Is there a correlation between what Newspapers have known for years regarding ad size and placement as it relates to online advertising ad size and placement?
Old School
In a Cahners report they studied how to determine the average number of inquiries about products that were generated by various sized ads in their publications. Cahners Research looked at 86,002 ads in 34 of their publications. They analyzed almost nine million inquiries for more information as part of their study, a decent size sample set.
Cahners concluded the average number of responses increased as the size of the ad increased.
What ad sizes are the most effective?
Dynamic Logic did a study where they showed the image ad sizes of 234×60 (half banner) and 180×150 (small rectangle) are more effective than leaderboards and large rectangles.
“We continue to believe that creative quality is the most important factor driving the success of online advertising. However, it will be interesting to see how the new, larger ad formats that publishers are beginning to debut will rank next to the more traditional online ad formats. Based on the current data, bigger doesn’t always mean better, but these new ad formats are quite unique and we look forward to testing them.”
New Skool
The top three formats are the 336×280 followed by the 300×250 medium rectangle; and then the 160×600 wide skyscraper.
Google has stated in studies that there is a strong correlation between the size of ads and their click-through performance.
The OPA (Online Publisher’s Association) announced plans to introduce larger ad sizes last year. As the report reads, publishers like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal & ESPN have decided to publish three extra large ad sizes:
The fixed panel, a 336-by-860-pixel banner. Wider than standard skyscrapers, it follows users as they scroll down the page. The XXL, a 468-by-648-pixel box with an expandable video option
The pushdown, a 970-by-418-pixel unit that takes up over half of a page before rolling up.
Lets see how these new ad sizes perform as more sites adopt these standards and advertisers utilize the additional creative space.