I've been trying to get my ads to display in this type of layout. Tabs - LinearLayout - ListView - header. The header is set via addHeaderView and is displaying normally. If I were to move the ads anywhere else they display normally (so its not a setup issue). Using ads in the header of a listview works fine in my other projects. So this seems to be a very specific problem, the ads simply refuse to display when placed in the header of a listview inside a tabhost. My logs show no activity from admob at all. There is either a bug here or limitation of the sdk. Does anyone have any experience or insight into this issue? EDIT I found the solution. It actually had to do with padding that was in the root of my Tabview. For more checkout my answer here