Banner Ad Guidelines To Follow In 2018

Banner ads are our specialty here at El Toro. Each day, our team reviews banner ads to make sure they pass the required creative audit before serving. With years of experience, our AdOps specialists have become some of the most knowledgeable in the field on what works with creatives and what doesn’t. Building off of our last post regarding landing page best practices, here are our top five banner ad guidelines to follow during your next digital advertising campaign!

#1. Follow The Banner Ad Guidelines Sizes For Creatives

It may seem obvious, but surprisingly, many creative teams size banner ads incorrectly. When working within Adobe Photoshop, ensure that your pixels are set to the right dimensions with the resolution set to 72. One pixel marked incorrectly means the ad will not serve.

A creative that is uploaded incorrectly to the El Toro Portal will be automatically adjusted by our system to correct the issue. However, this adjusted crop may cut off a significant portion of your advertisement. Therefore, it’s very important to make sure your pixels are set accurately.

#2. Cover The Four-Main Ad Sizes

The El Toro system will serve 23 different banner ad sizes across the internet (excluding native ads). Nonetheless, certain ad sizes serve better for online advertising. The four main ad sizes are as follows:

• 300 x 250
• 728 x 90
• 300 x 600
• 160 x 600

Designing at least these four sizes covers the bases for a significant portion of the web. If you need more information or access to these sizes, check out our display ad templates within our website.

#3. Export & Size Your Ads Properly

Another issue many individuals run into is sizing ads properly. It’s often recommended to keep your file size under 150kb, however, our team would suggest keeping the file size under 80kb just to be safe.

The smaller the file size, the faster your ad will load on the page, giving you a much higher chance of the intended target to see your banner ad. These banner ad guidelines are designed to optimize your creatives for optimal performance and interaction!

#4. Correct File Type: JPG, GIF, PNG

When uploading your ads into the creative library of El Toro, or your other platform, be sure that your ads are the correct file type. It is imperative they match the following files:

• .JPG
• .GIF
• .PNG

Any other file types will not serve across the web. This would include .PSD, .AI, etc.

#5. Design Your Ad To Garner Viewership

We’ve covered this topic before in our Ugly Ads vs. Pretty Ads blog posting. When it comes to garnering viewership, these banner ad guidelines will help your CTR and sales increase. Design your ads in a way that will stand out against the page it’s being displayed on. Most websites nowadays are clean with a fluid design. Clunky ads have a history of performing slightly better, as they catch the eye more than a perfectly designed banner ad. There is a fine line, however, don’t sacrifice your brand for CTR’s sake.

El Toro is an advertising technology company that stands out from the usual crowd. We leverage our powerful IP Targeting technology to generate industry-standard setting results, and we can prove it. Instead of focusing on Click-Through Rate, El Toro directly attributes Return on Ad Spend by showing which consumers we targeted that ending up converting. We account for the impact of every dollar spent with us. To learn more about El Toro, our banner ad guidelines and how get started with an IP Targeting campaign, contact us below!