Written by Christopher Chin Lee on January 19th, 2015 Posted in Our Blog

How to Successfully Use Banner Ads

Banner ads on the internet have been around since the mid-1990’s. With each passing year and as technology gets better and better banner ads are more effective than ever. Banner ads are one of the easiest and most affordable marketing tools on the Internet used to increase brand awareness and drive traffic to your site. Many companies use them for their effectiveness and also because they are easily measurable. If you’re just getting started with banner ads, there are a few tips you need to follow.

Where to Place the Ad

Where to Place the Ad

Before you begin designing your ad, it’s important to know where you are going to place it so you can ensure that it fits in with that site’s design. The first step in picking websites is to identifying your target audience. Once you’ve determined your demographic, think about their interests and keywords they would use when searching for your product.Use that information and put it into a search engine. The results should show sites that have the interests of your audience. Once you have picked your site, make sure that the site fits your brand and product image.

Size and Positioning

The size of your banner ad is very important. It needs to cohesively fit onto the website in which you’re advertising while still conveying your message. There are six banner sizes and you want to choose the most effective one for your product.

Banner Ad Design Tips

Google Adsense has reported that the most successful banner sizes are:

336 x 280 Large Rectangle
300 x 250 Medium Rectangle
728 x 90 Leaderboard
160 x 600 Wide Skyscraper

When looking at placement of your ad, you want it as close to the website content as you can get. Also, having it on the top portion of the page is best since users won’t have to scroll down to see it.

Banner Ad Design Tips

Once you have your websites picked and the size of your ad, it’s time to start designing. There are three components that should be in every ad, a value proposition, call-to-action and your company name or logo. The item that should attract their attention first is the value proposition. This is where you highlight the product or service and state your special offer, discount or product features. The call-to-action should be a colorful button that gets the users to click-through to your landing page. It’s essential that your ad be simple both with your content and visually. Users may only glance at your ad so make it eye-catching. This means easy-to-read fonts, vivid imagery and contrasting colors.

Banner Ads can be a Successful Marketing Tool

There’s a reason that banner ads have been around for over 20 years, they work! Have a concise message and strong call-to-action and make it visually appealing and you’ll have lots of click-throughs. The great thing about banner ads is that they are easily measurable and if you find they are not working, you can simply tweak them and place them somewhere else.If you have questions about how to get started with banner ads, Contact Us, for you online marketing needs.