In-app advertising is sold in a handful of formats, and each one is a different contract with the viewer. A banner asks for nothing and gets little attention. A rewarded ad asks for thirty seconds and pays for them. A playable asks the viewer to act. Understanding the formats is the first step in deciding which creative to build — because the same creative performs very differently depending on where it lands.
This guide covers each format from the advertiser's side: what the viewer experiences, what the format is good for, and what creative it needs.
Banner ads
A small strip, usually at the top or bottom of the screen, shown while the app is in use. The standard mobile banner is 320 by 50 pixels; the medium rectangle, 300 by 250, sits inside content. Banners are cheap per impression and very widely available, but they share the screen with whatever the user is actually doing, so attention is low and accidental taps are common.
Creative: a static image or a light HTML5 animation, legible at a tiny size. A banner is a reminder, not a demonstration. It rarely suits interactive creative, with one exception — an MRAID expandable banner that grows to full screen on tap, which is a way into richer creative from banner inventory.
Interstitial ads
A full-screen ad shown at a natural break — between game levels, after finishing an article, on leaving a screen. The viewer did not ask for it, can usually close it after a few seconds, and is often mid-flow. The full screen makes it the main home for video and playable creative outside rewarded placements.
Creative: video, playables and interactive end cards. The first seconds decide everything, because the close button is coming — see the first three seconds. Design for a viewer who did not choose to be here and must be won over quickly.
Rewarded ads
The viewer opts in — watch this and get an extra life, coins, a hint or a second chance — and receives the reward on completion. Because they chose it, attention is high and completion rates are strong, which makes rewarded inventory valuable for advertisers and lucrative for publishers. Rewarded interstitials, a variant, offer the reward without a separate opt-in button, with the option to skip.
Creative: video followed by an end card, or a playable. A rewarded viewer will give a playable its full length, which makes this the best placement for a longer demonstration — though the same file often serves both rewarded and interstitial slots. Rewarded versus interstitial covers designing one playable for both.
Native ads
An ad assembled by the app from supplied components — headline, image or video, icon, call to action — and rendered in the app's own style, like a sponsored post in a feed. It looks like part of the app, which lifts attention, but the advertiser controls only the components, not the layout.
Creative: asset sets rather than finished creatives. Strong images and short copy that survive being laid out by someone else. Native is not a home for interactive creative.
App open ads
A full-screen ad shown while an app launches or returns from the background, during the loading screen. A relatively recent format, offered for example by Google's AdMob. The viewer is waiting anyway, so it is not an interruption in the same way as an interstitial, but they are also impatient to reach the app.
Creative: short, clear static or video creative with an instant message. There is no time to teach an interaction.
Offerwalls
A catalogue of offers inside a game — install this app and reach level ten, complete this survey — each paying the user in the game's currency. Advertisers pay for the completed action. It is a performance channel rather than a creative one, and the listing is closer to a store entry than an ad.
Playable ads
Not a separate placement so much as a creative format that runs in interstitial and rewarded placements: a self-contained, interactive HTML5 creative that lets the viewer try the app before installing. Because the viewer has used the mechanic, installs from playables tend to be better qualified than installs from passive formats. They are also the most demanding to produce — every asset inlined, each network's packaging and exit call, a size cap. The complete guide to creating playables starts from scratch.
Video ads and end cards
Video — usually fifteen to thirty seconds — is the default creative for interstitial and rewarded placements. When it finishes, the network shows an end card: the last screen, holding the call to action. Every completed view reaches the end card, which makes it disproportionately important, and making it interactive is one of the cheapest upgrades available to a video campaign. Adding interactions and a CTA to video ads covers the options.
Choosing formats as an advertiser
Most advertisers do not choose placements one at a time; they upload creatives to a network, which serves them wherever they fit and bid well. The practical decisions are which creatives to supply and what to optimise for.
- Supply full-screen creatives in both orientations — video, playable and end card — so the network can serve them in interstitial and rewarded inventory, which is where most performance comes from.
- Supply a playable wherever the network accepts one. It is typically the strongest-converting creative in full-screen placements, and networks that support playables expect to see them.
- Keep a banner and native asset set for reach, but judge them on their own numbers rather than beside full-screen formats.
- Optimise for the deepest event you can measure. Installs are easy to buy; users who stay are the goal.
Creative specs across formats
Full-screen formats share requirements that trip up creative teams:
- Both orientations. Placements appear in portrait and landscape apps; a creative that only lays out in one is served less or rejected. See portrait vs landscape playables.
- Safe margins. Network close buttons, timers and system gestures sit at the screen edges.
- Muted by default. Many views start silent; the creative must work without sound.
- Size caps. Playable caps differ by network and by package format — see the size limits reference.
- Network wiring. Each network has its own call to open the store; the spec checker tests a file against each.
Building for every full-screen format at once
Playable Ads Maker builds the creatives that fill full-screen placements: playables and interactive end cards in the Image editor, interactive video in the Video editor, and standalone end cards in the End Card editor. Every project lays out in portrait and landscape from one design, and one export produces a ready-to-upload file for each network you pick.
Create playable end cards in minutes—no code required.
Open Playable Ads Maker