Do certain ads need to have fixed dimensions even for a responsive website

Question

I am working on a responsive website using a fluid grid system, which means that my content has no "fixed" width, but rather use a proportion of the screen width (e.g 3/12 or 4/12)

We would like to add some adverts to the website, however the marketing team are insisting that the ads have to have fixed dimensions, specifically 300x250.

I know from researching that Google and other services, can adapt to the space given and provide an appropriate sized ad, however my marketing team are saying that's not optimal, since 300x250 is the most popular ad size and people pay more for that.

Are they correct or are they just stuck in the past?

Thx

Answer 1

It's depend on what kind of ad network you're using. If you're using Google Adsense, then it is good choice to go with responsive ad unit.

Your marketing team said, 300*250 pays more than responsive ad, then it's not right 100%, you might get more or less clicks on that ads. There are thousand of people (Advertiser) don't know how to create banner ads on Google Desktop Network (GDN for advertiser - Adsense for Publisher), so GDN automatically pick best free stockphotos for their advertiser, and said them to put your banner ads title, which look so good and professional.

When advertiser use GDN, Google strongly recommended to use responsive ads unit, because it is fit on most of website, and many of advertiser go with them. And so on Google also recommended publisher to use Responsive ad unit, because there are many of advertiser use that option while serving ads.

CPC is Mostly depend on targeting option, like male, female, age, interest, topic, geo etc . Well, you can use media queries to choose which ad size you want to display for specific device size.

Ads type, ad space, size, cpc is not same for all publisher, you should do A/B test yourself.