Overview of banner ads

Banner ads are rectangular ads that occupy a portion of an app's layout. While users are interacting with the app, they stay on screen. As the user scrolls, banner ads can refresh automatically, and can be anchored at the top of the screen, the bottom of the screen, or inline with content.

Banner ads are effective because they work well with many types of apps and don’t take up much space. They’re also the simplest ad format to implement.

Types of banner ads

Adaptive banners are the newest generation of banner ads and offer the best user experience. They’re intended to replace smart and standard banners.

Type	Description
Adaptive	Adaptive banners include two types of banners: Anchored adaptive banners are expected to be always on-screen, and locked to the screen’s top or bottom.  Inline adaptive banners are intended for placement inside scrollable content and can be much larger as the user typically scrolls past them.
Standard	Fits only the specified banner size. Only ads that fit the specified size can be served.
Smart Deprecated	Fills screen width on any device using a fixed height. This means the ad may appear small on some devices.

Adaptive banners

Adaptive banners consider the device in use, the ad width you’ve specified, and the aspect ratios of all available demand. They dynamically adjust the ad size for a variety of devices and screen sizes without excessive custom code.

Anchored adaptive banners have a relatively small maximum height to avoid taking up too much of the screen. Always on-screen, adaptive banners set an optimal ad slot size for each device. Once set, the anchored banner slot size doesn't change. 

Collapsible banners^(Beta) optimize anchored adaptive banners. Collapsible banners initially show the selected banner placement as 1/2 screen. The user can manually collapse the expanded banner to a standard banner size.

Inline adaptive banners are shown in scrollable content, and the slot height reserved for advertiser creatives may change from one page-view to the next. This helps maximize eligible advertiser demand and improve revenue performance. Inline adaptive banners don’t have hard size limits. While APIs are available for publishers to set their own limits on height for inline adaptive banners, such limits may reduce performance.

Adaptive banners aim to fill the entire ad slot size, but select creatives for maximum performance. This means that ad creatives may fit edge to edge or be centered in the ad slot, depending on which advertiser bids highest for that impression. Anchored adaptive banners always return a constant size for a given device and width. This helps ensure a consistent user experience.

Adaptive banners don’t stretch, crop, or modify advertiser creatives.

Click to view adaptive banner types

These images are examples only—adaptive sizes may look different.

Use adaptive banners in Ad Manager

Use adaptive banner ads to replace any standard banner placements.  

Find your preferred implementation for adaptive banners: 

• Anchored adaptive banners (Android | iOS )
• Inline adaptive banners (Android | iOS )

Make sure your Ad Manager setup is optimized for adaptive sizing:

1. Confirm that ad contraction is enabled.
2. Configure your line items as described to match size ranges in adaptive banners.