7 Step Checklist To Create The BEST Digital Banner Ads

Creating digital banner ads sounds easy. Find a great proposition line that attracts your clientele, match it with an image of your business, product or service and make sure there is a call to action button. But how do you make sure your ad gets clicked on?

We find digital marketing agencies design banners in a vacuum and as if they were magazine ads, failing to recognize that these banners are an interruptive form of advertising trying to divert your attention from the very website they are on. Don’t forget, people don’t visit websites to look at ads, they’re there for the content. Whether people are reading an article about the latest album release, or catching up on their favourite teams, they are not necessarily looking to make a purchase. Display banner advertising is interruptive in nature, making it especially important to stand out from everything else. In fact, only 14% of users can recall the last display ad they saw and the content it promoted.

As a digital marketing agency, we like to view digital banner ads like billboards; in fact, we often refer to them as billboards on the information highway. Imagine you’re driving in your car, look up, and see a billboard. That billboard has seconds to catch your eye before you drive away. It needs to make sense at first glance while giving you all the information you need to peak your interest. This is how to think of a banner ad.

We have a few handy tips to help you create the best banner ad that will get clicks:

1. Treat Them Like A Billboard

• Your digital banner ad must stand out from a distance.
• If there’s a main heading and a subheading, make sure the main headline makes sense as a stand-alone message.
• Your banner ad should contain all the information a consumer needs to peak their interest. An effective proposition, appealing image and enticing call-to-action button are all important to help your ad stand out from the rest.

2. Use a Border

• There are over 2,000,000 websites in the Google network. Since you don’t know what background your ad will be on, a  thin border can really help it stand out.
• A simple 1-pixel border should do the trick.

3. Always Include A Button

• Having a brightly coloured button can improve conversion rate by 35%.
• Your button colour should be a bright and/or contrasting colour. Ideally, this colour would be your brand accent colour.

4. Make Sure The Button Language Is Specific

• When creating the button text, put yourself in the shoes of your customer. Always ask yourself the question “What am I getting by clicking this button?”
• Use possessive language. For example, “Get my free trial” is proven to outperform “Get your free trial”.
• The maximum length on your button text should be 4 words or less as a rule of thumb, although there can be exceptions.

5. Make Sure Images Support The Proposition

• Images should support the proposition line.
• Images are especially effective for visual products (ie. phone, real estate) and should be included in the banner ad.
• On the contrary, don’t force an image if it doesn’t work with your ad; solid colours also work for banner ads.

6. Stay Consistent With Your Brand

• Use the same font that is featured on your website.
• Use your brand colours when designing your banner ads.
• Always include your logo.

7. Be Aware Of Ad Limitations

• Some examples include Google image and file sizes.
• Make sure you are creating your banner ads to the correct specifications of all platforms it will be appearing on.

More Digital Marketing Tips:

This is just 1 of our 23 checklists of handy marketing tips and tricks. For more digital marketing or branding advise, check out more helpful tips here:

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The Marketing Garage is an award-winning Toronto digital marketing agency that has extensive experience in cultivating effective digital marketing strategies. We help businesses in many different sectors across North America fix their online marketing and branding. Our data-driven mix of SEO and digital marketing process is like no other.