1. Banner Designs that Create Interest
Newspaper titles are a great source of study for banner design. They follow the first two rules of salesmanship (create interest and educate) to get you to read the article. Reading is work. Most people don't want to work, so the newspaper has to entice you into reading the article. If they fail, and you don't read the article, why do you need to buy their newspaper?
1. Stand Out from the Crowd
2. Deliver Your Marketing Message
Getting the attention of web traffic is not an easy skill. Online banners have to use color, text, motion, and creativity to get traffic attention.
Once you get the attention of web traffic, your ads have to engage the brand and deliver your marketing message with a call to action.
Here is a very successful banner we designed for a national meal delivery company. The motion is too complex for today's designs, but when flash banners first came out, this one was very compelling.
The ad ran on business and investor websites targeting high income, time-starved business professionals. The ad presents a problem (what's for lunch or dinner?) and an easy solution, with a simple call to action. The motion catches your eye, the concept draws your attention to the copy, and the text strategically engages you to "learn more."
2. Banners that Educate
This ad does a great job of educating, and targeting a consumer that is shopping around for parental control software. The banner creates brand confidence with its annual awards. It highlights the primary features the parent is searching the Internet for, and it provides a customer testimonial that says: "Hey, I had the same problem as you, and this software solved all my problems." This ad was designed to sell computer time limits, which it did very well. The art generates a powerful emotional reaction to a kid surfing the computer after bedtime, and the call to action is a non-threatening free demo.
3. Banners that Close and Generate Leads for Your Business
You can't make a sale if you don't close. You can take an order, but a sale is different than taking an order. This is also the part of the sales process most designers forget about. They design ads that tell you everything they do. Or worse, they use excessive discounts or promotions as a crutch for poor design. Promotions do have value, but they are a part of the sales process, not the sales process. Our experience in affiliate management and online banner design shows significantly better return on investment (ROI) with ads that solve problems over ads that give away the store.
Banner Sizes
One of the most popular questions we get is: How many banners do I need? Generally speaking, you want to have as many banners as possible so you can accommodate all the opportunities your ads will have to run and generate impressions.
Pay Per Click Banner Sizes
The chart to the right shows you all the standard banner sizes for a Pay Per Click campaign. In the case of PPC, the cost per click will vary with the size of the ad and the popularity and competition of the keywords you choose to run. Having one version of each size allows the campaign manager to maximize the value of your cost per clicks.
Affiliate Banner Sizes
Affiliate programs can use the same size ads as you would create for PPC, however, affiliate websites (known as publishers) can be very picky about what size ad they wish to use.
If you don't have a library of smaller, and odd shaped ads, publishers may decide to not your ads at all. Creating a set of 120 banners is a good minimum starting point.
Standard Banner Design Sizes
The first set of banners we design are for pay per click programs. In addition to text ads, Google, Yahoo, and MSN accept banner, or image ads in these sizes:
- 300 x 50 Mobile leaderboard
- 468 x 60 Banner
- 728 x 90 Leaderboard
- 250 x 250 Square
- 200 x 200 Small square
- 336 x 280 Large rectangle
- 300 x 250 Inline rectangle
- 120 x 600 Skyscraper
- 160 x 600 Wide skyscraper
Affiliate banner ads are created in the same sizes, plus many other smaller sizes to accomodate the limited real estate of a publisher website.
- 120 x 40
- 120 x 60
- 120 x 90
- 120 x 240
- 120 x 300
- 250 x 90
- 180 x 150
- 392 x 72
- 234 x 60
- 125 x 250
- 250 x 90
- 108 x 137
- 350 x 40
- 392 x 72
- 175 x 70
Banner design is an ongoing process. You will always have banners that do well and banners that underperform. Solution Web Designs is committed to your online advertising success by testing and tweaking designs, placements, and cost effectiveness, assuring you the best return on investment possible.
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Solution Web Designs
Online Marketing Success by Design
Online Advertising Design
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