Banner ads are one of most desired tools by marketers to creating and boosting brand awareness. As they are an integral aspect of marketing initiatives of businesses, their utility grows in the digital world for delivering high-impact results. Besides, they give a cost-effective method to reach the target audience and get the message through. Such ads are measurable which makes it even more favourable among marketers. And their effectiveness is something that is never in doubt.
In a sense, banner ads are indispensable as brands use them in one or another form to realize their goals. Given the significance of these ads, there is always a scope of improving their designs and making then impact more. If designing and copy essences are blended perfectly, banner ads can go a long way bringing clicks in the desired manner. It means, one can perk up the design and take banner ads to an altogether different level.
Let’s look at some of design tips to make banner ads more clickable:
Go standard and be simple
Banner ads are often created using a prescribed size or dimension to meet the industry standard set in this regard. You have to be within the limit of sizes to meet the set guidelines of clients and the industry alike. Any variation in the size means your ads may not fit into the supposed slot. Together with maintaining size uniformity, you have to manage a sense of simplicity in the design part. Be it the content or aesthetic values, being simple is the way to go.
Keep components in right order
Banner ads are often made up of some key components whose right ordering is essential for purposes they are meant for. Being a tool to creating awareness, your brand logo has to be there but in a subtle way. The logo should never occupy more space or coverage than the ‘value proposition’ part, which is the pivot of any banner ad. Besides, a ‘call to action’ text or button should be attention-grabbing to induce some sort of action from viewers.
Be apt with the buttons
Buttons are an integral part of your banner ads. They help boost CTR or click-through rate. If used correctly, buttons can help a lot. The best place for buttons has to be the lower side, that too, the right side. Make sure to place them where the copy ends. By using a good colour combination, you can increase the visual appeal of the buttons to leverage them fully. And never forget to be consistent with the elements of buttons, regardless of different kinds of ads you have.
Take care of readability quotient of the text
Your banner ads may fail to serve the purpose it its texts are not promptly readable. To boost the readability, make sure that text sizes differ for the headline and body content. It’d be a big mistake to use uppercase in the text, and illegible fonts too will put off readers or viewers in a big way. In addition, keep your ads clear of cursive and script fonts. Mind you, the more your ad is readable, the more will it be read!
Complement the branding ethos
As banner ads often talk or discuss about some offers, they are linked to the landing pages related to the same products or services detailed in the ad. In a sense, the ad tries to catch customers’ attention and draw them to the offer. That’s why, the banner ad has to complement the ethos, visual symmetry and branding essences of the landing page to help, not confuse buyers.
Make your ads load fast
Ads that don’t load fast fail to engage customers and end up diluting the brand image rather than gaining anything. Make sure that your ads deliver super speed while loading else you run the risk of losing prospects. To do this, you need to keep the file sizes small as such files carry speed.
Don’t shun text ads
Yes, it’s true! Text ads can have the same level of impact as do those with photos and images. But yes, an overwhelming majority of ads do contain graphics. You have to make sure that whatever images or photos are selected match the theme and ethos of the product.
Be sensible with colours
Selecting right colour/s would be key in your endeavour of leveraging the banner ads fully. As colours come draped with unique meaning and essences, you need to use them fittingly to induce right emotions out of the viewers. Any lack on this front means shooing a lot of prospects away as colour combination is one the first things to be noticed in an ad.
Maintain balance between animated and static ads
It’d be purely yours call to whether go with animated ads or static ones. It’s obvious that animation will draw more attention but they have some downsides as well. Distraction is the biggest bane of animation-driven ads and even if you’re fine with that, go ahead and unleash your message. But yes, be precise and don’t forget to insert a call to action
Keep it visible and clickable
A banner ad has to be a reflection of the brand value of the business it’s part of. In a sense, it has to have some sort of similarity with that business. And when it’s used on the site, it has to merge well so that a kind of oneness is felt. But then, how will audience find it once it’s merged well? This is why it needs to be visible and clickable to some extent.
Conclusion
In overall, your banner has a big job to do. It’s expected to make the heads roll and grab attention in digital space. It has to keep users engaged together with forcing them into some sort of action. The task is surely not that easy. And if any elements of the ad is not properly fitted, including the design part, the objective won’t be met. So be careful with the design part of the ad to make it more productive.
This article is contributed by Akshay Sharma. He is a enthusiastic writer who loves to write about eCommerce and related technology. He works with Product Designer Tool that specializes in t-shirt designing, Banner Designing software and related products.