Designing a Web Ad : Resolution Percentage Use

It is critical that you understand the screen resolution that most of your users are viewing your website and web ads with. Say your monitor is set to 800 x 600 and you always view the web with that resolution. You assume everyone else sees giant images and giant text. It might be that most people are actually running higher than 1024 x 768 and can barely see what your images are trying to portray!

Even if you find it challenging to view the web at higher resolutions, because of your eyesight or how you like to read, make sure you do your testing with the various resolutions. This will help you ensure your ads and site are optimized to the way your visitors are perceiving them.

Here is a report generated in January 2010 with the users of our site.

1024 x 768	 29.2%
1280 x 800	 20.9%
1280 x 1024	  9.2%
1440 x 900	  9.1%
1680 x 1050	  5.0%
800 x 600     4.3%
1366 x 768    3.8%
1152 x 864    2.3%
1280 x 768    1.9%
1920 x 1200   1.9%
320 x 396     1.4%

When you look at the overall report and group screen sizes, you find that a whopping 93% of our users are viewing the site with a screen resolution of 1000 pixels or larger width-wise. Another 2% is using a "tiny size" format, for cell phones or PDAs. That leaves about 5% of the users who are still on "old style" systems of the 800x600 type of range.

The key when designing ads is to keep that in mind. Don't go for the smaller 468x60 banner size. Go with the 728x90 banner size. Make sure your images are clear, sharp, and readable. What might seem "huge" on your 800x600 monitor is going to be fairly small when shown on a higher resolution monitor. Test your ads out on a variety of monitors and resolutions, so you can maximize your visual appeal.

To see how we compare with the world at large, here is what Wikipedia gave as the web average back in January 2009:

Resolution	% of Internet Users
Higher than 1024×768	57%
1024×768	36%
800×600	4%
Lower than 800×600	< 1%
Unknown	3%

Designing a Web Ad - Main Page
Custom Banner Ad Design - Only $50!

Web Statistics for Designing High Quality Ads
Browser Percentage Use
Platform / OS Percentage Use
Resolution Percentage Use