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How to Build Responsive Banner Ads with HTML5

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HTML5_Logo_512Build once, display everywhere. To build responsive banner ads using HTML5 gets more into the focus the more mobile web users surf the web on different devices. Responsive banner designs make it easy to fit on any screen or device. Learn more about HTML5, the benefits that responsive banner ads will bring to you and why everybody is heading towards mobile.

Building responsive display advertisements has never been more important. In early 2014 we saw for the first time consumers starting to access the internet from their mobile devices more than from desktop devices, and it is clear that the amount of time spent on our mobile devices will increase. Responsive design has become very important in mobile advertising because there are a huge number of different shapes and sizes of mobile device screen. With hundreds of different screen sizes and no one screen size taking more than 17% of the market, creating responsive banner ads that display correctly on all screen sizes is essential in order to make you display advertising campaign a success.

Responsive Banner Ads with HTML5

Websites often contain display advertisement that are incompatible with todays responsive layouts and mobile media devices. The banner ads are usually made with Flash and animated GIF files with fixed pixel dimensions which makes them completely inflexible and almost useless as they often do not even display on the mobile device. Since the rise of HTML5  a better way to create banners has emerged to solve exact this problem. HTML5 makes it possible to build responsive banner ads that will adjust with the screen size based on what device the viewer is using.

The new way to create banner ads

Usually, to run an ad campaign that crosses different devices means hard and time-intensive work, to even suit all kinds of screens that the banner ad might appear on. There is one single optimal way to make banner ads just as responsive as website layouts – the solution is HTML5.

HTML5 is the latest update of the Hypertext Markup Language which is the standard language used to describe the contents and design of webpages, including responsive web design.

HTML5 is a big force in online advertising, and it will get you the flexibility to run your banner ads on any device, wherever your audiences are. It will help you as publishers or advertisers to create cross-device ad campaigns, for instance a campaign with animated banner ads that fits laptops, smartphones and tablets. That means you don’t have to create hundreds of versions of the same ad. Reducing the number of ad versions will also reduce the likelihood of errors and increase your banner production.

Text, images, video and javascript can still be used within the ad just in the same way as any webpage. HTML5 banner ads will responsively and dynamically optimize the ad so it looks perfect everywhere. What’s more is that HTML5 banner ads can be viewed on mobile devices, so you can reach a wider audience!

HTML5 banner sizes

When creating responsive layouts it requires that the elements have variable widths that is a convention banner ads must follow, too. In responsive design the height doesn’t really matter. You can use any height you like, but it doesn’t mean that your ad will remains at that height. The best way is to use the same heights as in traditional banner sizes to maintain the compatibility. These are some examples of useful banner sizes with standard heights that you can use when creating HTML5 banner ads: 

90px “banner”
button 1 (120 x 90)
leaderboard (728 x 90)

250px “medium rectangle”
vertical banner (120 x 240)
square pop-up (250 x 250)
medium rectangle (300 x 250)

600px “skyscraper”
skyscraper (120 x 600)
wide skyscraper (240 x 600)
half-page ad (300 x 600)

This gives a nice vertical size with variable widths that covers the most popular ad sizes in use today. If you base your responsive banner ads using HTML5 on these sizes you can be sure that most devices will display them right.

The growth of mobile advertising

Mobile advertising has become an industry all of its own over the past couple of years. The discussion about whether  HTML5 banner ads win over Flash is still ongoing. Without going into detail I would say that HTML5 scores much better on mobiles, mainly because it is compatible with all modern mobile devices, and the market is growing rapidly. A large growth of the mobile advertising market and its popularity is already predicted over the next few years, as Gartner says. Their data even shows that the mobile advertising industry is predicted to be 6 times larger than some years ago. In 2013 alone, mobile ad spending grew by more than 100% and it looks as though it is here to stay. Mobile advertising has also opened up a whole new way of publishing HTML5 banner ads too, namely within apps, allowing for advertisers to reach a wider audience.

Mobile Advertising Revenue by Region, Worldwide, 2011-2015 (Millions of Dollars)

Region 2011 2015
North America  701.7 5,791.4
Western Europe 569.3 5,131.9
Asia and Japan 1,628.5 6,925.0
Rest of the World 410,4 2,761.7
Total 3,309.9 20,610.0

What about the users?

mobile ad recognition

According to Google’s study “Our Mobile Planet” there are some interesting facts about mobile advertising and consumers. 89% of all users in the US that own a smartphone also notice banner ads on them, which is a high recognition compared to other media channels. Because of this result, Google says that mobile advertising is a critical component of traditional advertising and recommends “Making mobile ads a part of an integrated marketing strategy can drive greater consumer engagement“. This actually underlines how the market is changing towards mobile and HTML5 showing you how important it is to consider mobile advertising to meet the user’s needs.

Mobile guru and developer Josh Clark even sees social aspects supporting the mobile revolution. ”A pair of studies late last year from Pew and from On Device Research showed that over 25 per cent of people in the US who browse the web on smartphones almost never use any other platform. […]. There’s a digital-divide issue here. People who can afford only one screen or internet connection are choosing the phone. If you want to reach them at all, you have to reach them on mobile.” Clark even points out that we can’t settle for serving such a huge audience a stripped-down experience or force them to swim through a desktop layout in a small screen.

Summary

As we can see, the market is changing towards mobile and we have to think of using responsive banner ads if we want to make sure that we reach our audience. Here is a quick summary of the points discussed above:

  • Responsive design makes it possible to resize to fit any device
  • HTML5 is the new way to create banner ads, it will make them fit and look perfect everywhere
  • Responsive layout requires variable widths
  • Mobile advertising is growing
  • The smartphone users notice mobile banner ads
  • We have to reach huge audiences on mobile

Last thoughts

Thank you for joining me here in this article. I want to make it as easy for you to get in and learn and apply the ideas as others can, so if you have any requests or feedback, please contact me or leave a comment on this page.

Did you know that you can make your BannerFlow banners responsive and ready for all mobile devices by simply clicking a button?

If you need to get it right the first time, or don’t feel you have the internal experience or capacity to build it, try the BannerFlow HTML5 banner builder and contact us to find out if we’d be a great fit to help you.

Editor’s note: This post was originally posted in April 2014, it has been revamped in order to keep the content relevant, correct, and up-to-date!

New feature BannerFlow now features responsive ads

The post How to Build Responsive Banner Ads with HTML5 appeared first on Responsive Design Blog.


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