Creating great banner ads can be the difference between online brand success and failure. However, many online brands do not know where to start. This five-step guide gives you the lowdown on creating banner ads that are more likely to be effective.
Photo by Kate Trysh on Unsplash
Setting goals and refining your message
Define your Goals
What market are you trying to reach? How do you want to present in comparison to your competitors? What do you want customers to think of your brand? Defining your advertising goals is an essential place to start, and if you don’t know how to approach this, consider the DAGMAR model.
Refine your Message
The message in a banner ad needs to be simple. Whether you’re trying to get across something specific about your brand or announce a new product, there needs to be one, simple message.
Designing and producing the ad
Consider the Design
You need to give this careful thought, from the colours you choose and the font you use to the images you include, and any other media, like video or audio. Don’t forget that you need to integrate a CTA link and that the overall design must be in harmony with your existing brand imagery.
Getting it Made
This is the most difficult part for most brands. You can try using ad software platforms, with a choice of either free or pay-for options. But if you feel out of your depth in creating your own HTML banner ads, then consider experts like The Bannermen who’ll be able to help you create exactly the kind of ads you want.
Optimising for different platforms
Optimisation
This is really important because it affects how the banner ad will appear on different devices and platforms. You need to think about the resolution, the size of the ad and the overall quality.
All these steps are equally important when it comes to creating effective banner ads. Missing the mark on just one will prevent the overall success of your ad campaign. To create an effective banner ad, make sure you define your goals and message, and that you design, produce, and optimise the ad to the highest possible quality.
Summary
This article gives a five-step guide to creating effective banner ads. It recommends defining clear advertising goals, using models like DAGMAR, and refining the message down to one simple idea. It covers design choices such as colours, fonts and a clear call to action, producing the ad through software or specialist help, and optimising resolution and size so it displays properly across devices and platforms.
Questions this article raises
- How does the DAGMAR model actually help define advertising goals in practice?
- How much does using a specialist banner ad company typically cost compared with DIY software?
- Which device or platform differences cause the most banner ad display problems?
