Top 15 Effective Banner Design Tips And Ideas
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Banner advertising is an ancient marketing method which still hasn’t lost its spice. With social media platforms getting bigger every day, new types of banner advertising is taking turns. A bigger or smaller company, all of them use banner advertising to boost their visibility and to attract their audience to their websites.
A well-designed banner campaign can massively increase brand awareness and site traffic, which could convert to sales and profit for the business. Companies also use this method to re-target their audience more effectively after tracking their behavior.
Before knowing the tip for creating effective banner designs and advertisements, let’s see what a banner design is.
What is a banner design?
It is one of the prolific forms of marketing used in today’s digital world, and it comes in all shapes and sizes. Good banner design is about creating the one with the most clickable banner ads possible. They are advertisement images embedded on web pages that showcase a product or service and link to the advertiser’s website. Most companies utilize them in one form or another as they are the most affordable, effective, and measurable medium to increase a brand’s awareness.
Powerful Banner Designs
Here are the tips for creating effective banner design and banner advertising
Use the standard banner size
According to Google’s Adsense, the most successful standards for banner sizing are:
- 728×90px — Leaderboard
- 336×280px — Large Rectangle
- 300×250px — Medium Rectangle
- 300×600px — Half Page
Make sure to place them relevantly
Purchase space on a website where you can feature your ad above the fold and close to the main content of a page.
Maintain a hierarchy
Your banner ad design depends on the right balance with each ad, so watch out for hierarchy. The most effective banner is designed in a way to increases brand awareness and traffic to your website. The three basic components are:
- Your company logo:
It is a must to include your company logo in your banner ad to create brand awareness. It would also help if you made sure that it is placed in a visually dominant place as the value proposition or the call to action.
- Value proposition:
The value proposition usually showcases the products/service you provide and calls for attention by highlighting attractive offers and prices. Think of these elements as “High Quality” or “50% off”. These things take up the most space in your ad and should be the first thing viewers see.
- Call to action:
The CTA or call to action is the text or button you want the users to click. The most used phrases are “Get Started,” “Watch Now,” and “Learn More.” This should be the focal point of the entire banner ad.
Keep it simple
Make sure your contents and visuals are simple. Your viewers only glance at your banner for probably a second, so it should be easily understandable. For the content, you can take help from any good admission essay writer who provides quality content for your audience.
Place buttons appropriately
Buttons are essential tools to increase your ad’s click-through rate (CTR). If you are using it, place them in contrasting colors on the lower right side. Make sure to keep them consistent throughout the ads.
Create a clearly defined frame
People are naturally drawn towards content inside the frame if designed effectively. The most successful banner ads in the past also had clearly defined frames with the graphics extended to the edges. If your ads are white, include a one-pixel grey border around the ad.
Use instantly readable texts
The fundamental rule is to make your headline and body copy in different sizes. The complete copy should not be more than four lines.
Do not use cursive or script fonts, all uppercase font, or font size small than 10 points unless it’s for a disclaimer or copyright notice.
Make good use of animation
Anything with a touch of animation outperforms the static ones, and the same works for banners too. But you should ensure that it doesn’t distract the audience from the message of your ad. Use simple animations that are not longer than 15 seconds and see that it doesn’t loop more than three times. The last frame must contain a clear call to action.
Complement, but stand out
If you design your ad in a way that it blends with the sites it is featured, you are sure to earn your viewer’s trust. However, be careful not to mix it too much. Banner Ads must be clearly visible and clickable.
Maintain your brand’s consistency
Your banner ad should link to the page you have created your offers. Make sure your ad matches to that landing page so that your customers don’t get confused.
Incorporate a sense of urgency
Bringing a sense of urgency to your ad by using contrasting bold colors is necessary. Banner ads need not be subtle all the time.
Use imagery only when it is required
Pick relevant graphics and images that enhance the message you are trying to convey. Don’t use abstract elements here. It’s okay if you can’t afford professional photoshoots with models. Stock photos are affordable and readily available. They contain millions of high-quality images but choose the original illustrations created by designers. Remember, it’s not always necessary to use images in your banner ad as killer copy with engaging typography can fetch you significant results.
Choose the right colors
Every color has different psychology, so it’s important to consider what emotion you want to invoke in your audience. Color is the first thing your audience will notice in your banner ad.
They are also subjective and have different meanings in different cultures. Make sure to know your target audience while making color selections. Here is a list of colors and emotions they invoke in a western audience.
Red: It means passion, anger, excitement, and love. This color is attractive to all types of people, but use it in moderation. If you want a classic, mature, and serious look, it is best to avoid red.
Orange: It means playfulness and fascination. Though it is not as powerful as red, it stands apart in its way and gives off energy. The perfect color to choose for the call to action.
Yellow: Yellow means cheer, sunshine, and friendliness. It gives out an energy that is youthful and affordable.
Green: It means health, freshness, environment, green, growth, nurturing, and a new beginning. It’s easy for the eyes, too.
Blue: It means safety, trust, clarity, refreshment, coldness, and masculinity. Blue is the color that appears in more than half of the logos.
Black: Black symbolizes mystery, exclusiveness, formality, luxury, power, and the classic black text on a white background is the most readable combination
White: White means Purity, cleanliness, modernity, sterility, simplicity, honesty, and innocence. It brings out feelings of economic sense and youth.
Grey: Grey means practicality and neutrality. When it is used as a background, it intensifies other colors.
Keep your file size small
File sizes are always smaller, the better. Try to keep the size under 150 kb, which is the standard according to Google Adwords. Mainly it needs to load faster before the viewer scrolls down and misses it.
Use the correct file formats
JPG, PNG, GIF, or HTML5 files should be the file formats of your working deliverables. Your designer works on Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop to deliver in JPG, PNG, and GIF formats, or Google web designer or Adobe Animate for HTML5 file types. Flash ads have become pretty much outdated, so opt for other formats only.
Don’t be afraid to be creative while designing your banner ad. People love to see unique ads and are most likely to click on your ad if you can steal their first impression. They can be effective for your business and instantly increase your site traffic. People would love to invest in your products or services, with the neat work you show in your creatives. It is the best way to gain the loyalty of your potential audience. Check out the All Time Design for the best banner designs.
