6 Tips for Creating Converting Banner Ads

The banner ad is one of the most effective tools for making money on your website.

Simply put, it is a large advertisement that is displayed across your web page, much like a banner over your content. Banner ads can consist of text, images, even video and audio animations.

The question is, with so many options available today, how do you go about creating a banner ad that will serve its purpose: making you money.

If you are puzzled where to even start creating a great banner ad, fear not!

These six tips should get you started making great banner ads that will actually make you money.

Tip #1: Aesthetics are Key

Banner ads are largely a visual medium, and simple factors such as size, color, and placement can make a big difference in whether people decide to click on your ad or ignore it.

TO REALLY CATCH THEIR EYE, YOU’LL WANT TO MAKE YOUR BANNER AD STAND OUT (IN A GOOD WAY).

Thankfully, there are some proven designs that you can copy to make creating an effective banner ad simpler than it ever has been before.

Let’s start with placement.

One of the key factors for any kind of marketing is location. A billboard placed on a well-traveled interstate is going to get much more attention than a sign at the corner of an alley.

Likewise, there are places on your webpage where your banner ad will get more attention than others.

Research has shown that the number one spot for placing a banner ad is directly at the top of your web page. Placing your ad here means it will be the first thing someone sees when they visit your page and gives them the best chance of clicking it.

Next choice you will have to make is the size of your ad.

Choosing the right size for your ad will depend largely on what type of content and images you want to put in it, but whatever size you pick, it is best to stick with one of these standard sizes:

• 486 x 60Pixels(Full Banner)
• 392 x 72Pixels(Full Banner with Vertical
• Navigation Bar)
• 234 x 60Pixels(Half Banner)
• 120 x 240Pixels (Vertical Banner)
• 125 x 125Pixels (Square Button)
• 120 x 90Pixels (Button 1)
• 120 x60Pixels (Button 2)
• 88 x 31Pixels (Micro Button)

These sizes and shapes have been proven effective, and sticking with them simplifies the process of creating a great banner ad.

The next point to consider is the color of the ad.

Colors evoke emotions, and if you haven’t noticed yet, we are definitely emotional creatures. It’s important then to think about what type of emotions you want your banner ad to invoke and what colors can achieve this purpose.

For example, the color red is associated with passion, danger, and love, while the color yellow is associated with humor and optimism. Which color will work best for you largely depends on what it is you are advertising.

For a full list of what emotions each color invokes and how you can make use of them in your banner ad, check out this article.

Lastly, whether you are using images or animations in your ad, make sure that they are crisp and clean without any blurring or distortion.

Stick to professional, high quality images and/or video for the best results.

Tip #2: Make Use of Proven Marketing Tactics

Good news: When it comes right down to it, banner ads are just like any other ad. This means that there are troves of data, research, and proven tactics you can put to use in creating your banner ad.

One tactic that has gained a great deal of popularity in banner ads thanks to better and better animation is creating urgency.

People create urgency using banner ads by placing a countdown timer on the ad along with text saying that the deal expires in X amount of time.

Whether it actually does or not isn’t too important, the point is that the sense of urgency is created.

ANOTHER IMPORTANT TACTIC TO BE SURE TO INCLUDE IS A CALL TO ACTION (CTA).

If your ad is light on text, a CTA may be the only thing it includes. No matter how much text your ad has though, a solid CTA is essential.

What then, you may ask, is a CTA?

A CTA is simply a line of text that inspires the reader to take action. An example of a CTA is “Click now to take advantage of this great offer!” or “Don’t miss out on this exclusive deal”.

A lot of research has gone into creating effective CTA’s, giving you plenty of material to start with in creating a great CTA for your banner ad. For an excellent resource to start with in creating an effective CTA, check out this link.

Sticking with short snippets of text is also a good idea when creating your banner ad. People on the internet have very short attention spans and are unlikely to read big blocks of text.

A short, attention grabbing line or two though, complete with a good CTA, has a much better chance of being effective.

By researching tried and true marketing strategies before creating your banner ad, you can capitalize on decades’ worth of research and give your ad the best possible odds of making money.

Tip #3: Don’t be Afraid to Experiment (But Keep it Simple)

Web design technology has improved leaps and bounds in recent years, giving you plenty of options as to how your banner ad will look and what exactly its function will be. When creating your banner ad, don’t be afraid to play around with some of the various options available to see which design you like best.

One addition to come out in recent years is banner ads that have video animations. Sometimes these animations can be as simple as a sparkle of light, or a person winking, or they can be as lengthy as an entire video set to repeat continuously.

Some banner ads may even have an audio accompaniment to go along with the video.

With all of these options available, though, it is important to not get too bogged down in overly complicated designs.

You don’t need a dozen flashing lights and blaring music to create an effective banner ad. In fact, such things are more likely to deter more visitors than they attract.

Don’t be afraid to experiment with the latest, greatest designs, but do keep it simple. A short, modest animation is often more than enough to catch a visitor’s attention without being over the top.

Tip #4: Link to a Great Product

This is where it gets really important. Getting a visitor to click on your banner ad is quite a challenge, but it is only half the battle when it comes to actually making money. In most cases, for your ad to make money, they will also have to actually buy something from the site your banner ad leads them to.

For this reason, linking to a quality site selling a great product will earn you magnitudes more than linking to a shoddy website selling a mediocre product.

Fortunately, for the members of Digital Altitude, this essential part of creating an effective banner ad is already taken care of for you!

As an affiliate of Digital Altitude, you can direct your banner ads to your unique website link which carry our products that have been proven effective.

Our sales copy is meticulously crafted to get results, and our acclaimed products range in price from a couple hundred dollars to several thousand, giving you plenty of opportunity to earn an incredible amount of commission from your banner ad.

Deciding who to advertise for is one of the most important decisions in creating a banner ad. As an affiliate for Digital Altitude though, you can be certain that when your visitors click your ad they are taken to a webpage and a product that is designed from the ground up to sell quality products.

Tip #5: Measure Your Success

You’ve followed all the tips and created an excellent banner ad. Now what?

As a good business person, you will naturally want to measure how effective your banner ad is. To do this, you must first understand a little bit about the metrics used to measure online advertising campaigns.

Here are the top metrics you will want to understand getting started:

• Click/Click Through  – This is a measure of how many people have clicked on your ad.

• Page Views – This is a measure of how many times your web page was requested from the server. Although it isn’t a direct measure of your banner ad’s success, it does allow you to compare how many people are seeing your ad versus how many are clicking on it.

• Click Through Rate (CTR) -This metric is a measure of how many people clicked your ad divided by how many people viewed your web page. The CTR is the best way to measure how effective your banner ad is in getting people to click on it.

• CPC VS EPC – If your cost per click (CPC) is higher than your profit per click (EPC) then you are losing money and need to reevaluate your banner ad.

Otherwise, if your EPC is higher than your CPC then you are making money. Hooray!

Of course, if you own your own web page, such as what becoming a Digital Altitude affiliate allows you to do, there is no cost per click, meaning no matter what happens, you are in the black.

Tip #6: Don’t Neglect the Design and Content of the Webpage itself

The design of your banner ad may be what gets people to click on it, but it is the design and content of the webpage itself that gets people to see your ad in the first place.

Before you worry too much about creating a great ad, start with creating a simple and user friendly website.

Building a quality website from the ground up though can be challenging. From the technical aspects such as navigation to the design stage of adding images, all the way to creation of quality written content. Fortunately, Digital Altitude supplies this for you as an affiliate.

As an affiliate of Digital Altitude, you automatically begin with a website with your unique link that is filled with proven sales copy and a streamlined, engaging design.

ALL THAT’S LEFT FOR YOU TO DO IS TO DRIVE TRAFFIC TO IT.

You can streamline your process by creating converting banner ads, that drive customers to your link.

We take care of the rest!

Conclusion

Advertising is one of the best ways to monetize a website, and banner ads have become one of the most popular ways to put an ad up on a website. By following the tips in this article, you can begin to create a banner ads that will make you money and let you climb all the way to top.

Here at Digital Altitude, not only will we be waiting for you when you get there, we’ll be there to help you every step of the way.

And as always, let us know how Digital Altitude is working for you; and how we can help you further.

Feel free to reach out to us at  support@digitalaltitude.co or connect with your coach. See you at the top!