6 Tips to Improve the Effectiveness of Your Banner Ads

When searching the web, you probably have come across your fair share of banner ads, most of which you don’t even notice and many you find intrusive or annoying. Can you recall the last banner ad that you saw? How about one you actually clicked on?

The average click through rate from banner advertising on the internet is 2.1%, says Brittney Smith, Marketing Analyst for the 60 Second Marketer. You want viewers to not only see the ad, but also to interact with it. In order to boost the effectiveness of your online advertising, take a look at these six tips to help get you the response you’re looking for:

1. Make it quick. Gaining the attention of the viewer occurs within the first few seconds they glance through the webpage. The message needs to be kept as simple and concise as possible. Shorter ads will be easier for the consumer to remember.

2. Location, Location. Your banner will fade into the background of the page if the message is not relevant to the audience viewing it. Targeted placements are crucial if you want to reach people who will be receptive to your message. Be selective where you buy ad space. A successful response does not include a 16-year-old boy clicking through on your banner ad directed towards mothers.

3. Intrigue your audience. Using simple animation can increase your response rates by 25%. Adding a bit of creativity to the ad can go a long way. If you have the proper resources available, consider using rich media, with sound and other special effects, to set your ads apart from the rest of the clutter. Make sure the animation or images are useful, not annoying, to consumers. “Tell me and I will forget, show me and I may remember, involve me and I’ll understand.”

4. Develop follow-through mechanism. If you are looking for a specific action from your users, be sure to create follow-through mechanisms that lead the consumer where you want them to go, whether that is the company’s homepage or a landing page specific to the banner.

5. Test your banner ad. The most important factor in the effectiveness of a banner ad is to test and optimize across several fronts. The performance of your banner ad can vary greatly from one design to another along with the size and placement within the website. Be sure to constantly monitor the ad once it has been placed.

6. Keep consistent with your campaign. Your banner ads should not simply be a one off, but be integrated with your overall marketing campaign. Banner ads need to support and tie in with your other marketing such as email and direct mail.

Banner ads can be a useful addition to your ad campaign, but a futile venture if they do not expose the brand to users or drive them to action. When creating banners, consider the users’ interests and what you want the end goal to be. The performance of your banner ad can always be improved through revision and if used properly can be an effective tool. Banner ads can offer a layer of interactivity to the consumer that they do not get from traditional media. Users can spend minutes interacting with these ads, so make each second count!