodeFuel

Rich media ads are essential to the modern digital advertising landscape. They offer advertisers more possibilities to attract a user’s attention than traditional text or display ads, including new formats not normally possible with text or image-only creatives, such as lightbox or slider ads.

Using rich media ads in your campaigns is crucial to maximize user engagement, generate stronger and more positive responses to your brand, and ensure users recall your ads for longer periods. These factors contribute to increased click-through rates, boosted conversion rates, and higher revenue when compared to campaigns that rely on traditional display ads.

Are you seeking help optimizing your app, website, or digital property’s revenue? CodeFuel is a digital marketing platform that can help you make the most out of your property by leveraging all available monetization options. Contact our team to get started.

The Most Popular Google Display Ad Sizes

The Most Popular Google Display Ad Sizes

Google Ads is one of the largest and most popular digital advertising platforms for running display ad campaigns. Approximately 80% of all Internet users have seen at least one Google Ads display ad campaign, making this platform one of the most efficient solutions for advertisers and brand managers.

When managing a display ad campaign on Google Ads, becoming familiar with standard display ad sizes across the Google display network is critical to maximizing your display campaign’s effectiveness and boosting your revenue.

What to Consider Before Choosing Google Display Ad Sizes

Choosing the right ad size is one of the most critical decisions you can make to optimize your display ad campaign’s effectiveness.

Although factors such as ad placement and creative content may all significantly affect your campaign’s performance, each ad’s size and display ratio determines its visibility to users, affecting the chances of obtaining impressions and clicks. 

Additionally, it is crucial to remember that advertisers and brand managers retain control over ad sizes as they would over the content of their search ads and overall ad creatives. However, ad space availability and placement of ad inventory on websites and digital properties are controlled by publishers.

Consequently, choosing the right size ensures your ads are as visible as possible, boosting click-through rates (CTR). The wrong size may harm your ad’s visibility or CTRs, limiting its reach.

What Are The Most Common Google Display Ad Sizes?

Google Ads allows advertisers to choose from a wide array of ad sizes from Google’s display network, making it possible to display ad creatives on many websites, apps, and digital properties. Taking advantage of Google display network’s large selection of ad sizes is crucial to ensure maximum visibility and engagement across all device types. Below are some of the most commonly selected ad sizes.

1. 468 x 60 Standard Banner

The 468 x 60 display ad size is known as the standard banner. This ad size was simply called banner in the past because it is the oldest display ad size format in continuous use. In the 1990s and early 2000s, the standard banner was among the era’s most commonly used by advertisers.

The standard banner’s primary intended purpose was to be displayed at the top of web pages. At the time, average desktop computer screen sizes were much lower than today’s, making it viable.

Today’s PCs feature larger screens that would render the standard banner smaller and less visible. Consequently, advertisers are less likely to use the standard banner today for displaying ads at the top of the page on the desktop version of websites. However, it is a good choice for displaying ads on mobile websites due to the smaller screen resolutions of mobile devices.

2. 250 x 250 Square

Display ads with a resolution of 250 x 250 are called square ads or simply squares. According to the IAB guidelines, the 250 x 250 ad size is also known as a square rectangle, placing it in the same category as (vertical) rectangle ads.

This format is a highly versatile ad size for display ad campaigns due to its viability on both desktop and mobile versions of digital properties. Common purposes for 250 x 250 include standard banners and pop-up ads for mobile websites and apps.

Although square ads typically offer slightly less return on investment than rectangle ads, they are ideal for filling smaller ad spaces and can complete the array of display ad sizes used in a well-tuned campaign.

3. 728 x 90 Leaderboard Banner

Display ads with a resolution of 728 x 90 are known as leaderboard banners or leaderboards. Like standard banners, leaderboards are an established format with years of successful use in online digital properties designed for desktop displays. The primary purpose of the leaderboard display campaign is to display ads at the top of a page, using their long and narrow form factor to stand out without distracting the user from the content.

Since the advent of mobile advertising, leaderboards have been among the most commonly used mobile ad sizes due to their long and narrow dimensions displaying well on mobile screens.

Some digital properties feature a closely related variant of the leaderboard known as the sticky leaderboard. Although sticky leaderboards are the same size as their standard counterparts, meaning the same ad creatives fit in, they feature one critical difference: sticky leaderboards are designed to follow the user as they scroll the page, “sticking” to the screen.

Sticky leaderboards are typically used on mobile websites and apps, with the most common placement for mobile leaderboards, thus being at the bottom of the screen.

4. 970 x 90 Large Leaderboard

The large leaderboard ad, sometimes called super leaderboard, is a wider version of the original leaderboard banner. Although both share the same height of 90 pixels, the large leaderboard is 242 pixels longer, for a total of 970 pixels long. The extra length grants approximately 33% more space for ad creatives, allowing advertisers to fit in more information or imagery.

Initially, the large leaderboard was intended to replace its standard counterpart in response to increasing desktop screen resolutions. However, both standards remain in use as of 2023.

The large leaderboard is identical in purpose to its standard counterpart: displaying ads at the top of the page. However, large leaderboards are typically reserved for displaying ads on desktop websites due to their size. When used to display ads on mobile websites, the large leaderboard may not render correctly or fully on smaller mobile and tablet screens.

5. 200 x 200 Small Square

The small square display ad unit features a resolution of 200 x 200, making it 20% smaller than the standard 250 x 250 square.

Although this format is no longer part of the IAB standards, due to the prevalence of squares and 300 x 250 inline rectangles, small squares are still widely used on websites featuring narrow margins, which may not have the space to accommodate larger ad units.

Ad creatives for small squares are typically resized versions of 250 x 250 creatives. Other than size, both square-type ad units fulfill similar purposes. However, advertisers should expect slightly less performance than equivalent square or rectangle ad units, due to the smaller size.

6. 320 x 100 Large Mobile Banner

Ad sizes with a 320 x 100 format are large mobile banners. They are an extended version of the standard mobile banner (300 x 50), offering over double the space for displaying ad creatives of the image ads. Although this ad size is not an IAB standard, the large mobile banner is one of the best-performing formats across all digital ad platforms.

Most large mobile banners are configured as anchor ads. Like sticky leaderboards, anchor banners overlay the content even as the user scrolls or swipes the page up and down, following the user and remaining in their initial position on the screen, typically at the bottom.

Most large mobile banners configured as anchors feature a close button to preserve user experience and avoid annoying viewers.

Although the large mobile banner ad slot is relatively small, it is one of the ad slots with the largest mobile-specific ad sizes. It is an excellent choice for monetizing mobile websites, applications, and other digital properties designed for mobile and tablet use.

7. 120 x 600 Skyscraper

Display ads with a 120 x 600 resolution are skyscrapers, sometimes called standard skyscraper image ads, to differentiate them from other skyscraper-format ads.

The skyscraper banner is a former IAB standard ad size popular with advertisers and brand managers in the late 90s to mid-2000s. Although the standard skyscraper has been supplanted in popularity by its larger counterparts, it remains in common use today.

Skyscraper-type display banner ads are intended for use on the margins, surrounding the main content with ad creatives without inserting it in the middle. As users scroll down pages and read content, skyscraper-format banner ads expose them to the ad creatives on the sides.

Due to its lower performance compared to the newer, larger skyscraper formats, the standard skyscraper performs best if the initial cost to advertisers is minimal. Their smaller size can help keep content-rich websites from feeling cluttered, resulting in a better overall user experience.

8. 160 x 600 Wide Skyscraper

Display banner ads with a 160 x 600 format are known as wide skyscrapers image ads. This type of skyscraper-format display banner ad is simply a wider version of the original square image of the skyscraper, featuring 40 extra pixels of width for a total of 160 pixels. Although the difference may seem small, the extra width gives ad creators 33% more space, resulting in a higher creative potential per ad image.

Wide skyscrapers have replaced the older, standard skyscraper as an IAB standard. It is one of the most commonly utilized ad formats for desktop sites, apps, and digital properties. Like its standard counterpart, it is mainly intended for displaying ads on web page margins and sidebars.

9. 300 x 600 Half-Page

The 300 x 600 display ad size is primarily known today as the half-page or half-page unit (HPU), although it may sometimes be referred to as the large skyscraper or superwide skyscraper. The additional names exist because half-page ads have the same height as other skyscraper-format display ads.

Compared to a wide skyscraper, the half page has almost double the width, resulting in 87.5% more space for ad creatives. A half-page ad offers a whopping 180,000 pixels for ad creatives, more than any other commonly utilized display ad format.

Like skyscraper ads, half-page ads are primarily intended for use on the margins. Although they are less common than other formats, they typically perform highly due to their size, visibility, and a tendency to integrate interactive elements. These characteristics make half-page units an excellent choice for sponsorships.

10. 300 x 250 Inline Rectangle

The inline rectangle features a resolution of 300 x 250. Other sources may refer to this format as a medium rectangle or an MPU, which may stand for “mid-page unit,” “mid-position unit,” or “multi-purpose unit.”

As these names indicate, this ad format is rectangular and frequently utilized in all types of digital properties, from desktop websites to mobile apps. It is an IAB standard digital ad format that performs best when embedded into the content.

For example, publishers may place a typical inline rectangle ad into a text article in the same spots used for static image ads and illustrations. Other locations for inline rectangles include the end of the page and, more rarely, in the margins, as they feature the same width as half-page units.

11. 336 x 280 Large Rectangle

The large rectangle ad unit is 336 pixels wide and 280 pixels tall. It is an older format resembling today’s inline rectangle that still sees significant use today. It is approximately 25% larger than the inline medium rectangle ad, offering 36 extra pixels of width and 30 more pixels of height.

Large rectangles are among the best-performing display ad sizes on Google AdSense ad campaigns and typically have similar placements and purposes as the more modern inline rectangles.

Although they perform slightly less well than inline rectangle ad units, advertisers and publishers have generally found that large rectangles are effective wherever inline rectangles are. The best way to implement large rectangle units is to scale up an ad creative for an inline rectangle.

Which of the above most popular Google display ad sizes are Top-performing for Banner ads?

According to Google’s data, the digital advertising platform considers each different ad type to have and relates to different top-performing ad sizes. Most top-performing ad sizes include: 300×250, 336×280, 728×90, 300×600, 320×100. The following are considered the most common ad sizes among its top-performing solutions are:

Ad type
300 x 250 - Inline rectangle
336 x 280 - Large rectangle
728 x 90 - Leaderboard
300 x 600 - Half-Page
320 x 100 - Large mobile banner
Availability on Google Ads
Text and display ads for desktop and mobile
Text and display ads for desktop only
Text and display ads for desktop only
Text and display ads for desktop only
Text and display ads for mobile only

Why Do Google Display Ad Sizes Matter?

Choosing the right ad size for your ad creatives and projected ad placements is critical to ensure they receive the optimal number of impressions and clicks. Adapting your ad units’ sizes to the intended display device is also crucial. For instance, Google ad sizes primarily intended for desktop sites may not render well on mobile devices, requiring you to use other formats.

What About Responsive Display Ads?

Google Responsive Display Ads (RDAs) are Google’s adaptive advertising offering. They are designed to automatically adapt their look, size, format, and content. RDAs allow you to use a single set of assets to fit nearly every ad space type, such as logos, images, and text descriptions. Google’s systems will use the assets you uploaded to build and adjust the creative for you.

Why is Display Advertising Important for Your Business?

Display advertising campaigns are ideal for advertisers looking to boost brand awareness with their target audiences, resulting in higher brand visibility and conversion rates. A properly configured display ad campaign uses eye-catching ad creatives that have the potential to engage audiences, attract attention, build brand affinity, and drive sales.

Maximize the Efficiency of Your Ad Campaign with CodeFuel

Creating, managing, and optimizing a display ad campaign is one of the best ways to boost your brand’s visibility and drive more conversions. However, achieving peak performance and efficiency requires constant testing and experimenting. To ensure you get the most out of your campaign, CodeFuel’s team of digital advertising experts can help you use the best ad sizes and enhance the effectiveness of your marketing strategy. Contact us today to get started.

FAQs

What Sizes are Google Display Ads in 2023?

Google Ads supports 48 standard display ad sizes and two aspect ratios for Responsive Display Ads (1.91:1 and 1:1). You can find a complete list of supported image sizes and resolutions on Google’s support site.

Which is a Standard Display Ad Size in Google Ads?

There is no single standard display ad size on Google Ads. The sizes of ads served through Google Ads depend on three factors: the publisher’s ad spaces, ad placements, and the platform’s supported ad resolutions.

Best Advertising Platforms

Best Advertising Platforms

Today, businesses looking for digital advertising platforms to launch and manage an ad campaign have access to numerous options. However, finding the best digital advertising platform for your needs and business objectives can take significant time and effort.

Discover today’s top-performing advertising platforms and find out which options and features they have to offer and why they are among the most efficient solutions today.

What Are Digital Advertising Platforms?

A digital advertising platform is an online advertising software service designed to help advertisers create, manage, and adjust digital ad campaigns. Digital advertising platforms let you choose and configure which online advertising channels, ad types, and ad creatives your campaign should use and which target audiences you wish to reach.

The Best Digital Advertising Platforms of Today

Advertisers can choose from a large selection of digital advertising platforms such as Google Ads, Facebook Ads, or other social media platforms such as Facebook. Each one offers unique features and options suitable for different types of ad campaigns. However, one of the best ways to ensure the success of an ad campaign is to partner with one of the top-performing online ad platforms. Here are today’s top digital advertising platforms for advertisers looking to start new ad campaigns.

1. Google Ads

Originally known as Google AdWords, this is a well-known top competitor for the best advertising platform in search engine results. It is now called Google Ads. The search giant’s ad platform is one of the original “Big Three” pay-per-click (PPC) digital ad platforms launched by search engine companies, alongside Yahoo and Microsoft. Today, Google Ads offers a much more comprehensive array of ad space options and features than it used to when it first launched in 2000.

As one of the most prominent and widely-used digital platforms on today’s market, Google Ads has long been a top choice for advertisers due to its commitment to integrating the latest technologies, a free and comprehensive support knowledge base, and an easy-to-use interface.

For instance, Google Ads fully utilizes new technologies and solutions, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML), to power and optimize campaigns like Responsive Search Ads.

Advertisers looking to use Google Ads can launch nine types of ad campaigns, each capable of reaching worldwide audiences:

  • Search Ads: Advertisers looking to showcase products or promote their brands through the world’s largest search engine can do so with Google Search Ads. This solution allows you to display ads on the search engine result page (SERP) in the promoted results section. Popular Search Ad types include Responsive Search Ads and Dynamic Search Ads.
  • Display Ads: Google Display Ads are served through the Google Display Network (GDN) and can reach over two million digital properties, including websites, blogs, videos, and mobile apps. They include static, single-image ads and the more popular Responsive Display Ads (RDAs).
  • Video Ads: Advertisers using video-based creatives to promote their products and services may use Google Video Ads. The platform can serve video ads in video format to numerous outlets, including YouTube, allowing advertisers to reach multiple billions of potential users.
  • Google Shopping Ads: One of the functions of the Google search engine is the Shopping tab, allowing visitors to look for eCommerce offers directly from Google. Google Shopping Ads leverages this convenient feature to let advertisers and retailers promote their brands directly on Google’s Shopping search results.
  • Google Smart Ads: Google Smart Ads lets small and local businesses start ad campaigns to promote themselves through the search engine giant’s networks. Smart Ads campaigns use Machine Learning technology to target audiences in the business’s geographic area. Smart campaigns are easy to set up and configure, automating the ad delivery and audience targeting processes to make creating an ad campaign as convenient to use as possible.
  • Performance Max: Google Performance Max (PMax) is one of the newer types of ad campaigns available on Google Ads. Pmax allows advertisers to launch a goal-based ad campaign to access their available Google Ads inventory and reach every Google channel, from Search and Gmail to YouTube and Maps. PMax leverages AI and ML technologies to improve audience targeting and ensure advertisers can reach high-intent customers easily.
  • App Campaigns: Advertisers who primarily or exclusively advertise on mobile can use Google Ads App Campaigns to promote mobile apps and games. App Campaigns use ML technologies to reach users on the Google Play Store and mobile versions of Search and YouTube.
  • Discovery Campaigns: Google Discovery Campaigns are ideal for businesses targeting audiences based on relevant interest topics. This form of advertising allows an advertiser or a brand owner to reach up to 3 billion customers across multiple Google feeds and channels.
  • Local Service Ads: Google’s Local Service Ads (LSAs) are primarily aimed at businesses with a local or hyper-local focus offering products or services in a designated geographic area, such as plumbers or electricians. LSAs allow these businesses to promote themselves easily to customers in their designated area, ensuring that search engine users looking for their services see these businesses appear at the top of the SERP.

2. Facebook Ads

Although the company that owns the Facebook social media platform is now known as Meta,

Both Facebook and Facebook Ads have retained their original names.

This digital advertising platform is primarily intended to target audiences as well as Facebook users, giving it a potential reach of over 2.9 billion users.

One of the stand-out features of Facebook Ads is its integration with the social media platform’s data, enabling advertisers to use highly granular audience targeting options. In other words, advertising on Facebook Ads lets advertisers target users using the same demographic criteria as those they can find on the social media site.

While advertisers can use these options to promote any brand, product, or service, Facebook Ads is a digital advertising platform particularly suited for eCommerce marketing campaigns. The high precision of the audience targeting tools is ideal for attracting high-intent customers.

Advertisers looking to use Facebook Ads can reach audiences on any of Meta’s properties, including Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and the Meta Audience Network. Facebook ad types and formats include static images, video ads, carousel ads, slideshows, Instant Experiences (fullscreen ads), Stories ads, and Collection ads.

3. Microsoft Advertising (formerly Bing Ads)

Microsoft Advertising, also called Microsoft Ads, is the technology giant’s digital advertising platform. Formerly known as MSN adCenter, Microsoft adCenter, and Bing Ads, Microsoft Advertising is one of the “Big Three” pay-per-click (PPC) platforms, initially launched in 2006 to compete with Google and Yahoo’s equivalents.

Advertisers today may be familiar with its previous name, Bing Ads, which was the platform’s longest-lived name: in use from 2012 until a rebranding in 2019.

Partnering with Microsoft Ads allows marketers, brand managers, and advertisers to reach audiences on various Microsoft-owned digital properties, including MSN.com, AOL, Yahoo, and the Bing search engine.

According to Microsoft data, the digital advertising platform can reach over 653 million users monthly on the Microsoft Search Network and up to 250 million unique users through its display and native advertising channels.

Advertisers running campaigns with Microsoft Ads can launch various ad types grouped into four categories: Search ad campaigns, Dynamic search ad campaigns, audience campaigns, and Microsoft Shopping Campaigns. The platform supports text ads, native ads, search ads on Bing, display ads, multimedia ads, and mobile-only app install ads.

Microsoft Ads has numerous convenient features to help advertisers launch new campaigns or transition from another digital advertising platform. For instance, Microsoft Ads features a campaign importation feature allowing you to easily move your ad campaigns from Google Ads to Microsoft Ads.

The platform also features robust analytics and data reporting features, comprehensive geo-targeting functionality, and a comprehensive resource base for building engaging ad creatives.

4. Instagram Ads

Although Meta owns both Facebook and Instagram, the two social media platforms have retained separate digital advertising platforms due to their many essential differences. Consequently, the best way to advertise on Instagram is to use the dedicated Instagram Ads platform.

As a digital advertising platform, Instagram Ads leverage the same high-granularity audience targeting features as Facebook Ads toward Instagram users, allowing advertisers and marketers to reach up to 2 billion active users monthly with highly relevant ads.

The typical Instagram ad uses native advertising to reach potential customers. Ad content managed with Instagram Ads and posted on the social media platform is designed to have the same overall appearance as a standard Instagram post, the only difference is that sponsored posts have a Sponsored label identifying them as paid ads.

Instagram Ads supports eight ad formats: standard Image ads, Story ads, Carousel ads, Explore ads, Reels ads, video ads, Shopping ads, and Collection ads.

Each ad format supports a selection of goals and objectives, letting advertisers decide which aspects of their business to grow with Instagram ad campaigns. For instance, you can configure Instagram image ads to boost engagement, drive more traffic, or increase sales. The digital advertising platform also lets you configure various call-to-action (CTA) buttons, such as “Apply Now,” “Contact Us,” or “Download.”

As an additional convenience feature, advertisers and digital marketers using the Meta Ad Manager to manage ad campaigns on Facebook Ads can also access and manage Instagram Ads campaigns from Facebook’s ad manager using the same dashboard. You can also create ads through Instagram directly, making it possible to generate high-quality ad creatives that fit easily in Instagram posts.

5. Amazon Ads

Amazon Advertising, formerly known as Amazon Marketing Services (AMS), is the online eCommerce giant’s PPC digital advertising platform, initially launched in 2012.

As of April 2023, Amazon Ads is the world’s third-largest digital advertising platform, behind Google Ads and Facebook Ads.

The primary goal of Amazon Ads is to allow advertisers to promote their brands and products on Amazon, the world’s largest eCommerce platform. While the platform is available to any individual with an active Amazon Seller Central account, Amazon Ads opens its full suite of functionality to certified Amazon Vendors with active Vendor Central accounts.

Amazon Ads supports three types of ad campaigns: Sponsored Brand Ads, Sponsored Product Ads, and Product Display Ads.

  • Sponsored Brand Ads, formerly Headline Search Ads, can display up to three different products in a Sponsored section of the Amazon search results page. They are highly effective for building brand awareness with potential customers as they are intended to reach shoppers near the start of their product searching process.
  • Sponsored Product Ads appear among search results, displaying ads for sponsored products in the top row. Sponsored Product Ads are generated based on the shopper’s keywords, making them an ideal solution for advertisers looking to attract customers with high purchasing intent.
  • Product Display Ads appear near the Add to Cart section in the bottom right corner of a product page. They typically display a single sponsored product and are intended to reach shoppers about to add a product to their cart. Product Display Ads are intended to steer customer decisions and entice them to check out your offers before adding items to the cart.

6. TikTok Ads

Although TikTok was launched in September 2016, making it one of the youngest social media and digital advertising platforms on the market, its audience grew to exceed 1 billion active users monthly. Part of TikTok’s meteoric success is due to its digital advertising platform, TikTok Ads.

While advertising space on TikTok is a relatively simple process, this digital ad platform offers unique ad formats and types that no other platforms provide.

As a short-form video-sharing application, all ads on TikTok revolve around the video content posted. Ad types include In-feed ads, Brand Takeover ads, Branded Hashtag ads, Branded Effects ads, TopView ads, and Spark Ads.

  • In-feed ads are TikTok’s equivalent of native ads. They showcase personalized selections of sponsored video content on users’ For You feed.
  • Brand Takeover ads are highly competitive full-screen ads that can display static images or video creatives. Only one brand can use Brand Takeover daily, increasing exclusivity and engagement.
  • Branded Hashtag ads, also called Branded Hashtag challenges, are unique ads inviting TikTok users to participate actively in a brand’s advertising effort. They typically feature games or challenges featuring a particular brand or product, encouraging users to create content around a specific theme.
  • Branded Effects ads allow advertisers to design ad creatives with TikTok filters, which other users can integrate into their content. A Branded Effect can last up to 10 days and may significantly boost user engagement and brand awareness.
  • TopView ads are displayed to users who open the app for the first time during the day. They contain longer ad creatives, up to 60 seconds long, offering advertisers opportunities to tell stories or showcase products in a longer format.

7. Taboola

Taboola is a digital advertising platform specializing in content discovery. Taboola can reach up to 1 billion web users with over 360 billion content recommendations monthly, making it the world leader in digital content discovery platforms.

Ads served through Taboola can be seen on various high-profile websites in numerous languages, including Bloomberg, NBC News, MSN, The Independent, Le Figaro, and the Weather Channel. Consequently, advertisers partnering with Taboola can showcase their products and services online to an engaged worldwide target audience.

When creating a new ad campaign on Taboola, the platform lets you choose from five possible marketing goals, tailoring your campaign to your needs. For example, you can configure your Taboola campaign to boost online purchases, increase your website traffic and engagement, generate more leads, increase brand awareness, or incite users to install a mobile app.

Taboola’s audience targeting tools are designed to be as precise as possible. Advertisers can target users by geographic area (filter by country, postal code, city, state, or region), platform (desktop, mobile, or tablet), Internet connection type (wired or wireless), operating system, and web browser.

The digital advertising platform also includes comprehensive brand safety settings, including options to block specific sites from displaying your ads.

8. BidVertiser

BidVertiser was founded in 2003, making it one of the oldest players in the digital advertising industry. This 100% self-serve digital ad platform serves over 80,000 clients worldwide and can reach audiences in 196 countries. Advertisers that partner with BidVertiser can bid on over 3 billion ad impressions daily from reputable worldwide publishers, and the platform claims over 1.5 million monthly conversions.

BidVertiser is known in the digital advertising industry as a fully self-serve demand-side platform (DSP), giving advertisers and brand managers complete control over their digital advertising campaigns and how their brand is presented. The platform features an extensive suite of ad campaign management and automation tools, allowing businesses and companies to run fully-automated ad campaigns regardless of their budget.

BidVertiser supports numerous ad types and formats. The most popular options are native ads, push notification ads, pop-unders, slider ads, and desktop and mobile XML feeds.

Additionally, BidVertiser’s audience targeting parameters are robust and highly comprehensive, allowing advertisers to target audiences by geographic area, operating system, device type, browser, mobile carrier, and internet service provider (ISP). Advanced targeting options, such as IAB categories, time of day, and contextual targeting, are also available.

9. AdRoll

AdRoll is another early player in the digital advertising industry, founded in 2006. This California-based digital advertising platform is primarily aimed at eCommerce marketers and brand managers.

The platform offers a powerful campaign management platform suitable for businesses of all sizes. Over 120,000 brands have used the platform to boost revenue and meet their business objectives, boasting a return on investment (ROI) of $3 to $10 for every $1 spent.

AdRoll can serve four categories of ads: web ads, social ads, native ads, and video ads.

  • Web ads include static and dynamic banners, HTML5-powered banners, and in-banner video ads.
  • Social ads are designed to appear on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram and include single-image static ads, carousel ads, dynamic ads, and out-stream video ads.
  • Native ads can be either static or dynamic and are intended to blend into the publisher’s content. Both types typically feature large-format creatives with minimal text.
  • Video ads served through AdRoll may feature up to 1 GB file sizes. Although any duration from 1 second to 30 minutes is supported, the platform recommends a creative length of 30 seconds for maximum impact and engagement.

10. BuySellAds

BuySellAds is a PPC digital advertising platform with a unique value proposition: a real-time ad inventory marketplace, allowing advertisers to instantly buy quality spaces from premium publishers and boost fill rates.

Advertisers on the BuySellAds digital advertising platform can create and manage many ad types. You can choose from more common ad types, such as native ads, display ads, and sponsored content, to more specialized forms of your advertising online, such as podcast ads and email newsletter ads.

While the platform’s dashboard and features are designed for ease of use, advertisers who need help setting up and managing campaigns can access BuySellAds’s dedicated support team, maximizing campaign management efficiency.

11. Twitter Ads

Twitter Ads is the leading solution for advertisers looking to showcase their brand and products on Twitter, the world’s most well-known microblogging platform and one of the top social media sites.

Advertising with Twitter Ads is an opportunity to reach a target audience of up to 450 million active users monthly with high engagement rates. Although ads served on Twitter are less frequent or visible than equivalents on other major social media ad networks, they generate less “ad fatigue,” resulting in higher viewer interest and more effective ad campaigns.

Twitter’s digital advertising platform offers seven Twitter ad formats unique to the network, offering advertisers numerous ways to have social media ads reach its highly engaged members. They include Promoted Ads, Follower Ads, Twitter Amplify, Twitter Takeover, Twitter Live, Dynamic Product Ads, and Collection Ads.

According to Twitter statistics, advertisers that use at least 3 of their unique ad formats to promote their sponsored brands, products, or services benefit from 20% higher campaign awareness and 7% more purchase intent.

Build and Manage Your Advertising Campaigns with CodeFuel

Starting a new advertising campaign with the digital advertising platform of your choice is typically a simple process. However, defining your goals and continuously building, managing, and optimizing your campaign requires attention and proper resource management.

The best way to ensure your ad campaign performs as expected and reaches your business objectives is to partner with CodeFuel. Our team can help you through the processes of managing and optimizing your ad campaigns, regardless of the digital ad platform you choose. Contact us today to get started.