Accepted Banner File Size in Online Advertising

In a previous article we talked about banner standard sizes, one of the most important metrics in banner advertising. 

Now the second metric in the order of its importance is the banner file size.

There are different advertising networks, and they have different weight banner standards, here are some of them:

The recommended banner size from AdWords

The file size limit for all static ads is 150 kilobytes and for all animated ads is 150 kilobytes or smaller

		Max. size (kB)
Banner Ad	Ad Size	Static (JPG, GIF)	Animated (.GIF, HTML5)
Small square	200 × 200	150	150 KB or smaller
Vertical rectangle	240 × 400
Square	250 × 250
Triple widescreen	250 × 360
Inline rectangle	300 × 250
Large rectangle	336 × 280
Netboard	580 × 400
Skyscraper	120 × 600
Wide skyscraper	160 × 600
Half-page ad	300 × 600
Portrait	300×1050
Banner	468 × 60
Leaderboard	728 × 90
Top banner	930 × 180
Large leaderboard	970 × 90
Billboard	970 × 250
Panorama	980 × 120
Mobile banner	300 × 50
Mobile banner	320 × 50
Large mobile banner	320 × 100

The recommended banner size from IAB

Note that these file weights refer to the initial download. That means, a flash banner can have a total file weight of over 40 KB, but anything above 40 KB is downloaded “in the background” meanwhile the flash ad/animation had already begun.

Here you can read more

Banner Ad		Size Range		Max. K-Weight (kB)
	Ad Size	Max Size	Min Size	Initial Load	Subload
Billboard	970 x 250	900 x 225	1800 x 450	250	500
Mobile Banner	300 x 50	300 x 50	450 x 75	50	100
Leaderboard	728 x 90	600 x 75	1200 x 150	150	300
Half Page	300 x 600	300 x 600	450 x 900	200	400
Portrait	300 x 1050	300 x 900	450 x 1350	200	400
Skyscraper	160 x 600	160 x 640	240 x 960	150	300
Medium Rectangle	300 x 250	300 x 300	450 x 450	150	300

 

Aol Advertising: The maximum accepted file size is generally 40 KB for the standard banners, but there are some exceptions. You can read more here.

Right Media – the file size should be up to 37 kb.

How do we measure the online banner size?

The file size is measured in bytes, often with the kilo- (thousand) or mega- (million) metric prefixes, and it represents the amount of disk space consumed by a particular file.

• 1 B = 1 byte
• 1 kB = 1.000 bytes
• 1 MB = 1.000 kB or 1.000.000 bytes
• 1 GB = 1.000 MB, 1.000.000 kB, or 1.000.000.000 bytes

As with other files, banners (JPGs, GIFs, SWFs etc.) have certain file weights. These files are temporarily downloaded on the users’ computers when they open a web page, so the bigger a banner file is, the heavier and slower to download that web page will be.

That made publishers introducing some restrictions regarding the standard file size of the banner they would accept. And that was the first step to introducing a set of universally accepted standards concerning the banner file sizes.