What makes a successful banner ad?

A few basic things are always needed in a banner ad to ultimately give you an excellent click through rate. (CTR) We have collected our experiences and thoughts together to produce a short blog on what makes a successful banner advert.

A clear call to action (CTA), has to make sense for your product or service. Such as “Shop Now”, “Learn More” etc. A call to action always has to be included.

Secondly the banner ad can be compared to the billboard in the street, the consumer has a split second to decide if they are interested in the product or service. So you need to decide what you want the consumer to see and take away in those few seconds you have to grab attention to your product or service. This can be a catchy headline, an aspirational image or a hybrid of the two!

Basic animation is also always recommended. Animated GIF is therefore recommended over a static image. Keep it simple and to the point, telling a story rarely works. But the advantage of the animated GIF is that you can put together a  series of frames then combine them in such an order that will eventually form some sort of animation and attract attention.

A theme I always go back to when talking to customers is the landing page. The clickthrough needs to land on a landing page that delivers what the banner ad promises. So that when you do secure the click from the consumer, you make sure they get the information the consumer desires. So basically you need to ensure you promote a product or service and not a website / homepage!

This blog - http://www.boxofads.com/blog/always-fine-tune-your-landing-page/ sums up the value of a landing page quite nicely. While designing a campaign think about it as a whole, an ad makes the first impression, and a landing page is a continuation of this impression.

We also recommend that our clients don’t just have one version of the their banner ad. We always say to test the colours, the CTA or the headline and see what works in line with the branding of your business. The software we use (DFP) can handle more than one ad in the space you book, so it's always worth testing a few banners and seeing what performs best. The same can also be said of landing pages as well.

Thanks for reading, hope this short guide to what makes a successful banner is useful.