Which Ad Format Performs Best in 2026?

Cheap traffic and high CTR no longer guarantee profitable campaigns in 2026. This article breaks down how Popunder, Banner, In-Page, and Video Ads actually perform across traffic volume, engagement, scaling, and ROI – so you can choose the right ad format for real performance growth.

If you’re looking for the “best” ad format, you’re probably approaching performance marketing the wrong way. In effective marketing, there is no single format that consistently outperforms all others. Some formats generate massive traffic volume but lower user engagement, while others drive fewer clicks but significantly improve conversion quality.

User behavior changes significantly depending on the ad format. Popunder ads are designed for broad reach and rapid scaling; banners are better suited for long-term visibility and repeated audience exposure; In-Page ads strike a balance between engagement and user experience; and video ads usually attract more attention than most other formats but require stronger creatives and better placements.

That’s why, in 2026, comparing ad formats based solely on CPM or CTR is no longer enough. To see how different formats perform in practice, we decided to compare the four key ad formats available on HilltopAds: Popunder, Banner, In-Page, and Video ads.

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Most advertisers choose ad formats based on traffic volume or cost per thousand impressions, but in practice, ad formats differ in much more than just CPM. Users react differently to ads depending on the ad format. In some cases, ads are perceived as part of the content, while in others, they interrupt the browsing experience.

For example, intrusive formats, such as popunder ads, are usually better suited for rapid scaling and high traffic volumes, but user engagement is usually lower. Banner ads often struggle with lower CTR due to banner blindness, but they provide better long-term brand visibility. In-Page ads create a more natural browsing experience and often work better with mobile traffic, while video ads usually attract more attention than most other formats and often generate higher engagement, but require stronger creatives and better placements.

That’s why the same ad format can either improve performance or hurt campaign results–it all depends on how the audience perceives the ad and responds to it.

Rimma

Chief Operating Officer at HilltopAds

The allocation of budgets across formats is determined by the effectiveness of each format for a specific offer and the objective of the advertising campaign. To assess effectiveness, formats are selected for initial testing. Based on the results after a certain period of time or budget allocation, a decision is made regarding which format should receive a larger budget and which should receive a smaller one.

The budget for the test period can be distributed evenly, or it can be allocated based on the volume of each format within the network. If the budget allows, it makes sense to use multiple formats to attract users’ attention more frequently.

Read our recent guide on how to track conversions in HilltopAds:

Track More Than Just Conversions: How to Use Event Tracking in HilltopAds

The popunder has remained one of the most common formats in performance marketing for several years now. This is primarily due to the traffic volume it can deliver. This format allows you to drive large traffic volumes very quickly and gather performance data almost immediately. This makes testing much faster because you don’t have to wait long for data. That’s why popunders remain one of the main formats for rapid testing and campaign scaling on platforms like HilltopAds.

In many ways, popunders still remain popular because traffic costs are relatively low. It’s usually lower than for many other formats, so you can get significantly more visits for the same budget. That’s exactly why popunders are often used at the start of campaigns, when you need to test traffic sources, landing pages, or simply understand how users respond to the creatives. Sometimes, within just a few hours, it becomes clear which sources or placements should be excluded.

This is precisely why, when testing popunder ads, advertisers often evaluate not only the final conversions but also the micro-conversions throughout the funnel. In the early stages, this helps to quickly assess the quality of traffic even before enough conversion data is collected.

But the format has its limitations. If the offer requires a longer decision-making process, popunders tend to be less effective. In this case, a lot depends on the landing page itself: the content, loading speed, and the conversion funnel. The same traffic source can perform very differently depending on different landing pages.

For publishers, popunders remain a viable way to monetize high-volume traffic, especially on sites with a mass audience. However, if configured too aggressively, the downsides become noticeable very quickly: users start closing pages faster, spend less time on the site, and are less likely to return.

In 2026, banners are no longer used primarily for high CTR. Today, they are more about building brand awareness and keeping the offer consistently visible. Users may see a banner dozens of times without clicking on it immediately, but later they might convert through another format or come back to the offer later.

That’s why banner advertising often works less as a direct conversion driver, but as part of a broader advertising strategy. It helps maintain the audience’s attention between push, video, social, or popunder ads and gradually improves brand recognition.

At the same time, the effectiveness of banners depends heavily on the creative and placement. Because of banner blindness, users tend to ignore standard banner placements, so the following work better today:

• non-standard sizes
• fixed ad units
• mobile optimization
• simple and clear creatives without a cluttered design

For publishers, banners remain one of the safest monetization formats, as they are less intrusive for users and have a weaker impact on user retention compared to more aggressive formats.

Rimma

Chief Operating Officer at HilltopAds

The same offer can perform differently across ad formats because user behavior changes from one format to another. With popunder traffic, users land directly on the page, while display ads rely much more on creative quality, design, and placement to attract attention.

A pop ad is highly likely to be shown to the user, whereas on a media format, the placement of the creative may be less obvious and it may have to compete for attention with other media formats.

In-page advertising appeared as a middle ground between traditional banners and more intrusive formats like popunders. It remains visible to the user without interrupting the browsing experience as abruptly as popunder formats do.

While popunders are more often used for fast traffic acquisition and banners are used for long-term visibility, In-Page ads are typically chosen in situations where the goal is to balance reach, traffic quality, and user experience. The user continues to view the content while regularly seeing ads within the page content, so the ad experience feels more natural.

This format performs particularly well on mobile traffic, where there is limited screen space and classic banners receive less attention. This is one of the reasons why In-Page ads are becoming increasingly popular among HilltopAds publishers with strong mobile traffic.

For advertisers, this is a way to achieve more consistent engagement with their audience without relying on overly aggressive formats, and for publishers, it’s a way to monetize traffic with less impact on user retention.

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Videos almost always catch the eye faster than a standard banner or popunder. A user might ignore a banner or close the landing page, but a moving video almost always makes them pause for at least a second. That’s why video ads typically generate higher engagement and are more likely to be remembered.

But at the same time, video is also the most demanding format. Everything affects performance here:

• the first few seconds of the video
• editing pace
• autoplay
• video length
• mobile optimization

For advertisers, video ads are a format that helps hold the audience’s attention and increase engagement. For publishers, video advertising remains one of the most profitable formats in terms of CPM, but when presented too aggressively, it begins to annoy users faster than most other formats.

Read our article about the new Smart CPM feature:

Smart CPM in HilltopAds: Increase Popunder Traffic Without Overspending

Even though popunders, banners, In-Page ads, and video ads remain the backbone of performance advertising, the market has long since expanded beyond these formats. In recent years, digital advertising has become much more segmented: different formats have begun to serve different purposes within a single conversion funnel.

For example, native ads rely less on aggressive placement and more on native integration into website’s content. Push ads are more often used for retargeting and bringing the audience back after their first visit. Search ads remain one of the “hottest” sources of traffic because the user is already actively searching for a specific product or solution.

At the same time, more niche formats are growing. Rewarded ads are actively developing within mobile apps, while audio ads are gradually becoming part of podcasts and streaming platforms. All of this points to the main market trend: today, advertising formats are competing less directly with one another and are increasingly being used as parts of a single advertising system.

Rimma

Chief Operating Officer at HilltopAds

Changes affecting user behavior:
– the popularity of ad blockers,
– users increasingly close popunder pages almost immediately,
– banner blindness, when users are oversaturated with ads and no longer notice them,
– users’ attention spans are very limited–simplify creatives and offer pages,
– users’ use of VPNs, which reduces the site’s target audience.

No single ad format excels in every aspect at once. Formats differ not only in terms of CPM or traffic volume, but also in the specific role they play within an advertising campaign. Some are better suited for rapid scaling, others for maintaining attention, and still others for better user experience.

That is precisely why experienced advertisers rarely use just one format. In practice, video ads can deliver the best CPM and engagement, popunders can generate the highest traffic volume, In-Page ads can provide more stable audience interaction, and banner ads can maintain brand awareness among other advertising touchpoints.

Comparison of advertising formats:

Rimma

Chief Operating Officer at HilltopAds

When evaluating the effectiveness of an ad format, it’s important to distinguish between the metrics we use during testing and those we use afterward.

When testing popunder traffic it’s important to track micro-conversions from the traffic and the conversion rate (CR) for the primary conversion.

For display formats, the CTR metric is important; it is crucial to ensure that, given a high CTR, at least micro-conversions are being generated from the traffic.

Further optimization should then focus on achieving the most cost-effective conversion rate for the advertiser.

In practice, advertisers rarely build campaigns around a single ad format. Each format serves a specific purpose within the funnel: popunders help quickly generate traffic and test funnels and traffic sources, banners maintain consistent visibility, In-Page ads look more natural within the content, and video ads are used to grab attention and boost engagement.

That’s why at HilltopAds, advertisers can use multiple formats simultaneously within a single platform, allocating traffic and budgets based on campaign goals, audience behavior, and the stage of the funnel. The platform supports over 250 GEOs, various verticals, and device types, allowing campaigns to be scaled for different markets and audiences without the need to connect to multiple ad networks.

This also plays an important role for publishers. When advertisers work with multiple formats at once, demand is distributed across different traffic types and devices, and monetization itself becomes more balanced. At the same time, publishers can separately configure formats, ad frequency, and placements to maintain a comfortable user experience without losing revenue.

Also check out successful case studies from our advertisers:

Popunders to Profit: Inside a Non-mainstream Gaming campaign’s 64% ROI Breakthrough

Banner Ads Success Story: How Manga RPG Generated $6,887 in Just 7 Days!

Many advertisers still compare ad formats based on CPM, CTR, or traffic volume, even though these metrics are no longer sufficient to assess the true effectiveness of an ad. One format may drive low-cost traffic but convert less effectively. Another might generate fewer clicks but attract a higher-quality audience and achieve better retention.

Because of this, ad formats are increasingly viewed not in isolation from one another, but as parts of a single advertising system. In some cases, it’s more important to quickly gather data for optimization; in others, to hold the user’s attention or maintain a better user experience without overly aggressive ads.

This, in essence, is the main shift in performance advertising in recent years. Formats are no longer competing as directly as before and are increasingly working in tandem, where the result no longer depends on a single traffic source, but on how effectively they are combined within the entire campaign.