Google AdSense Banner Sizes: Top 10 AdSense Formats for Maximum Earnings

Do you want to know the highest performing Google AdSense banner sizes?

One of the most effective ways to increase your Adsense earnings is to use proper AdSense units and show them at the right places. Although there are hundreds of ways to make money from blogging but AdSense is still a top choice for most publishers.

If you’re someone who is looking to boost your Adsense income, this post is for you where you’ll discover some of the best performing AdSense banner sizes for your websites.

10 Best Google AdSense Sizes for Banners to Boost Your Earnings

adsense banner sizes

1. Leaderboard (728 x 90)

The 728×90 banner ad unit is also known as a Leaderboard Banner, Super Banner or Leaderboard. It is one of the biggest ad banner sizes you can use for AdSense, as this type of ad is usually placed at the top of the page.

If you want to give huge exposure to particular ads on your site, leaderboard size is just for you. Just keep one thing in mind that, be thoughtful while using such sizes as overdo can negatively impact your user experience.

Here’s how it looks like;

Leaderboard ad

As you can see above, a leaderboard banner size takes up huge space and it can also be visually appealing to the website users if you place the appropriate ads.

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2. Medium Rectangle (300 x 250)

If you’re looking for a compact ad size, this one’s for you and this banner ad doesn’t take up too much space on a page. When getting started with Adsense, this can be a great option to begin with.

This ad size unit performs well when it’s displayed within text content or when you include it at the end of your blog posts. Another biggest reason to use this ad unit is that it’s easy to fit in the sidebar or inside the content area without annoying your website users.

Here’s how a medium rectangle 300 x 250 banner ad looks like;

Medium Rectangle ad

As you can see above, these ad units are compact and if used right, you can increase your ad click through rates to boost your income.

3. Large Rectangle (336 x 280)

This ad banner size is one of the most popular options for advertisers. It’s similar to the medium rectangle i.e 300 x 250 size and it performs best when you place this ad within text content or at the end of your blog posts.

Here’s how it looks like;

Large Rectangle ad

As you can see above, these are similar to 300 x 250 size units and easily fit into your blog posts without hurting the user experience.

4. Banner (468 x 60)

If you’re looking for a mini version of 728 x 90 ad unit sizes to display your ads on your site, 468 x 60 banner ad size is just for you. This ad unit can fit into smaller spaces that don’t accommodate the large 728 x 90 ad leaderboard units.

Here’s the illustration of 468 x 60 ad unit size along with the comparison of several other ad units such as 728 x 90, 300 x 250 and so on.

468 x 60 ad

As you can see above, these ad units can easily fit into smaller places (so if you’re using a medium length width on your pages, this can be a great choice).

5. Square (250 x 250)

These banner ads are widely popular as you can display several square 250 x 250 ad units and place them together to show multiple ads. Generally these ad units work well with affiliate product banners but can be used for showing Adsense ads too.

This ad format can fit into smaller spaces that don’t accommodate the larger rectangle ad size formats.

Here’s how this ad unit looks like;

square ad

As you can see above, these ad unit sizes are small and compact and don’t interrupt the user experience (unless you’re using too many ads).

6. 300 × 600 ad unit

You can consider this ad unit as a vertical leaderboard as it takes huge space length wise. These ad units are also known as a Monster Page Unit (MPU) or Half Page Unit (HPU).

If you’re looking to insert a multi-sized ad unit along with a 300 × 250 ad unit, this can be a great choice. Since this is one of the largest ad units available, you should use interactive or video ads for better results.

Here’s how this ad unit looks like;

300 × 600 ad

As you can see above, this ad unit can be used on your sidebar or wherever you want to give maximum exposure.

7. Wide Skyscraper (160×600)

This is one of the most performing vertical ad units for AdSense which can be used at the sidebar of a site or side of the web pages.

Here’s how this wide skyscraper ad unit looks like;

Wide Skyscraper ad

As you can see above, if you use 160 x 600 vertical ad unit at the side of your blog posts, it can give massive exposure to your ad (which can in turn lead to more clicks and revenue from AdSense).

8. 970 x 90 ad unit

This is called as super leaderboard as it’s far wider than regular leaderboard of size 728 x 90. If you’re looking for a larger leaderboard or a replacement for regular 728 x 90 ad size unit, this one’s for you.

Although it’s not as popular as the regular leaderboard ad size but it sometimes used as a type of Pushdown ad. This 970 x 90 ad unit appears across the top of a site when it first loads (pushing down the content). So make sure to use it wisely and don’t overdo as it can hurt readership.

Here’s how it looks like;

970 x 90 ad

As you can see above, it takes up too much space and it is around 30% wider than a 728 x 90 ad unit. Since it’s a larger leaderboard, it can only be used for desktop screens and you should not use it if your site generating more traffic from smartphones.

9. Small Square (200 x 200)

If you’re looking for small and compact ad units that can easily fit into any screen including desktop, tablet, smartphones and so on – this small square 200 x 200 ad unit is just for you.

It’s not visually distracting and doesn’t hurt your readership in anyway and it can be used at the sidebar or multi-slots within your content.

Here’s how a small square ad unit looks like;

Small Square ad

As you can see above, this ad unit is small and really compact ad unit which can be effectively used for both desktop and mobile screens. So it really converts well!

10. 320 x 100 ad unit

If you want to yield the high click through rates (especially from mobile devices), this ad unit is exclusively for you as it performs better than the regular 320 x 50 ad unit.

It is also considered as the large mobile banner covering a lot of text and thus giving you higher click through rates. It’s also a responsive ad unit.

Here’s how it looks like;

320 x 100 ad

As you can see above, this is a mobile responsive ad banner unit which occupies good enough space to produce higher click through rates.

Best performing Adsense Ad units

Best performing Adsense Ad units are decided on the basis of large number of impressions against each of Ad Unit in my Google Adsense account. As per our own experience, the following Google Adsense Ad formats worked best and provide the maximum results.

  • Large Rectangle (336 x 280 pixels)
  • Medium Rectangle (300 x 250 pixels)
  • Leaderboard (728 x 90 pixels)
  • Wide Skyscraper (160 x 600 pixels)

The above ad units not only give more exposure to your ads but also improve ad clicks from your site.

While other banner also delivers well, 336×280 banner size worked great. Apart from these banner sizes, you can get good results by placing link units on the prominent positions on your website pages.

Read: How to Create A Free Blog On Blogspot And Start Making Money

Apart from these ad sizes, you can block certain advertiser’s website being displayed on your website in case you feel they are not relevant to your website or those ads are from your competitors websites.

As far as Google Adsense Ads position is concerned, we would recommend place 468×60 or 728×90 banner sizes to the right of your website logo as per your logo size. We would also suggest adding 300×250 or 328×280 banner sizes just after your article title as your website design.

In the sidebars, you can try Wide Skyscraper 160×600 or 120×600 banner size in your website sidebars as per your website design and space available.

Test All Types of Google AdSense Formats

Want to earn more with AdSense ads? Test everything. No one can surely tell you what’s going to work for you.

Why? Because it changes from blog to blog. What works well for us won’t work for you, so if you are not sure about which Adsense ads works well for you, you can test different ad sizes.

Suppose you are using 250×250 banner sizes on your website, you can test some other most performing sizes like 300×250 and 336×280 banners for some fixed period of time on your website.

After completion of testing period, it’s time to analyze the results. You need to go through the Number of impressions, clicks, total earnings and CTR for that test data from your Google Adsense publisher account. This way you can find the most performing Google Adsense Ads for your website.

Take home lesson from above discussion is that you need to keep on testing most performing Google Adsense ads as there is always scope for improvement and thus higher chances of making more money from your ads.

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Top 5 Best Practices for Ad Placement

Finding the best Adsense banner sizes is one thing and placing your ads at the right placements is another most important thing. Here are some of the best practices for ad placement to increase your earnings.

adsense best practices

1. Learn how to balance content and ads

Make your ads look natural. Don’t place ads on irrelevant places. Your ads should always supplement the content on your site (and not the other way around).

For example, if your site offers free downloads such as eBooks, mp3 files, stock free images and so on, make sure the download links are above the fold and easy to find.

Consider using native ad units if you want to make your ads look natural and that’s how you can easily balance your content and ads. That way, you can also increase your ad earnings without hurting the user experience.

2. Less is more

Sometimes, less is more. It’s true for ad placement too. Don’t place too many ads. If your website users can’t find what they’re looking for, they may go elsewhere.

It can kill your conversions and also lead to high website bounce rates (ultimately bad for your search rankings). So be thoughtful and try to put a combination of ad units, link units and search boxes on each page of your site.

3. Use mobile responsive ad units

Here are the mobile Adsense ad units that are currently available.

  • 300 x 250 ad unit
  • 320 x 50 ad unit
  • 320 x 100 ad unit
  • 250 x 250 ad unit
  • 200 x 200 ad unit

If you’re getting a lot of traffic to your sites from mobile devices (or even tablets), you should definitely consider using mobile responsive ad units which are mentioned above.

The great thing about using these responsive ad units is that they automatically adjust their size, appearance including the ad format to fit just about any available ad space.

Above all, these responsive display ad units leaves the work of testing and optimization to Google and ultimately enables you to focus on better ad performance to generate more click through rates and income.

4. Give importance to showing content more than ads

One of the biggest mistakes most people make while placing ad banners on their site is they suppress their content. They give more importance to placing ads all over their content.

It ultimately leads to bad user experience, higher bounce rates and lower Adsense earnings.

Have a look at the following illustration to understand it better.

good site layout

As you can see above, site layouts that highlight content yields better results (in terms of user experience, CTR, revenue and so on) whereas site layout that pushed content below the fold produces bad results. So give more emphasis to content, not ads.

5. Try heatmap tools

Last but not least, give a try to heatmap tools as they help you understand your website’s user behaviour.

Using heatmap tools like Crazy Egg can really help you with the following things.

  • Find out how often your website users visit a page
  • Find out what kind of content is most popular on your site
  • Find out how your website users are navigating your site (from entry to exit)

Based on the above things, you can easily experiment with your ad units and placements to improve your overall conversion rates and CTR.

Bonus tip: Try the best AdSense plugins

If you’re using WordPress, you’re fortunate. There are a ton of plugins out there that can help you maximize your Adsense earnings. Here are some of them which can help you boost your earnings.

  • AdSense Plugin WP QUADS: This is a widely used free AdSense plugin where you can get incredible features like AMP support, mobile optimized and responsive AdSense ads, disable ads on mobile, tablets, desktop etc and so on
  • Easy Google AdSense: This is another useful plugin for WordPress AdSense users that makes it easier for you to try ads as there is no need to manually add AdSense code to different parts of your website. Just enter your Google AdSense Publisher ID in the settings and Google will automatically start showing ads at optimal times.
  • AdSense Invalid Click Protector: This plugin is helpful for protecting your account from invalid clicks. If you’re getting a ton of unusual invalid click activities and click bombings, this plugin is a must for you.

FAQs About Adsense Ad Sizes

Here are some of the most widely asked questions around Google Adsense banner ad sizes.

What are the best mobile ad sizes?

The best performing banner ads on mobiles are the 320×50 units whereas larger ad formats such as 300×250 and 320×480 full-screen interstitials have been proven to produce higher user engagement.

How to show ads on AMP pages?

Here’s how you can create a display ad unit for your AMP pages.

→ Firstly, sign in to your Google AdSense account. Then, Click Ads > Click Ad units.
→ Now, click on Display ads (and give your ad unit a name).
→ Now, go to “Ad size” section, select the size of the ads that you want to display on your site
→ Click Save and get code
→ Click AMP and copy and paste the AMP script between the <head></head> tags of your AMP page

How much does AdSense pay per 1000 views?

This is one of the most frequently asked questions. For most niches, the average CPM (cost per mille) earning ranges from $0.5 to $1.5 per 1000 impressions. That means, you can make around $50 per day from 40,000 page views.

How can I create Google Adsense ad placements?

To make an ad placement in Google AdSense, you need to follow the below steps.

→ Firstly, sign in to your AdSense account and click on Ads and choose Custom channels to continue.
→ Once you’re on it, you can either choose an existing channel or create New custom channel (if you change the name of channel, you will lose the advertisers bid on that placement)
→ Now, give a name to the channel and go to the ‘Targeting’ section
→ In this step, you need to finish the requested settings which include Ads appear on (home page, landing page or custom page), Ad location, Description along with the Site language
→ Finally, click on the Save button to save the settings
→ That’s it, you’ve successfully created AdSense ad placements to start earning

Browse more Adsense Related Resources:

Final Thoughts

There are dozens of ways to make money from your site. AdSense is still considered as a preferred source of income for most bloggers as you get timely payouts and great for beginners.

By using the right banner ad sizes, you can definitely increase your ads exposure, generate more clicks and ultimately increase your earnings.

Do you have any more questions? Share your thoughts in the comments.

About Author
Anil Agarwal is the Founder of Bloggerspassion. He is a full-time blogger and SEO expert who has been helping people build profitable blogs for over a decade Now. He has been featured in Over 100 Publications including Forbes, The HuffPost, HubSpot, Shopify, Semrush, Kinsta, Bluehost, Hostinger and G2.com etc. Know more about Anil Agarwal from here.

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