Google Banner Ads: What Are They & How Do They Work?

Also known as image ads, Google banner ads are ads that allow you to advertise on the Google Display network.

Google banner ads help you to promote your business and brands to people when they are browsing online, watching YouTube videos, checking their Gmail accounts and using apps on their mobile devices.

With a reach of over 90% of internet users worldwide across millions of websites, apps, blogs Google sites like YouTube and Gmail, it’s essential that you test this network to see if it will work for your business.

You can use Google banner ads in your Google Search with Display Select and Google Display campaigns.

Uploaded Google Banner Ads

You can upload individual Google ads that you’ve created in gif, jpg or png format. And you can also upload HTML5 or AMPHTML ads as ZIP.

Uploaded ads give you more control over branding of your image ads, the sizes you use and the exact images and text that your users will see, like the example below

See below for the banner ad sizes and formats that are allowed in Google Ads.

Google Banner Ads Sizes

There are many banner sizes that you can use in your campaigns. These are the most popular and they will help to place your ads in a wide range of website and app placements and positions

File types

Formats GIF, JPG, PNG
Max. size 150 KB each
Ad sizes

Square and rectangle

250 × 250 Square
250 × 360 Triple widescreen
300 × 250 Inline rectangle
336 × 280 Large rectangle

Skyscraper
120 × 600 Skyscraper
160 × 600 Wide skyscraper
300 × 600 Half-page ad

Leaderboard
468 × 60 Banner
728 × 90 Leaderboard

Responsive Display Ads

The easiest and quickest way to get started with Display advertising is to create a Responsive display ad. So, unlike uploaded ads, you can use the free features to set up ads that are customised to fit in a wide range of placements automatically.

Like text ads that you run in your Search campaigns, you will also add headlines and descriptions and a Final URL to your Responsive Display ads too. But you also get to add images and videos to enhance your ads and reach people as they browse websites and apps that are part of the Google Display Network.