Ad Placement Best Practices: Where to Put Ads for Maximum Revenue

Why Ad Placement Matters More Than You Think

The position of ads on your page is one of the most powerful levers you have for increasing revenue. Two sites with identical traffic, identical content, and the same ad network can earn dramatically different amounts simply because of where their ads are placed. Placement determines viewability, click-through rates, and ultimately, what advertisers are willing to pay for your inventory.

Advertisers and their algorithms evaluate ad placements based on historical performance data. Placements that consistently achieve high viewability and engagement receive higher bids because advertisers get better return on their spend. Over time, poorly placed ads earn progressively lower bids as algorithms learn they underperform, creating a compounding negative effect on your revenue.

The challenge is balancing revenue optimization with user experience. Aggressive ad placement can increase short-term revenue but damage engagement metrics, increase bounce rates, and ultimately hurt your search rankings. The best ad placement strategy is one that integrates ads naturally into the content experience, earning strong revenue without driving users away.

High-Performing Ad Positions

Above the fold leaderboard or rectangle: The top of the page remains prime advertising real estate. A 728x90 leaderboard or 300x250 medium rectangle near the top of your content area captures attention immediately. This position typically achieves the highest viewability rates on any page, often exceeding 80%. However, Google's guidelines require that content, not ads, dominate the above-the-fold area. Ensure your headline and at least the first paragraph of content are visible before any ads.

In-content placements: Ads placed between paragraphs within your article body are among the highest-earning positions on modern websites. As readers scroll through your content, they naturally encounter these ads while engaged with your material. The engagement context means users are more likely to notice and interact with these ads compared to peripheral placements. Place your first in-content ad after the second or third paragraph, then space additional ads every 3-5 paragraphs depending on content length.

Sticky sidebar: On desktop layouts with a sidebar, a 300x600 half-page ad or 300x250 rectangle that sticks as the user scrolls provides excellent sustained viewability. The ad remains visible throughout the reading session, giving it maximum exposure time. This placement works particularly well for longer articles where the user spends several minutes scrolling through content. Ensure the sticky behavior stops before the footer to maintain a professional appearance.

Anchor or sticky footer ads: A slim banner fixed to the bottom of the mobile viewport provides consistent visibility without significantly obscuring content. These anchor ads typically use 320x50 or 320x100 formats and include a close button per industry standards. While the CPMs for anchor ads are lower than premium in-content placements, their constant visibility generates high impression volumes that contribute meaningful incremental revenue.

Between content sections: If your page has distinct sections, such as the end of an article followed by related posts, or between a recipe and its comments, placing an ad at these natural transition points catches users as they pause and decide what to do next. These placements feel organic because they appear at natural breaks rather than interrupting the flow of content.

How Many Ads Per Page

The optimal number of ads per page depends on your content length, layout, and the guidelines of your ad network. As a general rule, longer content supports more ads because there is more space to place them without overwhelming the reader. A 500-word blog post should have no more than 2-3 ads, while a 2,000-word article can comfortably accommodate 5-7 ads.

The content-to-ad ratio is critical. Google recommends that ads should not occupy more than 30% of the visible area on mobile devices. Exceeding this threshold can trigger the Better Ads Standards violation flag, which results in Chrome filtering your ads entirely. Even below that threshold, excessive ad density creates a poor user experience that increases bounce rates and damages SEO.

Premium ad networks like Mediavine and Raptive optimize the number and placement of ads automatically based on content length and device type. Their algorithms balance revenue maximization with user experience based on data from millions of pageviews. If you are managing your own ad stack, start conservative and gradually increase ad density while monitoring engagement metrics for negative impacts.

Watch your ads-to-content ratio carefully on shorter pages. Category pages, tag archives, and thin content pages may not have enough content to support multiple ad placements. Consider showing fewer ads or no ads on pages where the content does not justify them. Your overall site quality score, which affects RPMs across all pages, benefits from maintaining a healthy ad-to-content balance site-wide.

Ad Placements to Avoid

Interstitial ads on page load: Full-screen ads that appear before the user can see content are penalized by Google under the Better Ads Standards and can trigger Chrome's built-in ad filtering. While some networks still offer interstitials, the risk of penalties outweighs the revenue for most publishers. If you must use interstitials, trigger them on user action, such as clicking to the next page, rather than on initial page load.

Ads that push content down: Ads that load asynchronously and shift content downward as they render create a terrible user experience and directly harm your Core Web Vitals CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) score. Always reserve space for ads using CSS dimensions so the layout is stable when ads load. Unexpected layout shifts frustrate users and can damage your search rankings.

Ads disguised as content: Placing ads in a way that makes them look like navigation elements, article links, or content buttons violates most ad network policies and erodes user trust. Users who accidentally click on deceptive ad placements leave your site frustrated and rarely return. Native ads should be clearly labeled as sponsored content.

Multiple sticky ads: Having more than one sticky ad visible simultaneously, such as a sticky sidebar ad and a sticky footer ad, feels aggressive and can violate Better Ads Standards. Choose one sticky placement per page and make the most of it rather than stacking multiple sticky elements.

Testing and Iterating on Placements

The best ad placement strategy for your site can only be determined through systematic testing with your actual audience. General best practices provide a strong starting point, but every site has unique characteristics that influence which placements perform best.

Start by implementing the high-performing positions described above, then run A/B tests to compare variations. Test one change at a time, such as moving an in-content ad from after paragraph 2 to after paragraph 4, and run each test for at least two weeks to gather statistically meaningful data. Tools like your ad network's built-in testing features or Google Publisher Console can help identify performance issues with specific placements.

Pay attention to both revenue and engagement metrics during testing. Track RPM and total revenue alongside bounce rate, pages per session, and scroll depth. A placement that increases RPM by 15% but reduces pages per session by 20% is likely a net negative because lost pageviews mean fewer total ad impressions across the session.

Revisit your placement strategy quarterly as audience behavior and ad market conditions change. Seasonal demand fluctuations, design updates, content format changes, and shifts in your traffic mix between mobile and desktop all warrant re-evaluation of your ad placement configuration.

Mobile vs Desktop Placement Differences

Mobile and desktop require fundamentally different ad placement strategies because screen size, user behavior, and content consumption patterns differ dramatically between the two. With mobile traffic often exceeding 60% for most publishers, optimizing mobile ad placement is essential for maximizing overall revenue.

On mobile, the limited screen width means ads compete directly with content for the user's attention. In-content ads between paragraphs are the primary revenue driver on mobile because there is no sidebar for additional placements. Use responsive ad sizes that adapt to the screen width, and ensure ads do not extend beyond the viewport, which causes horizontal scrolling and a terrible user experience.

Desktop layouts offer more placement flexibility with sidebars, wider content areas, and the ability to show larger ad formats. Take advantage of the extra real estate with sidebar placements and larger in-content formats like the 336x280 large rectangle or 728x90 leaderboard. Desktop users also tend to have longer session durations, making sticky sidebar ads particularly effective.

Consider using different ad configurations for mobile and desktop using responsive ad code that detects the device type. This allows you to optimize each experience independently rather than compromising with a one-size-fits-all approach. Most ad networks and header bidding solutions support device-specific configurations.

Viewability by Position

Understanding viewability patterns helps you prioritize placements that generate the highest advertiser demand. Viewability, defined as at least 50% of the ad pixels being visible for at least one second, is increasingly used as a bidding criterion by programmatic advertisers.

Above-the-fold placements typically achieve 70-90% viewability, making them the most valuable positions on any page. In-content ads placed within the first half of an article achieve 60-80% viewability, while those placed near the end of long articles may drop to 40-50% as fewer users scroll that far. Sidebar ads without sticky behavior often achieve only 30-50% viewability because users focus on the main content column.

Use AdGateScore to assess your site layout and identify placement opportunities that could improve both viewability and overall ad revenue. A professional audit can reveal whether your current ad configuration is optimized for your specific content type and audience behavior patterns, helping you make data-driven placement decisions rather than relying on guesswork.

Remember that ad placement optimization is an ongoing process rather than a one-time setup. As your content library grows, your audience evolves, and the advertising landscape shifts, revisit your placement strategy regularly. New ad formats emerge, network algorithms improve, and user behavior changes with device trends and design conventions. Publishers who treat placement as a living strategy, testing and adjusting quarterly, consistently outperform those who set up their ads once and never revisit the configuration. The compounding effect of small placement improvements over time can double or triple your effective RPM compared to a static, unoptimized setup.