The banner design you use is one of the most important (if not THE most important) elements in your AdTaily ad campaign. If people don’t notice your ad, and don’t find it interesting, you won’t get any exposure or clicks.
Don’t waste money on poor-performing ad campaigns. Take some time to design a few simple 125x125px banner ads, use each of them for a week or so, and see which of them works best. Use 2 or 3 best creations alternatively, so that the viewers wouldn’t get bored with just one design.
Here are a few tips on how to design effective banner ads, based on our experiences, and the expertise of one of our advertisers. Use them as guidelines, rather than a set of strict rules, and most of all, be creative, and think about what ad banners YOU would be most likely to click.
- Tip 1. Choose websites that are relevant for your target audience, and for what you are advertising. For example, if you advertise sports shoes, choose websites related to sports, fitness, clothing, etc. Read the descriptions of those websites, and/or skim through their content, to see if they are a good fit for your ad campaign.
- Tip 2. Don’t forget about a call to action. Call to action is a word or a phrase that encourages a viewer to click on your ad. It can be a simple ‘Click here!” but it’s usually better to be more specific, for example: “Find out more,” or “Get a free trial now,” depending on what product you advertise. Such a call to action makes an ad seem more interactive, and Internet users tend to seek out interaction.
- Tip 3. Don’t use just your logo or company’s name. Unless your logo is self explanatory, or you advertise a well-known brand, you should include a brief description of what your product/service is about. If your company is called TOTO, and you sell cat’s food, simply say it: “TOTO. The best food for your cat.”
- Tip 4. Don’t write too much… or too little! The AdTaily ad banners are just 125x125px. You can’t fit a whole lot of information in there but this is fine, because people don’t like to read too much anyway. They want to find out what your product or service is all about in just a few words. You can write all about your product’s features on your landing page but you have to attract people to that page first.
- Tip 5. List the benefits. This connects to the previous tip: write only the things that you think are most interesting to your potential visitors/customers. If you sell toys, don’t write: “Your children will be so happy when you get them toys from our store. The prices are lower than our competitions!” Instead, write: “Get your child’s dream toy for less than you think!”
The basic examples of ad designs shown above were created to illustrate our tips, and could be obviously improved with a nice background, an appropriate font, different wording, some pictures (photos of faces tend to attract attention, by the way)… Well chosen pictures and a nice-looking creation definitely improve an ad’s click-through rate. But it’s not a place for a creativity lesson (maybe some other time) :).
Finally, remember that your ad has to influence a user at 4 different stages (according to the AIDA model, which stands for Attention-Interest-Desire-Action):
- 1. Get attention (be creative, so that your ad would get noticed).
- 2. Keep attention / interest (be brief but interesting and relevant to the user).
- 3. Encourage action (use call to action, offer benefits).
- 4. Fulfill needs (don’t advertise something you don’t have; if you advertise cheap shoes, take the user to a page with cheap shoes, after he/she clicks on your ad).
Now get creative, and create some great, highly clickable ads! And don’t forget to check which of them work best (and on what sites), in order to optimize your AdTaily ad campaigns, and make them even more effective :).
