Getting your Google Ads image sizes just right is not an easy task.

While popular paid ad platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn have (mostly) dedicated sizes and aspect ratios, Google display ads vary significantly.

Failure to understand these variables will inevitably result in wasted time, effort, and ad budget. Thankfully, there are resources like this article that can help you get up to speed faster.

Below, we'll dive into the recommended Google display ad sizes for both desktop and mobile, so that you can better optimize your campaigns for a better ROI.

Why Do Google Ads Sizes Vary?

Google Ads run through the Google Display Network.

Whenever a website opts in to allow ads on their website, they get to choose what types of display ads they want to appear. Depending on the site layout and UI, the ad image size needed is unpredictable.

What makes preparing your ad campaigns more challenging is the sheer number of image sizes that Google Ads supports. If you quickly scan through this Google AdSense guide, you can gain a better understanding of why so many marketers and brands struggle to make their display ad campaigns work effectively.

How Does This Impact My Google Display Ads Campaign?

To put it simply, using the same strategy from your paid social campaigns will prove ineffective for your Google display ad campaigns.

While those platforms allow you to get away with creating 2-3 ads, your team will need to do some additional work to give your Google Ads the best chance possible to appear before users.

It might seem intuitive to simply track statistics for the most commonly used Google Ads image sizes, you run the risk of limiting your reach. If you generate one ad size, you're left hoping that websites select that display ad type and that users will follow up with a high CTR (click-through rate). Guesswork and prayer are not reliable indicators of a successful ad campaign.

Furthermore, the overwhelming use of ad blockers on desktop computers can further negate the potential successes of any display ads you've cooked up.

Is Using Google Display Ads Still Effective for Marketers?

With all this said, the Google Ads display network remains one of the most important platforms for advertisers. The only website that comes close is Facebook thanks to its over 3 billion active users.

Google, on the other hand, dominates the entire world wide web as the number one search engine. According to a Statista study, Google possesses an 85% worldwide market share compared to its competitors. The only other competitor worth mentioning is Bing at just 7.61%, but the disparity in audience numbers is self-explanatory.

In other words, it's outright foolish to ignore the potential reach that Google provides to advertisers. We simply need to adjust our approach to ad campaigns when using the Google Display Network.

Instead of relying on one to two ad creatives, get in the habit of crafting and optimizing your ads to support at least 5 image sizes. This helps alleviate the potential of being overlooked and will help your ad get seen in a variety of different formats.

To get started, we should examine the top-performing and most commonly selected Google Display Ad sizes available.

The Top Google Ads Image Sizes for 2022

To help us make an informed decision about which ad sizes to use, we're going to trust Google's direct recommendations.

The Medium Rectangle Ad

The medium rectangle ad is the #1 highest performing size available according to Google.

The exact dimensions are 300 pixels x 250 pixels. This sizing is fairly small, which allows website owners to place your ad in a variety of different places on the page. Google recommends placing this ad within the body of the text or at the end of the article for the greatest impact.

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It offers just enough space to provide a powerful image, a company logo, and a quick CTA to grab the user's attention while they enjoy the page content.

This can be used for text, display, and mobile ads, making it a go-to choice for anyone advertising on the Google Display Network.

The Large Rectangle Ad

Fairly comparable to the first ad, the large rectangle is exactly 336 pixels x 280 pixels. It's just barely larger and offers slightly more breathing room for the text and image.

The drawback is that this is not an ad that's supported on mobile devices. Grabbing the mobile audience is vital as nearly 55% of all web search traffic comes via such technology. Despite this, the 336x280 display ad / responsive ad ranks as the #2 performer for advertisers.

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The limitations, however, illustrate our argument as to why you should rely on multiple ad sizes to ensure an optimal ROI.

The Leaderboard Ad

The leaderboardā  is a very wide ad with minimal height. The exact dimensions are 728 pixels by 90 pixels making it optimal to place above the core content at the top of the page. You're likely accustomed to seeing this type of banner auto-populate at the top of articles or on website forums.

Due to the sizing, this is another Google display ad size that's limited to desktops only. However, when selected, your brand can have access to a significant portion of the page, while being one of the first things the user sees.

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The Half Page Ad

This is a meatier ad size, offering similar width to the first two ad sizes, but also offering significantly more height. The exact dimensions for a half-page ad are 300 pixels by 600 pixels.

While this again does not offer mobile support, the sheer real estate is unmatched on desktop devices. Google also purports that the half-page ad is quickly becoming a top performer when it comes to overall impressions.

If you've drawn up some excellent creative ideas and need more room to get your message across, this banner is the right one for you.

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The Large Mobile Banner

Finally, at Google's #5 ranking, we have the large mobile banner that's hugely popular for gaining mobile clicks.

This is Google's recommended option out of its top two performing mobile banners with a size of exactly 320 pixels by 100 pixels.

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The alternative banner is the “mobile leaderboard,” but offers half the height at 320 pixels by 50 pixels. The additional height offers advertisers a little more breathing room on smaller screens without negatively impacting the user experience.

Alternative Display Ad Sizes

Aside from these top 5 recommendations from Google, there exists an additional 20+ supported image sizes that vary greatly in use cases.

Other popular ad types include the standard “banner,” “vertical banner,” and “billboard.” For those operating or advertising outside of the United States, Google offers region-specific ad sizes that trend toward popular demand in those regions.

We strongly recommend reviewing the source courtesy of Google to learn more about the ad sizes you should use in these niche cases.

Google Display Ad Image File Types and File Sizes

In addition to the supported ad image sizes, Google also provides strict guidelines for usable file types and image file sizes for static ads.

For all of the ad sizes discussed above (as well as the additional sizes in the linked resource), Google supports the following file types:

• JPG
• PNG
• GIF

Furthermore, all image files must not exceed 150 KB. Do your best to keep this in mind, especially when preparing images with slightly larger resolutions.

For animated GIF ads, the loop cannot be longer than 30 seconds and cannot exceed 5 FPS.

HTML5 Google Display Ads

Certain users may be eligible to submit and utilize HTML5 ads for their Google Ads campaigns.

HTML5 Ads are created by using Google Web Designer and offer advertisers the ability to create more engaging, dynamic creatives to serve users. You can learn more about how to gain access to HTML5 ads courtesy of Google's help article here.

Regarding file size requirements, these are the same for HTML5 ads as they are for static images. For the file type, it's recommended to upload a ZIP file containing HTML. However, you may also utilize CSS, JS, GIF, PNG, JPG, JPEG, and SVG file types.

Choosing the Right Google Ad Size

There is no definitive answer as to which Google Ad size is bestā  for your campaign needs. Unlike other paid ad platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, Google offers more variability that can make your pathway to success a little more complicated.

However, this same variability can also offer brands more pathways for advertising in more locations if they're up to the task. The answer is to simply optimize your latest campaign with enough creative ad sizes to support a variety of different page placements. Sticking with Google's top 5 performing ad sizes is a great place to start.

Likewise, if you're looking to capitalize more heavily on the mobile market, you may want to stick to ad sizes that cater more to mobile screens. This would include ad types like the large mobile banner and the mobile leaderboard. Though, utilizing a variety of sizes for different platforms is best for extending your reach.

In addition to staying up-to-date with Google's latest recommendations, a good advertiser should always A/B test their creatives to see which perform best with your campaign. Thorough analysis may illuminate troubles with the ad size itself or may point to issues with the creative regardless of the chosen ad type.

It's best practice to find opportunities to sprinkle in a variety of ad sizes to see what types of results you can obtain. At the end of the day, a quality ad will generally perform well regardless of the supported size that you choose.

It's every company's goal to dominate search engine results pages. The problem is that competitive industries make this easier said than done. That's why we lean on paid ad campaigns.

However, don't fall into the trap of burning up your ad budget needlessly. You need to know what will improve your ad quality score and ad relevance to get the best results.

Here are 5 SEM hacks you can use to improve your ad campaigns immediately.

Hack #1 - Perform Better Keyword Research

Keywords are the bedrock of search engine marketing. When a user types your keyword into the search bar, there's a chance that your page will appear depending on its quality and relevance.

Amateurs will make the mistake of simply targeting high-volume keywords without considering other important factors. This will result in your ads getting ignored even if you technically are outbidding the competitor.

For this reason, you need to rethink your keyword research strategy before publishing your latest advertisements. Consider the following ideas when reviewing a list of recommended terms or phrases with your favorite keyword research tool such as SEMRush, Ahrefs, or Moz Keyword Explorer.

What is the User's Search Intent?

Every keyword implies a particular search intent. The type of intent generally falls into one of three categories:

• Navigational – The user is looking to go to a website or page. Examples might include “Amazon,” or “DashClicks login.”
• Informational – The user is looking to learn about a topic or acquire information. Examples typically include question words such as “how,” “what,” or “why.”
• Transactional – The user is likely looking to make a purchase. They’re using keywords to target specific products or services such as “best,” “affordable,” or “purchase.”

When researching keywords, think about how a keyword you're considering fits into one of these categories. Compare this to the type of content you're including in your ad campaign. If your campaign is to promote an offer for a specific product, transactional keywords better align your ads with user intent and improve ad relevance.

On the other hand, using an informational keyword might get you initial clicks, but it ultimately doesn't serve the user. This leads to a higher bounce rate and will prompt Google to omit your result even if you're paying a solid value for that keyword. The clicks you do get will likely do little more than waste your budget as those users simply aren't ready to buy.

Your ad campaign doesn't necessarily need to be transactional, however. Promoting informational content about your products or brand is a great way to increase awareness and nurture an audience. Be thoughtful about the keywords you select, even if they do not have the highest search volume.

Don't Forget About Negative Keywords

Negative keywords are terms you can enter to prevent your ads from displaying to users entering unrelated keywords. This is crucial when the keywords you're ranking for as just broad enough to inadvertently attract uninterested audiences.

For example, let's say that a wedding planning business is running ads using the keyword event planner. Technically, a wedding planner is an event planner, but event planner as a keyword can attract users that have zero interest in wedding planning. People use event planners for all types of gatherings and celebrations.

For this reason, you may want to add negative keywords for birthday event planning, private event planning,  etc. This will ensure that any user who uses those negative terms, or any combination of those words, will not see your ad. It's simply a more effective way of targeting your campaign and gaining a more qualified audience.

Don't Forget About Long-Tail Keywords

Long-tail keywords are long, highly-specific keywords that typically have a low search volume. The last attribute is typically a reason that many will avoid using a long-tail keyword. This is a mistake.

While these keywords do generate fewer clicks, the quality of those clicks is typically much higher. Jewelry is a very broad, vague keyword, but affordable wedding anniversary diamond jewelry targets a highly-specific user. The user that goes out of their way to use that long-tail keyword demonstrates a much higher motivation to engage with your ads and convert.

Long-tail keywords are also highly affordable due to their low volume, meaning that there is little risk. However, when used effectively, that can make a positive impact on your ad campaign results and improve ad quality score.

Hack #2 - Always Research Direct Competitors

Competitor research goes hand-in-hand with keyword research, whether it be for your paid ad campaigns or for organic website content. Even if you curate excellent content that is worthy of a high ad score, your ads still might not get featured if a bidding war ensues.

This is particularly important if you're a smaller business without much SEO history. You can always expect there to be bigger businesses with much larger ad spend budgets than you can currently afford. The last thing you want to do is overpay for keywords and decimate your marketing budget before it actually generates any results.

Instead of always going head-to-head with direct competitors, research their keyword usage and look for opportunities to exploit their mistakes. Most SEO and keyword research software will allow you to quickly research top keywords used by the domain and page you enter. You can use this to come up with new angles to improve ad rank without facing as much direct competition.

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As you begin to improve your page rankings and online presence, you can revise your keywords strategies to incorporate more competitive keywords. Always keep an eye on the CPC (cost-per-click) of keywords over time and leap when the opportunity arises.

Hack #3 - Always A/B Test

Never expect the first draft of your ad to be a smashing success. There's always the possibility, but there's a greater chance that some aspect of your campaign can be improved. In fact, you should naturally look to create new ads and revise old ones as your campaign gathers valuable data from your targeted audience.

The most effective way to determine what parts of your ad campaign work well is to run A/B tests. This allows you to simultaneously run two versions of a similar ad while experimenting with changes to the design or copy.

Furthermore, Google Ads will automatically divert users to the higher-performing version of your ad and landing page once it gathers enough useful data. You can then use this information to determine what aspects of your campaign are grabbing your audience and what you might be able to do to further refine future ads and improve your ad rank.

A significant part of what makes an ad campaign successful is gathering as much useful data about your audience as possible and making use of it. There's no real effective way to do this without A/B testing your ads and landing pages. You can set an ad to turn off after a period if it underperforms, and you'll never need to worry about burning up your budget on a failed experiment.

Hack #4 - Use Automatic Ad Rotation

While setting Google Ads to automatically, you can choose to override this setting to automatically rotate all the ads in a set for equal viewing. While the former strategy can help you focus on the better ad, a regular rotation can potentially provide a better analysis of your entire campaign.

The A/B optimize setting will always display the ad that receives more clicks. More clicks typically mean that Google is going to improve your ad quality score and ad rank. However, as we discussed with keyword intent, more clicks do not always mean that you're earning high-quality impressions. Let's look at an example:

• Ad A - 3,000 Clicks - 600 conversions = 20% conversion rate
• Ad B - 1,000 Clicks - 300 conversions = 30% conversion rate

While this is a bit of a crude example, you can see what we're emphasizing here. While Google might technically give Ad B a lower quality score due to the lower clicks, we can see that it technically was more valuable thanks to its higher conversion rate. More conversions from fewer clicks also mean that we were able to obtain a much better ROI for our campaign efforts.

This creates a dilemma for even experienced paid ads managers. The answer typically lies in the overall goal for the campaign as well as the resources you have available to refine and optimize your ads. Defaulting to the higher click count is a safer bet as it will improve your Quality Score, while still maximizing the use of your ad budget.

However, taking advantage of ad rotation at the right times can be your ticket to establishing a killer marketing campaign. When you obtain more raw data and effectively make use of the knowledge, you have the potential to deliver superior ads than you might otherwise with the alternative method.

Hack #5 - Always Monitor Your Quality Score

As mentioned several times throughout this article, your ad quality score is significant for maximizing your ad campaign efforts.

Google automatically gives every ad you publish an ongoing Quality Score that measures the following:

• Expected clickthrough rate (based upon historical impressions for exact keyword searches)
• Ad relevance (our discussion on keyword and user intent)
• Landing page experience (the value that your landing page brings to the user)

Anyone can access their Quality Score through their Google Ads account and navigate to the Keywords section.

The reason for emphasizing the Quality Score section is that it is your most powerful barometer for gauging the effectiveness of a given advertisement.

Is your ad relevance score low? You likely need to revisit your keyword research and target better keywords with your ads.

Is your landing page experience score low? You may need to A/B test versions of the landing page to determine what's hurting the user experience. The fix may be as simple as coming up with a better call-to-action or there may be more severe issues with the overall design.

Your Quality Score can improve or degrade with time as Google gathers more information from users and learns more about your campaign. However, it's in your best interest to use your score to guide your future campaign behaviors. Without effective analytic analysis, you can expect to waste a lot of time and effort, especially in competitive industries.

To learn some effective tips on how to use your Quality Score to improve ad rank and improve ad relevance, check out this excellent article courtesy of Google.

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Conclusion - Paid Ads Require Care and Investment

In many ways, running a paid ad campaign has never been easier and more accessible for businesses. Tedious, painstaking tasks are now entirely automated through the digital advertising platform. With that said, amassing all of this valuable consumer data will amount to very little unless you invest the time and care in managing your campaign effectively.

Revisit your keyword research, keep an eye on competitors, and take advantage of the automation tools available within the platform. Finally, keep up-to-date with your ad quality score for suggestions on actions you can take to improve your campaign immediately. Doing so will help you to avoid unnecessary ad spending and help you maximize your ROI.