Guide · updated November 2026
Display advertising is ads with pictures, words and often motion, shown in ad spaces on websites and in apps. This guide covers where display ads run, the formats, how they’re bought and measured, and what makes one work.
The ads on the page are one live sample, Kestrel, a made-up brand, on a made-up news site. Its photos were made with AI.
A display ad is a visual ad made to a set size, usually an HTML5 banner or an image, shown in an ad space on a site or in an app. A click takes the viewer to the advertiser’s page.
Display advertising is the whole channel: the ads, the sites and apps that sell space for them, and the ways that space is bought. It reaches people while they read, watch or use an app, often before they have started looking for what’s advertised.
| Display | Search | Social | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where it runs | Websites and apps | Search results | Social feeds and stories |
| What it looks like | Pictures, words, motion, in set sizes | Mostly text | Posts, pictures and video in the feed |
| What people are doing | Reading, watching, browsing | Looking for something | Scrolling their feed |
| Bought from | Publishers, or programmatically across a network of sites | The search engine | The social platform |
Anywhere a site or an app sells space for ads. These are the places most campaigns run.
Ads in the page as people read: across the top, beside the article, between paragraphs, and screen-filling high impact formats.
Thousands of smaller sites sell their space through ad networks and exchanges, so one campaign can run on many of them.
Banners and fullscreen ads inside mobile apps and games, sold much like space on the web.
Online shops sell ad space on their own pages, often to the brands they stock, close to where people buy.
Video ads before or during a video, and in the article as the reader scrolls. Often bought alongside display.
Digital out-of-home is close kin: ads on screens in stations, streets and shops. What is DOOH?
Most display is standard banners. The other formats trade reach for more space, more motion or a closer fit with the page.
The 300 × 250 medium rectangle, the 728 × 90 leaderboard, the 300 × 600 half page and the 320 × 50 mobile strip are the sizes most sites sell, following IAB and Google’s standard set. Each size needs its own layout.
Every banner ad size, drawn to scale →Banners that do more than animate: expand when tapped, let the viewer swipe through products or try a colour, or play video inside the ad.
Topscroll, midscroll, double midscroll and welcome page fill the screen or most of it. They’re built at screen size rather than as a box, and many news sites run them with High Impact JS.
A picture, a headline and the advertiser’s name, set in the site’s own style among its articles, and marked as sponsored.
In-stream ads play in a video player; outstream ads play in the article and start as the reader scrolls to them.
There are two main ways to buy display. Many campaigns use both.
The site’s sales team sells placements, for a period or for a number of impressions. Takeovers and high impact formats are often sold this way, and the publisher sends a spec for the creative.
Impressions are bought one at a time by software, in an auction as the page loads, or through a private deal agreed with the publisher. A buyer sets the rules: sites, audiences, times and price.
What counts depends on what the campaign is for: being seen, being remembered, or getting a visit or a sale.
How many times the ad was served on a page or in an app.
The share of impressions that were actually on screen. The common standard for a display ad is at least half of it in view for at least one second.
Click-through rate is clicks divided by impressions. It shows how many acted at once, not how many saw the ad.
Visits, sign-ups or sales that follow a click or a view, counted by the advertiser’s tracking on their own site.
How many different people saw the ad, and how many times each of them saw it on average.
The difference in what people remember or think of a brand, measured by asking people who saw the ad and people who didn’t.
A display ad gets a glance while someone is busy with something else. It has to be clear at once and still look good at every size.
One thing to say, in a few words. The detail belongs on the page the ad leads to.
Many people never click, so the brand should be easy to see in every frame, not saved for the end.
A leaderboard and a half page are different shapes. Each needs its own composition, with type big enough to read at that size.
The product, or the feeling of using it, shown big and sharp. The brand’s own look, not a template’s.
Motion that draws the eye to the message, then a still end frame with the brand and the message on it.
A button that says what happens, like “Shop the Trail Knit”, leading to a page that matches the ad.
How MAiKE does it
MAiKE, an AI ad maker from Madington, builds the HTML5 banner in every format you need from the page the ad leads to.
Advertising with pictures, words and often motion, shown in ad spaces on websites and in apps: banners in standard sizes, rich media, high impact formats, native ads and video.
One ad in a display campaign: usually an HTML5 banner or an image made to a set size, shown in an ad space on a site or in an app, that takes the viewer to the advertiser’s page when clicked.
Search ads are mostly text, shown to people who have just searched for something. Display ads are visual, shown to people while they read or use a site or an app, often before they have started looking.
Directly from the publisher, who sells placements for a period or a number of impressions, or programmatically, through platforms that buy impressions one at a time in an auction or through a private deal. Many campaigns use both.
By impressions (how often the ad was served), viewable impressions (how often it was actually on screen), clicks and click-through rate, and the visits and sales that follow. Brand campaigns often add reach and brand lift surveys.
Yes. Paste the link to the page you advertise and pick the formats. MAiKE builds the HTML5 banner with a layout for each size, high impact included, and checks every format. You publish it through Madington Station.
Bring a page you advertise and the formats you need. We’ll show you MAiKE building them.