Display Banners
Display banner ad format in IAB sizes — 300x250, 728x90, 320x50, 160x600. Useful for tier-1 brand spend and retargeting, not for popunder verticals.
What it actually is
The classic IAB display formats: 300×250 medium rectangle, 728×90 leaderboard, 160×600 wide skyscraper, 320×50 mobile leaderboard, 468×60 full banner. Standardised since the late 1990s, baked into every adblock heuristic in existence, and the format with the most predictable cost-per-conversion math because the auction depth is global.
For the verticals on this site — iGaming, dating, sweepstakes, utility — banners are the tail of the spend, not the head. PropellerAds, Adsterra, and HilltopAds all carry banner inventory, but if you’re buying tier-1 iGaming on display banners you’re paying tier-1 popunder CPMs for tier-3 conversion math.
Why it still sells
- Standardised sizes mean creative production is cheap — one design covers most of the auction
- Always-on advertiser demand from tier-1 and tier-2 brands keeps the floor from collapsing
- Pairs cleanly with popunder and native on the same publisher without UX overlap
- Easiest format to A/B test creative variants on — most attribution stacks support display retargeting natively
Best for
- General display campaigns where brand recall is the KPI, not deposit conversion
- Retargeting funnels — banner is the cheapest unit to re-serve to a known audience
- Tier-1 brand spend where the buyer is optimising for share-of-voice, not last-click ROI
- Publishers wanting an always-on fallback unit when popunder fill drops
What it is not
Banner is not where the iGaming, dating, or sweepstakes verticals make their money in this category. The CPM you’d pay for tier-1 banner inventory is roughly half what popunder costs, but the conversion rate is roughly an eighth. The math doesn’t lie — it just embarrasses the buyer who hasn’t run the numbers.
Specs
- Pricing models: CPM and CPC
- Devices: Mobile and desktop. Mobile 320×50 leaderboards carry roughly 60% of total banner volume on this category’s publishers
- GEO coverage: 240+ countries. Tier-1 EU and US dominate auction depth
- Anti-fraud: Multi-layer filtering plus ML scoring on each impression. Banner has the largest fraud surface of any format on this list — viewability requirements help, but the IAB MRC standard still misses bots that scroll
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About Display Banners
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