1. Why does your business need a web banner?
2. Is it because your competitor is promoting online?
3. Does it comprise an effective medium of advertisement for your business?
To answer these questions, find what type of products people buy online. If these products are similar to your product or services then online advertisement is certainly beneficial for your business.
Purpose: Find out the exact purpose of your web banner ad campaign. What will your banner promote? Categorize your web banner design according to your purpose. Most common purposes of web banner ads are:
1. To sell products or services.
2. To promote a brand.
3. To increase the number of hits on a website.
Target Audience: Your target audience is a deciding factor, literally. Hence, identifying them is an indispensable step towards achieving effective online web banner advertising. The audience can be from the same industry or a different one, possessing different traits and preferences. To cater to all of them, you require a web banner that would appeal to them through as many different channels as possible.
Exposure: This is another key area and needs to be handled with utmost care and thought. The world today is more concerned about the brand name than anything else. Hence, putting two and two together, it pays off tremendously if you contact big sites with more popularity, for it will increase the number of clicks and hence the number of visitors on your site.
Include URL: Don’t forget to include your website address in your banner. If the purpose of your ad camping is only to promote your brand name, then make it a point to include at least a small font size logo of your brand in the web banner. If not the logo, then put up your website address.
Identify Your Competitor: Keep your friends close, your enemies closer! Whereas that might not be the case for many things, in the field of Online Web Banner Advertising, it’s an established mantra. Dig around for your competitor’s web banner designs, their websites and the web sites on which they promote their banner. This will be helpful in how not to design your web banner, for a product of plagiarism will not see the light of day for long. Make your banner different or else it will easily slip into obscurity.
Numerous Banners: Every viewer has a different taste and a different choice. It’s difficult to determine which banner design will attract more viewers. So it’s better to use several banner designs for a single ad campaign. By this you can identify which banner design is most liked by the viewers.
Style Guide: If you are using the services of banner design companies for your banner design, they will provide you a banner style guide which covers all the aspects of banner design such as banner size, number of loops, colors etc. Your job is to just send your requirement to your designer.
Type: Banners can be categorized into following three categories:
- Flash banner.
- GIF banner
- Static banner
The choice of banner used is dependent on the target audience, place and the purpose of your ad campaign. However, some studies have indicated that flash banners get more clicks than static banners.
Banner Size: Everybody is free to define their own format as long as it fits into the banner space that you plan to purchase on a webpage. For example, for a full banner, the ideal size is 468 X 60 and for a half banner, it is 234 X 60.
File Size: A banner’s file size depends upon the colors, number of frames, images and the types of animation used for its design. Excessive use of these elements may affect the loading speed of the banner. It is, hence, advisable to reduce the file size of the banner to decrease the loading time.
Colors: Color selection is dependent upon your website colors and the colors of website on which you’re going to advertise your banner. Banner design should carry the same colors as your website has and the banner’s color should make a good combination on the website used for advertising it on.
Animation Time: The animation time of a banner is dependent upon looping. Looping is the number of time that an animation repeats itself. Animations with infinite loops distract the viewers’ attention. Use loops only 3 or 4 times and make sure that each loop ends within 10 second, leaving the message on the last frame.
Images: Use images that are reflective of your products and services and express them. Don’t use images that are completely different from your product or services since these images might get some clicks but not sale for you.
