Banner Advertising – Are You Doing It Right?
In the offline world, they’re known as display ads. Online they’re called banner ads. If you think banner advertising is no longer effective, it may surprise you to find out that people remember banner ads 20% more than TV ads! It’s one of the most effective methods of generating traffic to your site. When someone clicks on your banner ad, they’re taken directly to your website or to a specific page you designate.
Banner advertising is one of the oldest forms of advertising online and despite what some would have you believe, it’s very much alive and thriving. For a relatively small amount of advertising expense, your site can be promoted to thousands of targeted visitors with your banner ad.
Banner Advertising – A Love/Hate Relationship
In much the same way as TV commercials, banner ads are both loved and hated. People will say they hate flashing banners that distract them from the website. Yet people are still compelled to click on them.
Clicking through is not the primary reason for using banner advertising, though, as generally their click through rates hover around 1%. Partially for this reason, banner ad space is sold based on number of impressions, the number of times the banner is viewed, rather than the number of times it’s clicked on.
Banners are best used to develop awareness of your company, your logo, or your service. Relating again to TV ads, how many times have you heard a commercial jingle or seen a logo that stuck in your head. Maybe you saw the commercial or heard the jingle repeatedly.
It probably didn’t prompt you to run out and buy anything, but the commercial was effective in that it made you aware of the company’s existence. In fact, even though people say commercials are annoying and they don’t like the interruption of the program they’re watching, they still remember the commercials.
Using banner advertising in much the same way can be very effective for your online business. The more people see your banner, the more ‘aware’ they become of your company or service. The bottom line is it doesn’t really matter if they click on it right then, as long as they remember it. Follow the tips below for maximizing your banner advertising.
Five Tips for Banner Advertising Effectively
Keep your design simple. Decide what message you want your banner to convey and state it. If a picture will capture your message better, there may not even be a need for words.
Don’t make someone wait for a scrolling message or one that flashes a word at a time. Attention spans online are shorter than ever. Your message needs to be able to be seen at a glance.
Decide your purpose for using banner advertising. If it’s to brand your name, the key is simplicity to make it work most effectively. You just need to state who you are and what you do. If your goal is to generate leads, you may want to offer an enticement to get them to click through to your site, either a free report or ebook or some other valuable incentive.
Use powerful copy in your banner design. Think of your banner as a miniature billboard. In the offline world, billboards are advertising to people who may be flying past them at 70 miles an hour or more. They have to use well-chosen, powerful words to catch the attention of passing motorists. You have approximately the same conditions to deal with; mere seconds to grab the attention of a visitor as he surfs by.
Keep your file size as small as possible while maintaining the integrity of your design. If your banner is too large, generally considered anything over 50KB, your banner may still be loading while the visitor has already started scrolling down the page. In these cases, your banner ad may never even be seen. If you can get the file size down to about 20KB, that’s even better.
