PLACING BANNER ADVERTS (or display adverts) on websites that are visited by your target market can make your ads seem relevant, personalised and timely.

These factors make it more likely your ads will be seen and clicked by your target audience.

You can start a banner advertising campaign with Google AdWords or any other display network such as Bing. The advertisement consists of an image (.jpg, .png, or .gif) or of a multimedia object (usually created using Flash or HTML5) and copy.

Effective banner ads have three basic components:

  1. The company logo, which should be visually dominant but not as dominant as your value proposition or CTA. Use a branding elements such as your logo, business name or website to show people that it’s your company’s ad.
  2. The value proposition. This is the first thing people will see.
  3. The CTA, which should be concise and compelling. If you use a button, place it after your copy on the lower right side in contrasting colours.

Since people will only look at your ad for a second or two, it’s important that both content and visuals are simple and easy to understand. The headline and body copy should be different sizes and in a readable font.

Use animation

Animated banner ads often out-perform static banner ads. It’s important however to make sure that they don’t distract people from your key message or purpose. Keep the animation short (no more than 15 seconds in length) and simple. If possible make sure they don’t loop more than three times. Since your banner ad will send people to a landing page or a page on your website that includes your offer, it’s important it matches your branding and the look and content of your landing page or website page.

How to use banner ads to get more leads

You need to decide who your target audience is and what you want them to do. Decide on the value proposition. Doing this will help you write the copy for your banner and CTA (call to action).

Use high-quality photos to build trust. More than half of internet users don’t click banner ads because they don’t trust them, so you need to do everything possible to make your ad look as if it’s from a reputable and trustworthy company.

Determine your advertising budget and choose an advertising network such as Google AdWords or Bing to distribute your ads.

Buy space on a website where your ad will be featured above the fold and close to the main content of a page.

Do test the position of your banner ads. Inbound marketer at AdPushup, Sujan Deswal says online users often suffer from what’s known as ‘banner blindness’. Most people read in an F-shaped pattern online so don’t notice banner ads that are located on the right-hand side of any page.

A survey by Infolinks to discover which ad units were ‘seen’ the most by users, using eye-tracking, found that above the fold ads placed on the left-hand side performed second best with a 73% visibility while those ads near the top had 80% visibility.