Your Guide to Launching Your First Display Ad

How to launch your first display ad

Banner ads stand out as a cornerstone of online visibility and brand recognition. From the days of simplistic display ads to the current era of sophisticated HTML5 banner ads, their evolution parallels the dynamic landscape of digital advertising. This beginner’s guide dives into the world of banner advertising, unraveling the versatility and potency of advert banners in boosting impressions, enhancing click-through rates, and elevating brand awareness. Whether you’re looking to launch your first advertising campaign or refine your current strategy, understanding the nuts and bolts of banner adverts is essential, whether that is on Google Ads or any other platform.

As we peel back the layers, you’ll discover the benefits and challenges associated with banner ads — from crafting visually appealing designs that command attention to deploying strategic advertising campaigns that leverage website banner ads and mobile banner ads for maximum impact. We’ll guide you through designing banner ads that resonate with your audience and deploying them in a way that amplifies your message across the web. With each step, you’ll gain insights into maximising your banners’ effectiveness, ensuring your digital marketing banner ads not only capture but also retain user interest. Join us as we navigate the vibrant world of banner advertising, setting the stage for your brand’s success in the digital age.

Introduction to Banner Ads

Simply put, banner advertising is a type of digital advertising through creative ads known as banners. Banners are the rectangular ads that are shown along the top, side or bottom of a website in hopes that it will drive traffic to the advertiser’s proprietary site, generate awareness and overall brand consideration. This type of visual banner-style online advertising is a form of display advertising.

Definition and Overview

Banner ads can be static or dynamic ads that are strategically positioned on a website to capture consumers’ attention. Through banner advertising, brands can promote their brand as well as encourage viewers to visit the brand’s website. Similar to other forms of online advertising, brands leverage banner advertising for a multitude of reasons, whether it’s to build brand awareness, generate more clicks and/or drive traffic to the brand’s website. Banner ads are an effective way to increase customer traffic, sell a product and/or grab a customer’s attention. To determine their effectiveness, it’s important to look at an ad’s click-through rate (CTR), which is the number of clicks an ad receives divided by the number of impressions.

History of Banner Ads

The age of banner ads officially began on October 27, 1994, when Wired magazine’s online off-shoot HotWired introduced the world to the enduringly ubiquitous banner ad. AT&T paid HotWired $30,000 to place a banner ad on their site for three months, which enjoyed a remarkable 44% click-through rate. This revolutionary concept allowed websites to keep their content free for users while generating revenue through ad space.

As banner ads gained popularity, advertisers became interested in targeting specific consumer demographics, leading to the beginning of targeted ad placement. WebConnect, an ad agency, helped clients identify websites their ideal consumers visited, allowing companies to place ads where their target demographics were more likely to see them. WebConnect also introduced the CustomView tool, which capped the number of times a user was shown a single banner ad, preventing “banner fatigue”.

Current Trends in Banner Advertising

According to Statista, worldwide digital e-commerce sales increased to $5.2 trillion during 2022, with forecasted growth of 56% by 2026, reaching $8.1 trillion. The Global Internet Advertising Market Report also predicts a CAGR of 24.7% for internet advertising between 2020 and 2027. With Google’s plans to eradicate third-party cookies, the online advertising industry is in flux, as 83% of US marketers were reliant on third-party cookies as of July 2021.

In a cookie-less world, a partnership between onsite advertising and dynamic creative optimisation (DCO) could be crucial for e-commerce and retail brands. Statistics highlight the importance of customer experience (CX), with global CX spending predicted to reach $641 billion in 2022. Onsite advertising and dynamic optimisation could personalise onsite messaging for various audiences without using cookies.

The gaming industry also presents opportunities for advertisers, with three main areas: around game (banners, videos, and pop-ups), in-game advertising (IGA), and advergaming (games designed around the advertised product or service). Additionally, Amazon’s dominance in online retail offers brands a chance to build trust and brand equity through sponsored ads and Amazon DSP.

Benefits and Challenges of Banner Ads

Advantages for Businesses

Banner ads offer numerous benefits for businesses looking to promote their brand, generate leads, and drive website traffic. One of the primary advantages is their cost-effectiveness. The cost of banner advertising is determined by ad size, with smaller ads being more affordable. On average, the cost per 1,000 impressions (CPM) can be as low as $0.50, allowing your ad to be displayed 1,000 times for just 50 cents.

Another significant advantage is the ease of creation and customisation. Around 97% of marketers design their banner ads themselves, as they are relatively simple to create and meet standard specifications. This flexibility allows businesses to develop relevant ads that resonate with their target audience by leveraging demographics and online behavior data for effective targeting.

Moreover, banner ads facilitate personalisation, which is crucial in today’s digital landscape. Studies show that 71% of consumers prefer personalised digital ads. By tailoring banner ads to specific audiences, businesses can deliver a consistent and relevant brand experience, increasing the likelihood of engagement and conversions.

Common Challenges and How to Overcome Them

Despite the benefits, banner advertising also presents several challenges that businesses must address. One of the most significant challenges is banner blindness, where users unconsciously or intentionally ignore banner ads due to ad fatigue. According to reports, 73% of UK consumers have seen the same ads repeatedly, leading to only 11% enjoying advertising.

Another challenge is the declining click-through rate (CTR) for banner ads. Since 1995, CTR rates have dropped from over 2% to an average of 0.05%, making it more likely for someone to climb Mount Everest than click on a banner ad. This low CTR can be attributed to factors such as ad placement, size, and the widespread use of ad blockers, with more than 56% of display ads never being seen.

To overcome these challenges, businesses should focus on personalisation and dynamic optimisation. A recent report by Mary Meeker suggests that personalisation is key to overcoming banner blindness and ad fatigue. By leveraging personalisation techniques, marketers can provide hyper-relevant advertising and drive higher engagement, as only 17.3% of marketers currently utilise personalisation with their banners.

Additionally, incorporating rich media elements such as animation, interactivity, or video can help capture users’ attention and encourage engagement. With the rise of mobile advertising, optimising banner ads for mobile devices is crucial, as mobile banners have a higher CTR than their desktop counterparts.

Lastly, continuous optimisation and A/B testing are essential for identifying what works best for your target audience. By testing design elements, calls-to-action, placements, and offers, businesses can find the ideal combination that resonates with their audience and drives desired actions.

Designing Banner Ads

The process of designing effective banner ads involves several key elements that work together to capture the viewer’s attention and convey your message effectively. Here are some essential considerations:

Essential Design Principles

Good design follows four fundamental principles: contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity. Contrast helps your ad stand out by creating visual distinction between elements through variations in color, size, shape, or typography. Repetition brings unity and consistency by repeating design aspects throughout the ad. Alignment ensures that elements are placed intentionally, creating a cohesive and organised layout. Proximity groups related elements together, making the information easier to comprehend.

To create a visually appealing and balanced design, follow these principles. Utilise contrast to highlight important elements, repeat design elements for consistency, align components thoughtfully, and group related information together.

Choosing the Right Images and Graphics

Visuals play a crucial role in banner ad design, as they can convey information quickly and persuasively. Choose compelling images that support the tone and message of your ad. For instance, warm colors like red and orange evoke energy and excitement, while cool colors like blue and green convey calmness and trust.

Aim for a balance between visually engaging and overpowering. The image should draw attention but not overpower the copy. Localise your imagery to resonate with your target audience, and avoid cluttered or busy visuals that may be distracting.

Creating Compelling Ad Copy

Crafting persuasive ad copy is essential for driving conversions. Start by mirroring the visitor’s end goal or problem in your headline. Use emotional triggers to spur action, as people are driven by emotions rather than logic alone. In the body copy, focus on how your product or service will improve the viewer’s life, using a personal tone.

Incorporate elements like scarcity and urgency through techniques like countdown timers to leverage psychological forces like fear of missing out and loss aversion. Keep your messaging concise, clear, and compelling, following the three C’s: compelling, concise, and clear.

Remember, the goal is to create a cohesive and visually striking ad that resonates with your target audience and compels them to take action.

Deploying Banner Ads

Selection of Platforms

Digital advertising platforms have become a vital part of modern marketing strategies, as they give businesses the opportunity to reach their target audience in an easy and effective way. A digital advertising platform is an online service that allows you to create and manage digital advertising campaigns across various channels, such as search engines, social media, and websites. By using a digital ad platform, businesses can increase their visibility and reach their target audience more efficiently.

In particular, some of the benefits of using one of these platforms are:

• Increased reach: You can reach a wider audience across different online channels, often at the same time.
• Targeted advertising: The targeting options allow businesses to reach specific segments of people, based on their preferred criteria.
• Real-time tracking and optimisation: You can get real-time data and analytics, and optimise your ads for better results.
• Better ROI: Measuring and optimising your ads can improve your return on investment.

Some popular digital advertising platforms include Google Ads, Facebook Ads, LinkedIn Ads, Instagram Ads, and Amazon Advertising. Each platform offers unique features and targeting options, so it’s essential to assess which one aligns best with your business goals and target audience.

Display advertising platforms not only cover traditional websites but also extend to many social media platforms and other mobile-based programs, where users are increasingly spending their time. Targeting options are also available, allowing advertisers to reach specific demographics and geographic regions, ensuring that their ads are seen by the most relevant audience possible.

When choosing a display advertising platform, it’s crucial to consider factors such as:

• Target audience compatibility: Assess whether your target audience aligns with the platform’s user base.
• Pricing models and budget: Compare pricing models and budget requirements across platforms.
• Ad formats and placements: Evaluate the available ad formats and placements to ensure they align with your advertising strategy.
• Analytics and reporting: Ensure the platform provides robust analytics and reporting capabilities to track and optimise your campaigns.

By carefully evaluating these factors, you can select the most suitable display advertising platform for your business, maximising the effectiveness of your banner ad campaigns.

Target Audience Strategies

Audience targeting is the process of breaking your audience into smaller groups based on their interests or demographics. These target audience segments help marketers create personalised ads specifically for people who are more likely to buy their products. Advanced audience targeting allows marketers to be even more intentional about who sees their ads based on customer journey analytics and behavioral data.

Demographic information, such as age, gender, location, ethnicity, education, occupation, income, marital status, and family size, can be used for audience segmentation. Behavior segmentation is based on the customer’s search and purchase history, considering what they buy, why they buy it, and how often they make a purchase. Additionally, you can segment your target audience by each stage of the buyer’s journey: awareness, consideration, and decision.

Personalised advertising is more relevant, focused, and less intrusive. Research shows that 91% of consumers feel more motivated to shop with brands that personalise communication, particularly when it comes to tailored offers. Using data-driven insights to deliver a personalised experience to a target audience will build stronger relationships with customers, improve engagement, and increase conversions.

Furthermore, 72% of consumers say they only engage with marketing messages tailored to their interests, and 76% of consumers in the US feel that it is acceptable or somewhat acceptable for advertisers to target them based on the media they consume.

Audience targeting uses customer data to produce personalised ad campaigns that generate a high return on ad spend (ROAS). To get accurate data and actionable insights, you’ll need a data management platform (DMP). DMPs collect, collate, and store first-party and third-party data to create target audiences based on customer demographics, activity, and specific characteristics. These platforms offer unrivaled reach with hyper-targeted ads, particularly when combined with a demand-side platform (DSP) for automated media buying and optimal ad placement.

Effective audience segmentation starts and ends with data. You’ll need a DMP to accurately aggregate individuals’ behavior, demographics, interests, and preferences, which will form your segments. Ensure your segment is specific yet large enough to be worth targeting, as going too specific may cause you to miss potential customers. Audience targeting is a continuous cycle of collecting data, building profiles, segmenting audiences, delivering campaigns, and evaluating performance metrics against your KPIs.

Budget Allocation

Banner ads (and display ads in general) have a lower click-through rate than other types of ads, like search ads, because they’re more intrusive, and people have trained themselves to ignore them. Banner ads have a drastically lower CTR because individuals aren’t looking for a brand’s products or services when they come across one.

Consider this banner ad example: You’re reading an online publication about cars when you see a banner ad for an electric vehicle (EV). How likely will you click off the page you’re already reading to learn about that particular car? Not very likely because you weren’t looking for it in the first place. With search ads, users are already looking for your products and services when they type in a query associated with your brand.

However, with banner ads, people are simply browsing the web and may not be interested in your products and services. Most people who see your banner ads aren’t ready to make a purchase unless you’re using a retargeting marketing approach and those individuals have already visited your website.

Because banner ads target people who aren’t necessarily ready to make a purchase, they have lower conversion rates than other marketing strategies that target individuals, like search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimisation (SEO). Depending on your goals, your conversion action may be someone completing a form or making a purchase on your website. However, because individuals who come across your ads aren’t necessarily ready to make a purchase, banner ads have lower conversion rates.

Unfortunately, some types of marketing and advertising aren’t allowed for specific markets. For example, Google doesn’t allow advertisements for potentially dangerous products and services. Additionally, the industry you’re in might have strict advertising rules you must follow to remain in compliance. Ad blocking software also allows users to turn off advertisements when browsing the web, so your ads may be blocked and not seen by users who would be most interested in your products and services.

Over time, we’ve all learned to subconsciously ignore any ads we see. You may notice billboards when driving down the expressway, but do you ever remember what’s on them? The same is true for digital and print advertisements; many people ignore them because they’ve seen so many ads throughout their lives they’ve accidentally been trained not to see them. This is why it’s so crucial for your banner ad to stand out. Potential customers won’t see them while reading articles online because they’ve trained themselves not to, so your ad must be special if you want it to be seen or clicked.

Advertising strategies may cater to lead generation, raising brand awareness, or strengthening brand loyalty. The type of campaign will determine the optimal approach and budget allocation. Different strategies and outcomes involve specific metrics. Brand awareness is improved by actions such as likes, shares, comments, and engagements, while lead generation campaigns depend on click-through-rates (CTRs) and cost-per-lead (CPL). Businesses should consider investing a substantial portion of their profits into the production of quality leads, which optimises every ad dollar spent.

Think about all the things you can spend your digital advertising budget on. It’s essential to figure out short versus long term goals and what the lowest hanging fruits are to achieve the ROI you’re looking for given your budget. Asking questions like “How many qualified leads per month would you be happy with?”, “What is your price point for your product or service?”, and “Knowing your price point, how much are you willing to spend to get a lead?” can help determine the appropriate budget allocation.

Different social media channels have varying costs, so it’s essential to allocate your budget accordingly. For example, LinkedIn is a more expensive platform than Facebook (with a higher CPC), so you’ll have to allocate a bit more of your budget for LinkedIn.

Let’s look at an example. If you are a leading web design company and want to market your services that typically cost several thousands of dollars, a few highly qualified leads a month would be great because even if you land just one, you’ll achieve ROI from your ad spending. Your CPL might be higher, but you’ll be fine with that because you know that you can sell your consulting services at a higher cost. With a 7% conversion rate and a CPL of $200, you would need an ad budget of around $2,850. However, with a CPL of $70 and the same conversion rate, the ad budget would be around $1,000. Making a media plan will help map out your budget, campaigns, ad products, and targeting.

Diversifying your PPC budget across multiple channels is a strategic approach to ensure broad yet targeted reach, optimising engagement and conversions. The key to effective allocation lies in understanding each platform’s strengths, audience demographics, and the cost dynamics of advertising on those platforms.

Here’s an example of budget allocation based on campaign hierarchy:

• Strategic objective segmentation: Allocate budget proportionally to stages of the funnel based on their importance to your overall business strategy. For instance, a new product launch might necessitate a temporary increase in budget allocation towards brand awareness.

The key here is to continuously analyse keyword performance across the funnel stages. Don’t just go for the lowest CPC, consider campaign ROI. This helps understand which keywords are driving conversions and are doing so in a cost-effective manner.

Keyword analysis also involves identifying keywords that underperform relative to their cost. These might be keywords with high CPC but low conversion rates or poor quality scores.

By carefully considering your advertising goals, target audience, and budget constraints, you can develop an effective strategy for deploying banner ads and maximising their impact on your marketing campaigns.

Conclusion

Throughout this comprehensive exploration of banner advertising, we have journeyed through the pivotal role these digital billboards play in sculpting the landscape of online marketing. From their inception and evolution to the sophisticated strategies that define their use today, banner ads are indispensable for bolstering brand awareness, driving traffic, and enhancing engagement with targeted audiences. Equipped with insights on design principles, targeting strategies, and the nuances of deploying banner ads effectively, brands are better positioned to craft captivating campaigns that resonate deeply with their desired demographic.

As we consider the future of digital advertising, it’s clear that personalisation, dynamic content, and strategic placement will continue to underscore successful banner ad campaigns. The challenges of ad fatigue and banner blindness can be creatively navigated through innovation, ensuring that banner ads remain a vital component of digital marketing arsenals. For those ready to elevate their online advertising efforts, or embark on a new journey of digital promotion, reaching out for expert assistance can make all the difference. Feel encouraged to contact Banner Squad through our online form for guidance tailored to your brand’s unique needs and objectives.