Every business or brand wants to be visible.
You can market your brand in any way you’d like, but if you want to have an immediate impact and brand awareness, banner ads are one way to go. Banner ads boost your site traffic and generate more leads on your end by leveraging the platform being used with proper context and content.
According to a forecast, Internet display advertising will reach $455,3 billion worldwide this year. Other data show that by 2025, $160M + will be spent on banner advertising on mobile phones.
Needless to say, banner advertising continues to make waves in digital platforms, but first, why are banner ads important for your business? They can increase sales and keep your brand visible—even globally. It is a marketing strategy for a wide marketing campaign. If you’re not going to put content in it that’s not relevant to your brand goals, it will only be considered a nuisance by consumers.
To go in-depth with what we mean, here are reasons why engaging effective banner ads is important for your marketing needs:
1. Brand awareness.
With a dynamic and catchy banner graphic, regular site visitors or even those who just casually ended up on the webpage, can and will remember your brand. When you have your ads up everywhere promoting relevant brand content, you can build trust with customers.
Your aim is to spread the word about your business or brand across different digital platforms. This information must get retained and remembered. It may also generate a slight increase in click-throughs.
2. Site traffic.
When you link your site and your social media accounts to the banner ads that you’re putting up, you’re sure to have an increase in site traffic (when the information is beneficial to the reader). So whether out of curiosity or out of their need to get solutions, clicking their way to your site is already of benefit to you.
3. Conversions.
As customers click their way from your ads to your site or social media platforms, they can get full access to the information that has piqued their interest. As visuals grab the attention of the reader, you may consider this a point to provoke them to fully explore what your brand has to offer and to influence their future buying potential.
New product reveals, sales and discounts, preorder ads and events are ways banner ads can capture your readers curiosity and eventually spark a deep dive into the intent of your marketing campaign. And when they leave satisfied, then you have yourself a potential conversion. The key is for them to trust what your brand is about and what solutions you can offer.
For these reasons, it’s clear you need to elevate your graphic designs to match your marketing strategies.
10 online banner ad design tips
What a reader or consumer sees first on a site or what grabs their attention first is already a hook. Dynamic visuals, great graphics and stunning digital displays are undeniably important factors to get your brand the attention it needs. And whatever you’re set to promote on those ads require the engagement level of these graphics and how well your intention communicates to the reader.
1. Tell it with typography.
I know you won’t click on something that looks bland. Consumers’ attention is quite short these days. Having great typography on your banner ads is straight-up a plus point.
First off, your font must be legible. Clarity is important. You want your readers to understand and read through what you’re wanting to relay. When they get the point of the ad, it may encourage them to continue to explore the sites you linked.
Secondly, it needs to be designed appropriately. It has to match your overall brand theme. Branding still bears weight most definitely. Choosing the perfect typography takes time, but you can already tell a story when you nail it down.
2. Size is a big deal.
One size fits all does not apply to banner ads, neither is bigger is better. Getting the right size of your visuals is important. There are different tools you can utilize to make sure that you get the page-appropriate size for your banner graphic. Google Ad Sense has this amazing guide to help customize your ad sizing. You can explore it better and easily identify the top-performing ad sizes so you can maximize your options.
3. Scale as necessary.
If you want things to look good on your banner ads, be intentional and get a professional who knows this side designing. It can get tricky especially if you want your ad to be easily navigated via mobile phones.
And while we’ve previously talked about size, scale points to the relative size of another design element being incorporated in comparison to another design element.
Basically, there will be no scale when there’s nothing to compare.
This layout technique does not only exist to have a good design comparison, but it’s here to tell a story, to create movement and to provoke thinking.
You need your content to connect, therefore scale as necessary, as it can be used in different ways for various purposes depending on how you want to get your content across.
4. Color scheme matters.
Color catches the eye. A good mix, a good theme, a good scheme of colors can go a long way. You just don’t want to throw it all in randomly, but with intentional design planning and branding brainstorming, you can come up with a great color scheme for your ads.
When you already have a branding theme, and logos, then you can incorporate parts of it into your banner ads. It’s part of your overall marketing scheme and it also provokes consumers to remember you by the color that your brand uses. Coca-Cola sticks with red and white, with red being dominant. And on a more psychological note, each color provokes different meanings and is perceived in different ways depending on the eye.
Choosing a dynamic and brand-appropriate color scheme is necessary to communicate your goals across and your marketing intentions.
5. Simplify it!
And we’re not talking about downscaling everything to keep it simple. It still depends on your goals behind a marketing ad campaign.
Nonetheless, design-wise, if an image is too complicated, it’s risky and you might lose potential customers. The graphics you put out need to be clear and the fonts must be legible enough to be read and understood.
Clarify your ad’s focus: There must be a key message or phrase. Minimize other elements that could override the more important aspects of your ad.
6. Be consistent.
Keep this in mind even when you’re just starting on your display ads or whatever marketing campaigns you are rolling out. There are certain elements you can incorporate in all the visuals you deliver for your brand. You have to keep a solid identity and a consistent connection with your target market.
Not only do you want to stand out, but you want to create a strong visual identity. Uniformity or consistency in your color schemes, your fonts and other elements are all creative factors that build this brand identity you are weaving. You want to keep things cohesive. If you want consistency in your work, one thing you can do is to get an online banner graphic tool so the quality of your images is maintained every time.
7. Animate but don’t exaggerate.
You can get fun and creative with your banner ads by incorporating animations. And the exaggeration I’m talking about still boils down to the core of your content. Any design element that can steal the focus away from your true intent or the message you’re trying to convey is not helpful at all. You also want to keep your animations for your banner ads at 15 seconds maximum.
You can use Cinemagraphs on your banner ads. These are like gifs on steroids. They are looping videos that last for about 3-10 seconds. Although it is short in length, the loop is seamless and it’s not too flashy. You can incorporate a good core message when you want to use this kind of design element.
8. Get it on mobile.
Digital marketing has evolved. When you have a mobile phone, you’re already viewing ads that you’re even unaware of. You scroll up and down your social media feed, and ads show up based on what you have previously viewed or liked or shared. Analytics have pulled through for digital marketers and businesses alike.
So you might want to ride this wave of getting your marketing campaigns and your banner ads accessible and viewed easily on mobile phones.
There’s even data that mobile ad placements have surpassed those of desktop ads. So in reality, most of the ads that you put out will be viewed via mobile phones.
Remember those sizing and scaling tips. Make sure a 10-year-old or a 70-year-old can still get your message.
9. DIY designs isn’t always worth it.
Your creative juices are valuable—but so is your time. When things get busy, and the demands start to evolve, you might want to opt to get a professional to help make your marketing campaigns a hit.
Although there are tons of tools out there that you can maximize for your ad visuals, at some point, you still need to invest in a graphic designer to translate your ideas into visual reality.
10. Use a human touch.
Trends make waves on every social media platform. As a business owner or a digital marketer, you also want to keep up while still delivering a message with substance.
Yes, you want to get a marketing campaign out, but you must keep in mind that aiming for an emotional connection seals the deal. Not the touchy-feely kind of things, but a message that hits heart level or strikes a chord.
An emotional connection by the consumer to your visuals plays a huge role in their decision-making. Consistency, trust and human connection can solidify that marketing campaign content.
Takeaways
Advertising in the digital space has opened up a deeper realm of creativity for graphic designers, as well as business owners. When you carefully mesh together your visual ideas and your marketing strategies, you can deliver outputs that are top-notch.
With targeted ads, you get the returns you expect on your reach, conveying the content you intend to deliver, and building trust with your target audience. So, we should not be downplaying the power of banner ads and digital displays. With proper exploration and testing, you can successfully produce great results with banner ads and digital displays.
As long as you keep things strategic (and mind your metrics, too), creative and with human connection—you can deliver ads that not only pique curiosity but also produce great returns.
