Overview of banner ads

Banner ad units display rectangular ads that occupy a portion of an app's layout. They stay on screen while users are interacting with the app, either anchored at the top or bottom of the screen, or inline with content as the user scrolls. Banner ads can refresh automatically after a certain period of time.

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	There are two types of adaptive banners: Anchored adaptive banners are expected to be always on-screen, 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 (Androidand iOS). 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.  Note: Support for smart banners is deprecated. Consider implementing adaptive banners as a replacement for smart banners.

About 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.

Adaptive banners aim to fill the entire ad slot size, but will 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.

Note: Adaptive banners don't stretch, crop, or modify advertiser creatives.

You can implement two types of adaptive banners: anchored and inline adaptive banners.

Anchored adaptive banners

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.

Learn more about implementing anchored adaptive banners for Android | iOS.

Collapsible banners (Beta)

You can also add a parameter to your anchored adaptive banners to make it a collapsible banner ad. Collapsible banners initially show the selected banner as a larger overlay with an option to collapse the expanded banner to a standard banner size. This offers more room to convey the advertiser's message, which provides better visibility and higher click-through rates.

Learn more about implementing anchored adaptive banners for Android | iOS.

Inline adaptive banners

Inline adaptive banners are shown in scrollable content, 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.

Learn more about implementing adaptive inline banners for Android | iOS.

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.  

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.