Creating an Effective Banner Ad Campaign

Online advertising can be a daunting task; there’s a lot to take in and there are all sorts of questions that need to be addresses before you start. ‘Where do I need to advertise? What ads will work best for this product? How shall I word my ad?’ – These are just a few examples of questions that need answering as part of your online advertising strategy.

The trick is to find the right outlet. Of course, if your product or your ads are poor then your outlet isn’t going to matter but providing you’ve got those bits right, it’s vital to pick an advertising placement that is both relevant to your product and preferably targeting buyers at their point of purchase.

Banner ads have proven to be an increasingly popular form of online advertising with advertising trade body, PricewaterhouseCoopers, reporting that online advertising on ad networks was up by 13.5% in 2010. This means that sites like online directories are seeing an increasing number of ads, among the most popular of which are banner ads.

Although banner ads can produce some great results, they won’t come out of no-where. Campaigns have to be carefully thought out and there are several steps that you need to make sure you take.

Make sure you… Know your campaign

Firstly you need to decide what your campaign is promoting. Decide which offer you want to run per banner and think hard about what kind of audience you want to target.

Taking an old or vague banner and throwing it onto multiple sites loosely based around your industry isn’t going to help you. You need to be specific in what you’re advertising and who your audience is, then choose an advertising outlet accordingly.

Make sure you… Design your ad well

A well designed ad will attract interest; it’s as simple as that. Use of colour, graphics and animations are important and will grab the attention of potential customers/visitors.

If you have the programs and skilled staff to design dynamic ads then make the most of this. A dynamic banner could allow you to fit more information in (as the image changes), or give you the room to make certain key points physically bigger (one point per image, for example, rather than all in one static banner).

However, remember that banner ads aren’t massive so too much can make your ad look cluttered and dilute your message. Also remember that ads are a representation of your business so a well designed banner will make you look professional and trustworthy.

Make sure you… Write your ad well

Writing your ad is just as important as designing the graphics. A well written ad should be short and memorable with just the right amount of information and an obvious call to action or direction to aid your customers. Again, don’t clutter your banner with text or it can detract from your product and message.

Make sure you… Get your audience right

As mentioned earlier, it doesn’t matter if you want sales or just brand awareness, simply throwing your banner on any site won’t help you. Try and advertise on a site that’s specific to your industry and your product.

For example, if you’re advertising online backup services, you don’t want to appear on a website for garden sheds, no matter how much traffic the site gets. It might cost you slightly more to advertise on websites that cater to your niche but remember that the quality of your traffic will be better.

Make sure you… Link to the right pages

You’re only going to make the most out of your banner ad if you’re honest and accurate in what you’re advertising. Make sure your banners click through to the right pages or specifically designed landing pages.

It’s an unwritten rule that you need to display your offer within 1 or 2 clicks (max) of landing on the page. However, you ideally want a landing page for each offer with the promotion displayed clearly.

You also need to check and double check that the link in your banner works. There’s nothing more annoying than clicking on a great ad that has either a broken link or takes you to the wrong page.

Make sure you… Track your ads

Probably the most important step to banner advertising (or any advertising) is monitoring your stats. Using something like Google Analytics to track your click through rates (CTR’s) can be a good indication of whether or not your banner is working.

If your ad is sales based then definitely invest in software that will be able to track your conversions so you can see exactly how beneficial your banner has been. Tracking your visitors bounce rate and navigation path is also helpful in seeing at which point they leave your site. This can help you to determining the effectiveness of your landing pages.