Banner Ads
Banner adverts are a popular way to advertise your business online. With a banner advert you can attract visitors to your website from elsewhere, either by advertising your products and services or by promoting a special offer.
Banner adverts are one of the most popular forms of online advertising. They can help you increase traffic to your website, generate sales and increase brand awareness.
What are banner ads?
Banners are the picture adverts that appear on some webpages. When that person clicks on the banner ad, they’re taken to the advertiser’s website.
Banner adverts can be:
- very wide and short, running along the top or bottom of a page – these are the traditional ‘banner’ shape.
- an even bigger version or the banner called a ‘leaderboard’.
- very long and thin, down the side of page – these are also called “skyscrapers”.
Banner Advertising
Most websites have spaces throughout their site for banner advertising, to allow companies like yours to advertise in that space. You could advertise on select websites or on a network of sites, you could approach each website yourself or use an agency or investigate other options.
Which types of businesses can benefit the most?
For small businesses and niche businesses, banner advertising can be especially effective as it’s easy to target specific groups of customers. For example, if you offer a party catering service in Wiltshire, you could advertise on websites offering wedding venues and rental houses in the Cotswolds area.
This highly targeted approach makes it more likely you’ll attract customers who’ll be interested in what you’re offering – so you can keep your costs down by only spending on your advertising where it’s likely to succeed.
Online Banner Advertising
Before you start any new advertising campaigns you need to decide what you’re trying to achieve.
You must know who your target audience is and how best to reach them, and you need to know your product – and design your banner campaign accordingly. If you’re selling houses, there’s no point running a campaign for a month because people take longer than that to go from ‘thinking about buying a house’ to ‘researching opportunities’ to ‘buying’. If you’re a florist and want to do a bit of short-term advertising in the run up to Valentine’s Day – that makes sense.
Banner advertising can be effective for any business that wants to increase brand awareness, drive targeted traffic to their website and generate sales.
How do I get my banner ads seen?
Banner adverts are displayed on other websites. There are three basic ways to make this happen.
- dealing with websites directly.
- joining a banner ad network – these work like a ‘broker’ between advertisers and websites that want to show adverts.
- joining a banner advert exchange program – where you agree to show adverts on your website in return for your ads being shown elsewhere.
How to create banner ads
You should treat your banner advert like your shop window. A shop window should be alluring, but not give the whole game away; it should incite curiosity in your customers to make them want to come in and look around for more. That said, the shop window shouldn’t be so mysterious that customers have no idea what you sell and are too intimidated to come in and explore.
Your banner advert is the same. You need to create a banner that is alluring and makes the consumer want to find out more. Here’s how to do just that:
Use a clear and concise message. Make your point simple, e.g. ‘this is what I’m selling, and this is why you should buy it from me.’
State your location if you’re a local business. Local business is what it’s all about right now, use your banner advert to your full advantage and let people know you’re just around the corner.
Use bold and vibrant colours. Make your banner stand out from the crowd, attract the customer’s eye.
Make your branding obvious. Use a logo, state your company name, use your brand colours – they’ll help people remember you.
Use a strong call to action. Tell people what you want them to do next, e.g. ‘apply for a free quote’, ‘click here’, ‘call today’.
Don’t link to a poor-quality site. If you have a great banner and a bad website, people will bounce quickly. No one wants to spend hours figuring out how to navigate a site when they could go elsewhere.
Don’t change your advert too regularly. You may think it’s a good idea to keep your advert fresh, and it is, but don’t change it too often. People need time to get the message. Depending on your business, once a month should be plenty.
Why should I use banner advertising?
The purpose of web promotion using a banner advert is the same as for any traditional ad – to explain the basics of your product or service and encourage the reader to come and find out more. However, there are several key features specific to a banner advert:
- they can attract attention – you could use bright colours, animation, sound or video to encourage people to look at your advert.
- they can be targeted – you can advertise on niche websites which attract the right audience for your products or services, and even use different adverts for different sites.
- they can be monitored – you can easily keep track of how many people see your adverts, how many click through to your site and how many convert to a sale.
How effective are banner ads?
Whether you decide to use banner adverts, pop-up adverts or both, it’s important to analyse results thoughtfully – not just looking at how many click-throughs you get, but how long those visitors spend on your website and how many convert to a sale.
As banner ads have such a large presence on the web, viewers have become more immune to their content and sometimes banners can go unnoticed (a phenomenon known as banner blindness) or not entice users to click them – this can often be attributed to the design or clarity of the content. To make your banner stand out and compel people to click it you need to consider the content and, most importantly, the audience. Follow the advice below on how to create a targeted, purposeful online advert that will catch your audience’s attention.
What are the drawbacks of banner advertising?
Although banner advertising can be a simple and cheap way to reach prospective customers, you should be aware of the potential problems:
- you will have to pay every time a reader clicks though, even though this might not convert into a sale.
- some online readers find banner ads distracting or annoying and may ignore them or even block them from appearing.
Pricing models
Cost per mille (CPM). You will pay a fixed rate for every 1,000 impressions (views) of your banner ads. This model is perfect for brand awareness and top of funnel marketing. If you need to increase visibility to as many prospective customers, then this is a great bidding strategy.
Cost per click (CPC). With a fixed budget, you pay for every click you get on the banner ad. With the increase in smart bidding (AI) campaign strategies, this is becoming the least used type.
Cost per action (CPA). You will only pay if the consumer completes a transaction, lead form or sign up on your app or website. This is fast becoming a preferred method, as its perfect for smart bidding strategies.
Alternatively, some agencies will take your entire marketing plan into consideration and just charge you a flat rate which includes the cost of building your banners, monitoring and optimising your campaign.
In a banner exchange program, you don’t pay – you must show other people’s banner adverts on your own website for free instead.
How do I know if it’s working?
To work out how successfully your banner ads are performing, you can look at:
- the number of times your advert is displayed.
- the percentage of people seeing your banner ad that click on it.
- the percentage of visitors that convert to being customers as a result.
By looking at these measures and comparing how much you spend on banner advertising to the value of business you get as a result, you can work out your return on investment.
Can an agency help?
Want to work with a marketing agency that has 50+ years of experience in helping local businesses to grow, and the 5-star reviews to prove it?
As part of our all-in-one digital marketing solutions, Yell’s experts boost the visibility of your business on social media to generate awareness, interest, and leads. Interested? Get in touch with us today to discuss how we can help you!
