In today’s online world, display advertising where the web banner design focuses on the needs of the viewer rather than the features of a product gets results.

While the world of digital advertising has come a long way from using ‘static banner ads with a company logo’ to ‘ad matches user needs.’

The most effective banner advertising uses a variety of components. They can include powerful graphics, interactive elements, smart content, and the latest advertising technology.

Banner ads are placed on web pages in high-traffic areas to raise brand awareness and generate click-throughs, purchases, and leads.

The primary objectives of banner Ads are to increase brand awareness and drive relevant online traffic to your platforms. Meaning it is not only a brand-building tool but an important customer acquisition tool. 

However, among the ocean of digital clickable banner ads, the average click-through rate is only 0.25%.

Yes, that is the display ads CTR! The click-through rate (CTR) doesn’t look very impressive, isn’t it?

If you want to stand out from the crowd of advertisers, a better and more effective web banner design is key to success and ROI from online advertising. Effective banner ads entice the audience.

Read this article to understand successful web banner designs; we share some important banner ad design tips for your display ad.

These banner ad design tips will not only help you create effective banner ads but ultimately improve your CTRs by creating the most clickable banner ads.

Here is a complete checklist for creating better web banners that deliver a better CTR. 

What does a good banner ad look like? 

A display campaign can be successful if you design great banner ads using basic design guidelines.

Display ads click is directly related to how impressive the display ads look, how the ad visually blends, and the message it conveys in your display campaigns.

It is important to keep in mind the basic design principles of web banner design and create banner campaigns with well-balanced and attention-grabbing digital clickable banner ads.

Here are a few things that constitute effective web banner ad design guidelines:

The most successful standard banner sizes are:

• Leaderboard: 728 x 90px
• Half Page: 300 x 600px
• Medium Rectangle: 300 x 250px
• Large Rectangle: 336 x 280px

ProTip: These are standard banner sizes; what you need to keep in mind in the hierarchy banner ad design is the specific website you are advertising on and the ad size they accept.

1. The perfect color palette

The colors in the banner ad must reflect the personality of the brand. You can look up color psychology to choose the best-fitted colors for your website banner design. 

2. High-res images

Having low-resolution advertisement images embedded can immediately put off your audience. You must use high-quality and relevant imagery for your banner ads. 

3. Legible typography

The text in your banner ad should be easily readable. The font pairings, size, and placement are very important. For example, a serif font is the easiest to read, followed by sans serif, and script fonts have the least readability, especially for longer texts. 

4. Logo

A banner ad design without a clearly identifiable brand logo serves little to no purpose. A potential customer who sees the ad may not know who you are or what you do as a brand. 

5. Call to Action (CTA)

Clickable ads must have a clear call to action to direct the customer to the next step. The next step ideally would lead them to a landing page with a clearly defined frame and CTA.

Hacks to Making Engaging Banner Ads 

While these are some basic principles of a good banner ad, here are the steps to follow to make your ad the next best lead generation and sales tool:

1. Keep your target audience in mind when you create web banner ads

The content and placement of your ad should be in tune with your potential customers. A specific ad that is relevant ad gets more clicks and also has a better CTR & conversion rate.

To further understand your potential customers, you can run A/B testing. This involves testing two banner ads with minor tweaks and tracking their performance.

It will give you an idea about which ads your audience finds more relevant and interesting.  

If you are still unsure about what exactly needs to be improved in your ads, you can use tools available online to assess the gaps in your banner ads.

By constantly working with different versions, you can optimize your digital banner ad and improve the click-through rate. 

At FrontAd, we help clients in the development of marketing strategies, media mix development, and media activation across display, video, mobile, social, native, hyperlocal advertisements, influencer marketing, and social media.

We help brands come closer to the South Asian audience and translate ideas that pervade cultures to move through time and space to become prominent in South Asian spaces. 

Pro tip: To understand what keywords to include in your ads, identify the keywords your audience is searching for on the internet and try to duplicate them in your copy as well. 

2. Use innovation with standardized banners

A common mistake that many advertisers make is creating one standard banner ad to be used across locations and times of the day.

By tailoring your ad for each relevant occasion, you can increase the relevance of your ads, thereby improving the click-through rate as well. A great way to do this is by scheduling your ads in line with occasions and events. 

For example, this ad by CompareRemit, a money transfer comparison platform scheduled in the days leading up to Diwali, is more attractive to their audience and has a better click-through rate as people are looking to send money home to India as Diwali gifts.

Another popular way of grabbing eyeballs using banner ad marketing is to leverage moment marketing. Displayed soon after a popular or trending instance, these ads are highly captivating and retain value.   

3. Strategic placement of your web banner ads

First, you need to know which website you need to place your ads on. The relevance of your ad to the webpage is very important. Let’s say you are a financial service provider or an automotive brand targeting the top 1% of the United States. You must understand how people spend their time online.

For example, money transfer companies place their banner Ads on CompareRemit, the largest money transfer comparison platform that gets <insert number> higher returns. 

Second, within a webpage, you might have the option of placing an ad in various places. The most effective placement is at the top of the page or near the content of the page. When anyone visits the webpage, the banner ad should be one of the first things they notice.

FrontAd has a curated list of South Asian audiences and multiple brands covering beauty to immigration. Connect with the FrontAd team to understand your strategic placement options.

4. Mobile-First Advertisements

Currently, people majorly surf the internet through mobile devices. This means that your audience is more likely to view your banner ad on a phone screen than on a laptop or tablet screen.

Therefore, you should have a mobile-first strategy while creating your banner ad. 

With the spending on mobile advertising rising to as much as 60% of the total digital advertising expenditure worldwide, it is imperative that while designing banner ads, mobile ads should be a priority.

The ads can then be scaled up to fit other formats.

5. Use targeting campaigns

Understanding your customers’ psyche and purchase behavior is one of the critical processes for advertisers in digital marketing campaigns.

Correct messaging at the right time is what makes a successful banner ad. With advanced tools that track customer behavior at your disposal, you can use dynamic creatives to enable targeted advertising. 

In conclusion, making a web banner ad is not where it starts and ends. You must conduct thorough research of your target market and customer, design an ad keeping the design principles in mind and take advantage of the various tools and techniques to position your ads precisely.

If your web banner design conveys the message so potential customers can take action through clickable ads with an impressive landing page, your target audience will be prompted to act. Great online advertising and ad placement must attract not only a viewer’s interest but also serve specific objectives.

From brand recognition to a single ad in a massive customized campaign with thousands of banners, we’ve got you covered.