Banner ads are a staple of online advertising, and have been for quite some time. Over the years, they have evolved and changed to meet the changing needs of both publishers and advertisers, but they are still a staple that most businesses – small single operator affiliate businesses and enormous multinational corporations, alike – employ to get the word out about their products and services.

But since banner ads are staples, they’re also ubiquitous and can therefore be easily dismissed by users due to ad fatigue and more if you’re not careful. That doesn’t mean you should dismiss using banner ads yourself. After all, they can be very profitable, and a banner ad on a page somewhere is not just an impetus to click, it’s also still an immediate impression, even if the user doesn’t click at all, right? So it just means you need to be smart about using them. To make effective use of banner ads, it’s important to keep the following guidelines in mind:

• Make sure the ad has all of the necessary pieces: an interesting headline and a graphic or design that catches the eye are a must. You must also make sure the file size is small enough that it loads quickly, and the dimensions will fit in the space allotted to it on the page.

• Don’t make it annoying: sounds when you mouse over the ad, garish colors, fast blinking or flashing graphics and text might attract the eye for a second, but that attraction will swiftly change to annoyance, so it’s best to stay away. This is not to say you should never use animations in your banner ads. Quite the contrary – animations in banner ads can be highly effective. You just need to make sure that the animation you use isn’t overbearing in some way, as happens when people use rapid flashing or blinking graphics in their banners.

• Make it tasteful: the classier your ad looks, the better impression you will make, so stick to tasteful colors, graphics, and fonts, unless you have a very excellent reason for doing otherwise. If possible, your banner ads should complement the page they are on, so they fit in with the overall design of the site, and work with the page rather than against it. That means if you’re putting the banner on a site that sticks to muted neutrals, using a banner composed entirely of neon green will stand out, but not necessarily in the way you’d want. By making it complement the space that surrounds it, it looks less like an ad and more like an important, integral part of the site that deserves attention.

• Make sure you get to the point right away: you have very limited space and very limited time in which to hook someone with your banner ad, so you have to make the most of it. When you write the copy, keep it as short and simple as possible while making sure it gets right to the point. Look for ways to incorporate your most important keywords, and make sure you highlight the happiness factor we spoke about in Part 1 (“Know Your Audience”). Use only enough to get the point across.
Too wordy, and your users will lose interest.