Banner ad sizes you actually need for 2025 (Google, Meta, Programmatic)

In 2025, running effective display ad campaigns takes more than great design or clever copy. With an ever-increasing variety of ad placements — desktop, mobile, in-app, programmatic feeds — using the right banner sizes matters more than ever. If you pick the wrong dimensions, your ad might never show or deliver poor viewability.

But with dozens of possible formats, how do you decide which ones to produce? In this guide, I'll walk you through the banner ad sizes that still dominate display campaigns in 2025, why they matter, and how to build a “core set” that maximizes reach without wasting design time.

Why size matters in 2025

Publisher demand & fill rate

Ad networks, publishers, and demand-side platforms (DSPs) typically support a finite set of standard sizes. Ads built in these sizes are easier to serve because supply inventory already exists. Non-standard sizes may lead to lower fill rates or fail to render. According to recent guides, sticking to standard formats remains essential to maximize ad coverage.

Viewability and user experience

Correctly sized banners ensure ads render cleanly (no cropping or distortion), load quickly (especially critical on mobile), and avoid layout shifts that hurt user experience. Bad visual behavior damages both brand perception and campaign performance.

Efficient production and campaign scalability

Designing a core set of sizes gives you a foundation to scale — repurpose creative across placements, run A/B tests, and adapt quickly as your campaign evolves. Trying to support every size leads to wasted resources and inconsistent results.

The core banner ad sizes you should prioritize in 2025

Based on the latest network data and advertiser consensus, these 6–8 banner sizes cover the majority of inventory across Google, programmatic, and major publishers.

These sizes consistently appear in 2025 banner-size inventories and are often recommended by ad networks for maximum reach.

Additional sizes worth producing (when needed)

If your budget and campaign strategy allow — or you target niche placements — these additional sizes can be useful. However, they’re lower priority.

• 250 × 250 / 200 × 200 — compact square ads, useful for tight-spot placements or native-style ad zones.
• 468 × 60 — classic banner, but more legacy; still supported on many sites.
• 120 × 600 — narrow skyscraper (less common than 160 × 600)
• 970 × 90 / 970 × 250 — large leaderboard / billboard — good for premium or high-visibility buys

Also, for mobile or in-app placements, sometimes custom or non-standard sizes are needed — but only build those if your targeting requires it and volumes justify the work.

Format-specific considerations (static, animated, HTML5)

Because you may deliver your banners as static, animated GIF, or HTML5, size selection interacts with formatting choices.

Static or GIF banners

• Static images or GIFs are easiest to produce and widely accepted.
• However, larger or tall-size banners (like half-page 300×600) might lead to heavier file sizes or load delays if not optimized.
• Always optimize and compress while preserving legibility and brand identity.

HTML5 / Rich Media creatives

• HTML5 banners allow flexible sizing and even responsive behavior — but you still need standard size “slots” to be accepted by most DSPs/publishers.
• A 300×250 or 320×50 HTML5 banner is often the minimum footprint. Using standard sizes ensures compatibility and fill.

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How to build your “minimum viable banner set” for 2025

If you want to maximize coverage with minimum effort, consider producing this set for each campaign:

• 300 × 250 (Medium Rectangle)
• 728 × 90 (Leaderboard)
• 160 × 600 (Wide Skyscraper)
• 320 × 50 (Mobile Leaderboard)
• 300 × 600 (Half-Page)

If you have extra creative bandwidth, add: 336 × 280, 320 × 100, 970 × 250.

This set covers desktop & mobile, vertical & horizontal placements, sidebars, in-content, sticky footers, and premium billboard-type placements.

Why many advertisers over-produce & how to avoid it

The trap of “cover every size”

With so many size options available, it's tempting to build dozens of versions “just in case.” But that often leads to:

• Unnecessary design and production time
• Underused creatives (many sizes never get impressions)
• Difficulty managing versions, storing assets, and maintaining consistency

Smart production: focus on data and performance

Instead of producing all sizes, build based on:

• your media buy plan (which placements you actually target)
• ad network inventory and historical performance data (which sizes deliver most impressions/CTR)
• campaign goal (awareness, retargeting, conversions)

Then test results, iterate, and scale the size set if needed — rather than preemptively creating dozens of sizes.

How this affects your ad design process (and costs)

More efficient asset pipeline

By limiting to a core set, you simplify your asset pipeline: fewer exports, easier QA, faster delivery. That means you can deliver high-quality banner sets (static, GIF, HTML5) faster and more reliably — without ballooning costs.

Better performance tracking

With fewer size variants, it’s easier to track performance, compare results, and interpret data. If you spread impressions across 20+ sizes, statistical significance drops and it becomes harder to know what’s working.

Faster turnaround for clients

For agencies — or clients with tight deadlines — a compact size set means you can produce and launch quickly, then add more formats based on real performance, rather than guesswork.

2025 Trends & what’s changing

• Responsive ad units / flexible placements. Many publishers and platforms now support responsive ads that adapt to different aspect ratios and viewports — but these typically still expect a core set of standard sizes as “fallback zones.”
• Rise of rich media / HTML5 interactivity. Interactive or animated ads (HTML5) are gaining traction, especially for high-impact campaigns and brand ads — but they still need standard-size slots for distribution.
• Mobile-first inventory growth. With mobile traffic dominating, sizes like 320×50, 320×100 and responsive formats become more important — but many desktop sizes remain relevant thanks to cross-device use.

Recommended workflow: how to produce banners efficiently

1. Start with your media buy plan — which placements (desktop, mobile, in-content, sidebar) will you target?
2. Build the core banner set (sizes listed above) for static and HTML5 versions.
3. Optimize assets — compress images, minify HTML5, optimize mobile load performance.
4. Test in ad server / DSP — check fallbacks, file sizes, visibility, responsive behavior.
5. Launch and monitor performance — measure impressions, CTR, conversions, viewability.
6. Iterate — if certain sizes underperform or never deliver, don’t renew them; if performance is strong, consider adding additional formats.

Conclusion

In 2025, banner ad size selection remains a foundation — not a detail. Use the right dimensions and you give your campaigns reach, compatibility, and performance potential. Overproduce, and you risk wasted effort and confusion.

By building a smart baseline of 6–8 key sizes, optimizing assets, and aligning format choices with campaign goals and placements, you can deliver efficient campaigns that scale — without overloading your production pipeline.

Whether you're a small brand, a startup, or an agency, a thoughtful banner-size strategy helps you launch faster, reach more placements, and make your design budget go further.