Ad Layout Templates

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Ok, now that we understand the strategies behind ad placements and settings, let’s explore our standard recommended ad layouts.

While there are many different websites, layouts and experiences out there, we have found that the foundation of how you choose to structure your ad units on page can be broken down into two categories: pages with heavy scroll behavior, and pages where a user interacts with a specific element on your page without much scrolling.

Pages with heavy scroll are typically listing or content-heavy pages.

Pages without scroll behavior are usually things like games, slideshows, calculators or tools.

Let’s outline the best options you have for overall ad layout to maximize revenue and viewability on each page type. These recommendations take into account the very different user experience on each page type and use the resulting user interaction with the page to identify the best ad placements.

Let’s start with pages with heavy scroll behavior.

You have 3 options we’ve laid out here that go from Good, to Better, to Best in terms of the amount of revenue they are capable of generating.

At minimum you’ll want to include a bottom rail, corner docked video player, in-article units injected at a set frequency, and a sticky medium rectangle in the sidebar at the end of your content if you have one.

You can up the ante by switching your single sticky medium rectangle in the sidebar out for a stacked sticky medium rectangle layout. You can also add in in-article scrolling containers so you can serve multiple ad sizes without affecting user experience.

And, to really go the extra mile, you can consider adding a left rail which should serve only at large enough screen widths on desktop devices.

In all three cases, you should absolutely choose to serve high impact units like flex leaderboards or skins when the direct demand is available to fill them.

And one last option you have is adding in an additional medium rectangle unit above any sidebar content you have.

These layouts work for both listing pages and content-heavy pages. You can choose to inject your in-article units between listings, paragraphs, or comments in a forum-like architecture. We recommend every 2-4 paragraphs or page elements.

Now let’s shift to non-scrolling pages. These are pages where the user focuses on a specific portion of the page and interacts with it for an extended period of time without scrolling. 

At minimum, you’ll want to include a bottom rail, a medium rectangle and/or a skyscraper in the sidebar if you have one, a left rail, and a pre-roll video ad if applicable.

From there, you can add a leaderboard above the primary interactive content if you have space, add additional medium rectangles in your sidebar if you have the option, and a corner-docked video player.

If you’re feeling extra ready for ads, you can also experiment with a right rail in addition to your left rail. This is also especially useful to include if you don’t have a sidebar in which to add the sidebar units mentioned previously.

In addition, pages like this often have the potential to use rewarded video ads. If you have something of high enough value to the user, you can potentially choose to gate access to it using a rewarded video ad, an ad the user must watch fully in order to get access to the item of interest.

Often, in games this is used when a player runs out of lives or to gate access to a special game feature like a full-screen version of the game.

In the same vein as the heavy scrolling pages, you should absolutely choose to serve high impact units like flex leaderboards or skins when the direct demand is available to fill them.

The key for this page type is taking advantage of the fact that the user sits in one spot on the page for an extended period of time, and maximizing the available real estate you have for ad units around that interactive element.

Keep in mind, these templates are just meant to set the foundation. Now you can take a look at your website pages’ unique interactions to decide how to build on or tweak the layout to make it fit your site using many of the ideas you’ve jotted down during the previous activities you completed with other lessons.