Inline adaptive banners

Adaptive banners are the next generation of responsive ads, maximizing performance by optimizing ad size for each device. Improving on fixed-size banners, which only supported fixed heights, adaptive banners let developers specify the ad-width and use this to determine the optimal ad size.

To pick the best ad size, inline adaptive banners use maximum instead of fixed heights. This results in opportunities for improved performance.

When to use inline adaptive banners

Inline adaptive banners are larger, taller banners compared to anchored adaptive banners. They are of variable height, and can be as tall as the device screen.

They are intended to be placed in scrolling content, for example:

Prerequisites

  • Google Mobile Ads SDK 8.10.0 or higher

Before you begin

When implementing adaptive banners in your app, note these points:

  • You must know the width of the view that the ad will be placed in, and this should take into account the device width and any safe areas that are applicable.

  • Ensure you are using the latest version of the Google Mobile Ads SDK, and if using mediation, the latest versions of your mediation adapters.

  • The inline adaptive banner sizes are designed to work best when using the full available width. In most cases, this will be the full width of the screen of the device in use. Be sure to take into account applicable safe areas.

  • You may need to update or create new line items to work with adaptive sizes. Learn more.

Implementation

The steps to implement inline adaptive banner ads are the same as the steps to implement anchored adaptive banner ads. The only difference is inline adaptive banner ads are loaded using an inline adaptive banner ad size. To create an inline adaptive ad size:

  • Get the width of the device in use, or set your own width if you don't want to use the full width of the screen.
  • Use the appropriate static methods on the ad size class, such as GADCurrentOrientationInlineBannerAdSizeWithWidth(CGFloat width) to get an inline adaptive ad size object for the chosen orientation.
  • If you want to limit the height of the banner, you can use the static method GADInlineAdaptiveBannerAdSizeWithWidthAndMaxHeight(CGFloat width, CGFloat maxHeight) .

The sample code below demonstrates these steps:

Swift

// Step 1: Create an inline adaptive banner ad size. This size is used to
// request your adaptive banner. You can pass in the width of the device, or
// set your own width. This example sets a static width.
let adSize = GADCurrentOrientationInlineAdaptiveBannerAdSizeWithWidth(320)
// Step 2: Create banner with the inline size and set ad unit ID.
let bannerView = GAMBannerView(adSize: adSize)
bannerView.adUnitID = "<var>ad unit ID</var>"
bannerView.rootViewController = self

// For Ad Manager, the `adSize` property is used for the adaptive banner ad
// size. The `validAdSizes` property is used as normal for the supported
// reservation sizes for the ad placement.
bannerView.validAdSizes = [NSValueFromGADAdSize(GADAdSizeBanner)]

// Step 3: Load an ad.
let request = GAMRequest()
bannerView.load(request)
// TODO: Insert banner view in table view or scroll view, etc.

Objective-C

// Step 1: Create an inline adaptive banner ad size. This size is used to
// request your adaptive banner. You can pass in the width of the device, or set
// your own width. This example sets a static width.
GADAdSize *adSize = GADCurrentOrientationInlineAdaptiveBannerAdSizeWithWidth(320);
// Step 2: Create banner with the inline size and set ad unit ID.
GAMBannerView bannerView = [[GAMBannerView alloc] initWithAdSize:adSize];
bannerView.adUnitID = @"<var>ad unit ID</var>";
bannerView.rootViewController = self;

// For Ad Manager, the adSize property is used for the adaptive banner ad size.
// The validAdSizes property is used as normal for the supported reservation
// sizes for the ad placement. This is optional and only needed if you wish to
// support reservation ad sizes.
bannerView.validAdSizes = @[ NSValueFromGADAdSize(GADAdSizeBanner) ];

// Step 3: Load an ad.
GAMRequest *request = [GAMRequest request];
[bannerView loadRequest:request];
// TODO: Insert banner view in table view or scroll view, etc.

Additional resources

Examples on GitHub

Download the sample application to see inline adaptive banners in action.

Swift Objective-C