**We’re all used to seeing them – all singing, all dancing banner adverts, just begging for us to click them. And while it’s true that display advertising is a great way to boost your online presence, not every ad packs enough punch.**
Banner adverts get your product or business seen by thousands of website users every day, and for some businesses impressions alone will do the job just nicely. But if you want to do more than increase brand awareness, you’ll have noticed that display ads tend to only have an average (link: http://blog.hubspot.com/horrifying-display-advertising-stats text: 0.1% click-through-rate) (CTR). If you’re trying to drive traffic to your website then, yours need to be pretty special to warrant an all important click.
Ask yourself; when was the last time you clicked one of these adverts? What was it offering you that all the others weren’t? What made it stand out from everything else on the page?
As an advertising agency, we’re always working with clients to boost the success of their (link: https://www.superdream.co.uk/advertising/online-advertising/ text: online advertising) and help generate those all important conversions. Today, we’re going to share our top tips for improving the click-through-rate of your (link: https://www.superdream.co.uk/advertising/online-advertising/display-advertising/ text: banner advertising):
1. Know your audience
Before you get as far as designing your banner ads, you need to know your target audience. Who are you reaching out to, what are you promoting, and where should your adverts be places? This might sound simple, but if you get this vital stage wrong you can kiss goodbye to any clicks.
– **Know your audience demographic – **How can you construct a killer advert when you don’t know who you’re talking to? Take the time to construct a persona for your target audience – how old are they, where do they work, why do they need your product? (link: https://www.superdream.co.uk/advertising/consumer-market-research/ text: Market research) is hugely important for all businesses, and can help you with the designing and copywriting stages.
– **Choose the right placements **– The placement of your advert is almost as important as the design. Now you know who you’re targeting, you need to make sure your display adverts are placed on the websites they’ll visit. You can use Google’s Display Network to search for sites based on keywords or related information as well as using their automatic placement to give your adverts the best chance of getting clicked on.
2. Capture browsers’ attention
Once you’ve identified your target market and found the right locations for your adverts, you need to get designing. Your advert will need to capture the browser’s attention while they surf the web, and have a big enough impact that they click through to your website.
– **Make the most of brand familiarity – **If your brand is working, your target audience might already be familiar with you; use this to your advantage. Be sure to incorporate your brand colours, imagery, logo, and other (link: https://www.superdream.co.uk/what-is-a-brand/ text: brand elements) to help associate your advert with your company. If people recognise you at a glance, you might have just done enough to secure a click.
– **Format your font – **By literally bolding your content, your copy will stand out on the screen. Take advantage of italics and underlined font to emphasise your point, and make noise. Space will be limited and special formatting can really help you utilise the space well.
3. Keep the design simple
Capturing attention isn’t all about constructing an advert with bells and whistles. In fact, the saying ‘less is more’ couldn’t be more true when it comes to your banner ads. The space available to you is limited, so it’s important to create a simple – yet impactive – advert that is fit for purpose.
– **Simplicity in colour – **They say that ‘red and green should never be seen’, and going colour-crazy in your online adverts won’t help your CTR. Instead, opt for a simple colour pallet and use no more than 2 or 3 colours. Just make sure that these reflect your brand, and don’t distract from your sales message.
– **Consider your text – **(link: http://www.launchbit.com/blog/six-ways-to-improve-click-through-rate-on-your-bannerads/ text: Research from LaunchBit) shows that banner ads with a focus on text often received a higher CTR than image-only ones. We suggest using strong colours and imagery, whilst keeping your text to 130 characters of concise copy that sells your products. Check out our (link: https://www.superdream.co.uk/writing-quality-content/ text: top tips for writing killer copy) for some inspiration.
– **Use web-friendly fonts – **When designing your adverts, keep your typography legible. Make sure the colour of your text stands out against the background, and that the size is large enough to be read across all browsers, screen sizes, and device types.
4. Give something away for free
Everyone likes to get something for nothing. We especially like getting freebies when we’ve not had to do anything for them. Providing you have a killer giveaway idea, you might just notice an improvement in the CTR of your banner adverts.
– **Make sure it’s relevant – **Giving away free iPads when you sell musical instruments will increase your CTR rate, but it won’t encourage online conversions and returning customers. Instead, make sure you’re giving away something that appeals to your audience and is true to your brand. This could be everything from a free whitepaper or ebook, through to a website audit, or free shipping from your ecommerce store.
– **Appeal to wants and needs –** When deciding on your freebies, think about what your customers *need *as well as what they *want. *By knowing the difference and being able to appeal to both of these emotions, you’re much more likely to provide a giveaway that improves your CTR.
5. Consider interactivity
Advances in internet technology mean that you can now provide jaw-dropping rich media advertising. By making your banner adverts interactive, your adverts will stand out capture your audiences’ attention online.
– **Smart mapping – **If you have a bricks-and-mortar store, you should be using your online promotion to drive your customers’ offline. One of the most effective strategies for this is smart mapping; allowing your customers to search for stores local to them using their post code can help boost the click-through-rate of you banner adverts.
– **Mouse tracking –** You’ve probably seen those adverts or images that use mouse movements to change how they look. This concept will certainly make your banner stand out, and is a great way to interact with your customers.
6. Marry your CTA with your landing page
Clicks and conversions are different, and it is important to understand the difference. Just because someone has clicked on your banner, it doesn’t mean they will convert. It is the job of your landing page to bag the conversion. By marrying up your banner and your landing page, you can help create a much more effective advert.
– **Use clear CTAs – **Does your advert use the call-to-action “Buy Now”? If you do, be sure to send visitors to the product page on your ecommerce store. Don’t just send prospects to your site and expect them to find your products themselves. Use easily identifiable buttons, and make it as easy as possible to convert.
– **Track your advertising – **You should be tracking all of your advertising in a comprehensive way. If you handle sales better over the phone, include a tracked phone number on your banner ad and get someone on the phone. (link: https://www.superdream.co.uk/campaign-tracking/ text: Campaign Tracking) is a service from Superdream that can help you with this.
7. Test, test, and test again
Testing any advert or promotion is the best and most comprehensive way to improve its click-through-rate. AdWords and other banner ad services can help you with this, but you need to make sure you’re carrying out calculated and tracked testing.
– **Split testing – **Where possible, split test your adverts. Try text-heavy ads compared to visually striking ads, include your brand and see how you cope without it, and more. This is something that is possible with (link: https://www.superdream.co.uk/advertising/online-advertising/facebook-advertising/ text: Facebook advertising) in particular, and can really help you create a strong advert that works.
– **Find alternative placements – **You could also try switching up where you place your adverts, as this could have a considerable impact on their CTR. You might discover that your target audience is more active in one area than another; something which could drive up the CTR of your ads.
(link: https://www.superdream.co.uk/advertising/online-advertising/display-advertising/ text: Banner advertising) is a hugely popular method of getting your brand noticed online; they have a low cost and potentially high return making them extremely lucrative for marketers. If you want to increase your online reach, display adverts are a great place to start.