Most effective banner ads?

4 replies
I'm getting ready to work with an artist to design some banner ads for my websites relaunch.

All things (content of ad) being equal, from a design standpoint what do you think are some things that make an effective banner ad?

:confused:
#ads #banner #effective
  • Profile picture of the author Daniel Wilson
    It depends, a book was sold on a local website a few days ago. It had a beautiful woman (half naked) with something like "meet me" and it was linked to a local bookstore. Ok, I've heard that CTR was through the roof. But did it turned out into sale? Probably not.

    The thing is that call to action and animation need to be in place for banner to work optimal.

    Flash banners perform better in terms of CTR but I don't know about the sales. You need a mixture of everything.
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  • Profile picture of the author Adnimated
    First of all, I don't think you need a designer to create an effective banner ad. I created highly effective banner ads using SnagIt.

    So here's a basic breakdown of my banner ads:

    PICTURE TOP - This is optional. It depends on a lot of factors where you place this picture. But the picture should emphasize an emotion. Or simply draw attention.
    HEADLINE - This confronts them with a HUGE issue they may have.
    PICTURE BELOW HEADLINE - This works well, too, sometimes. You can even have it next to your headline. Again, this depends on too many factors and you need to test it.
    CALL TO ACTION - A short piece of text that offers them relieve when they click your link.
    BLUE CLICK HERE TYPE OF LINK - I always add that in. increases CTR.

    The factors that change a few things are what type of banner you have, etc.

    If you got a really small banner... you need to be effective with your space. So you'd want to have a really power, short statement. And then a call to action. Maybe with the pic on the background. Or maybe very small. Or maybe nothing at all.

    Sometimes you got so much space, that you can combine 2 banners in 1. Or even more. What I mean by that is have 1 banner... but create 2 different designs inside of it. Could even be Adwords type of ads.

    Again, can be highly effective. Can also totally blow.

    Also, you can either stand out or blend in. It's a matter of testing to see what works best.

    I tried a banner that implied that they where visiting an article on that site. It works well if you actually redirect them to an article. That is good.

    Other times it's simply better to stand out with a really ugly looking banner. Or EXTREMELY flashy. In both cases it's a matter of working with colors.

    Then you got times where you want to brand yourself. Could be your company, or even your face. In that case you'd have either one of those on your banner.

    You can still have some effective text on it. But the main focus is branding here. Which means that they associate your brand name with a problem or anything else.

    I am testing a few other types of banners as we speak. I got a lot of tests going on for banner ads at any given time. But above is a good outline if you are just starting out with banner ads.

    I hope this helps!
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  • Profile picture of the author Brandon Bell
    Hey, I've been a graphic designer for quite some time. In my experience, banner ads work best with the following:

    1) Picture of a human (preferably a woman)
    2) Arrows (helps direct attention to key points)
    3) A button (people like to click on buttons)
    4) A free offer (helps clickthrough rate)

    Try to use a combination of the items listed above, and your results should be fine.
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    • Profile picture of the author Adnimated
      To show sort of what I ment, I created a quick outline using the 300x250 sized banner ad. Hope that helps to get an idea of what I mean
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