They’re getting bigger.

"To us it's not how big it is, but rather where we put it. We know to look past the clicks and concentrate on the money."

The Interactive Advertising Bureau recently approved new standards for banner size and load times. Who is the IAB you ask? Well, they’re some folks that get to regulate this kind of stuff. The IAB is a non-profit that ordains standards for the Internet advertising community. The standards are voluntary but the advertising community -as a whole- follows controls set by the IAB.

Last year, the IAB increased the size for approved graphic banners. Traditional banner (468x60) and button (120x60) sizes were replaced with larger banners measuring as big as 336x280. Those new sizes even got cute names like Skyscraper. I questioned in my last article on this subject whether or not surfers would endure such page-hogging commercialism. Apparently cyber travelers didn’t bitch much because the IAB is recommending advertisers employ new sized banner ads.

The new ad sizes are larger than last year’s but less banners have been recommended by the IAB, December 11, 2002. Last year they set standards for seven ad sizes. This year, they’ve pared that down to four.

728X90
Dubbed "The Leader Board", this one is to take the place of the older header banner. There’s no nudging a button next to this monster in order to save page space. Think horizontal rule.

160x600
In actual space, this ad would be a little larger than those paper bookmarks you get from the library. It’s meant to run up the side of a page.

300x250
About the size of a slim man’s wallet, this one sits somewhere in the middle of a page because that’s the only place it will fit.

180x150
You know those glamour matchbooks that come from fancy restaurants? That’s what this ad size resembles. Apparently, this is supposed to replace the button banner.

The IAB also has determined that these new banners have specific load time/file size limits. They’ve also included standards for ads with FLASH file extensions. FLASH ads get to be a bit bigger in kilobytes than GIF/JPEGs do but all animations can be no longer than 17 seconds. GIF/JPEG ads are set at 20K maximum for everything but the Leader Board. FLASH ones max out at 30K for all but the Leader Board. File size limit for Leader Board ads are 15K GIF/JPEG and 20K FLASH.

You’ll soon be seeing these new ad sizes on mainstream websites. That news story or medical report you want to read will be aligned to make way for a cool interactive game from Ford. More ad, less content. I don’t know if any of this is working for mainstream Internet advertising. Frankly I don’t know if any of it even applies to our industry.

It does in a way. Industry-related sites will end up incorporating the new banners into their text-based pages. Sponsors will probably add banners in the new sizes to their stockpiles of marketing materials for affiliates. TGPs will hate them and many adult webmasters have already forsaken graphic ads in favor of text links.

What is interesting about the IAB standards group is that how they come to their decisions. They collect studies from different groups and use those studies as guidelines. Designers, advertisers, statistical analysts and even surfers are consulted and present formal findings to the IAB. Eye-tracking, sales feedback, historical analysis and scenario modeling are some of the pains gone to by the IAB group.

All the committees said the same thing. Less ads in bigger sizes. The Editors and Designer’s committee plainly stated: "Too many small ads simply clutter the page".

Does any of this apply to an advertising niche that deals primarily in images over text? Sure, there are plenty of adult webmasters who fill their sites with news articles, erotica and other forms of textual entertainment.

The IAB’s new ad sizes might do well on such pages. Then again, we as an industry have moved past such petty details as banner size. We have a finer understanding of ad placement and impact. To us it’s not how big it is, but rather where we put it. We know to look past the clicks and concentrate on the money. We have real-life sales ratio statistics that no lab can recreate. We as an industry have practically mastered our market all on our own.

I applaud the IAB n their noble efforts. Maybe someday, they’ll know what we know.