Behold, the medium rectangle ad banner (also known as a mid-page unit, or MREC), a wondrous 300x250 pixel digital canvas that has captivated and charmed audiences for years!

A rectangular gem; not too big, not too small; the perfect size to fit any design, especially in the context of limited technical solutions.

For a while, the medium rectangle's dominance was indisputable. MREC was often chosen (and is still) because it's easy to implement, not because it's super effective.

But what's with the past tense?

A recent ad tech report from Epom suggests that the medium rectangle era may be at an end.

In this article, we will delve into the rise and fall of the popular ad format and explore the reasons behind its fading prominence in the ad tech industry.

Epom Ad Tech Study Goals and Results

The study's goal was not to kill the medium rectangle in the public eye, but to identify the most effective strategies for launching programmatic campaigns to help clients and other industry players spend their budgets more efficiently.

Epom analyzed the data of all Epom white-label DSP users from January to December 2022 and highlighted the most popular, best-performing, and most affordable ad banner formats, top used GEOs, and device statistics.

It found that the MREC format is popular on the Epom DSP (and outside of it), but performed worse than expected.

MREC had the biggest number of impressions on the platform, but it was not the best-performing nor the most cost-effective.

We dug deeper and we are now ready to make a statement: The medium rectangle has started to lose ground.

Buckle up—we're about to find out why!

The Medium Rectangle's History and Former Fame

The medium rectangle is a rectangular display ad that typically appears on webpages and inside mobile apps. Its dimensions are usually 300 pixels wide by 250 pixels tall, making it big enough to be noticed but not so intrusive that it disrupts the user experience.

The history of the medium rectangle can be traced back to the early 2000s, when the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) first introduced standardized ad units to streamline digital advertising. Thanks to its versatility and nonintrusive size, MREC swiftly earned its place among the standardized formats.

The medium rectangle's dominance in the ad tech industry can be attributed to a couple of factors.

• First, its size creates a compelling balance between eye-catching visuals and concise messaging, capturing users' attention without overwhelming them. It therefore became the sweet spot for advertisers to deliver their brand message effectively.
• Second, MREC fits almost any website placement, and it is easy to design, saving advertisers time. Programmatic as a real-time ad placement algorithm doesn't assign control over the placement itself. It happens automatically, so MREC, as the most versatile format, has become more commonly used because it fits most placements and doesn't negatively affect the website's UX.

However, as technology evolves, user behavior changes, ad fatigue progresses, and the digital landscape shifts, the limitations of MREC become more apparent.

• One of the major challenges is banner blindness—the tendency of users to ignore display ads altogether, especially when they are accustomed to seeing the same format repeatedly. As users become more ad-savvy, the effectiveness of the medium rectangle has declined because it's standardized and it has been used since the early 2000s.
• Moreover, medium rectangle offers limited creative freedom to design ads with rich media and interactive elements because of its small size. So if you use just a picture in MREC format, it's not really engaging.

Reasons MREC Use Has Declined

As noted earlier, MREC's clickthrough rate was found to be 0.12%,or 7th place in the Epom's study's list of top-performing ad units.