Display ad banners are an effective way of driving engagement and building your media channels. They are so crucial to your ability to grow brand awareness and advertise that the industry has an entire set of well-established best practices to guide you through developing banner ads. While it may be tempting to always follow those best practices, there are times when you can get better results without them. In this article, we discuss the banner ad best practices and why you should ignore them.
Pictures with People Perform Better
One of the most widely used tricks to improve performance when you create your own banner is to include pictures of people. There is evidence to support this claim. However, it comes with a caveat.
No matter what type of picture you include in your banner ads, they won’t improve performance if they are not relevant to what you are selling. For example, using an online banner maker to create a banner for a video game will likely include a picture. If that picture has two people playing basketball in it, then the picture won’t help the ad perform any better. If you change that picture to two people playing video games, you should see an improvement in performance.
To get the benefit, find a way to include people that relate to what you are selling. Otherwise, that picture is just taking up space in the banner. Whether your picture includes people or not, make sure it relates to the product or service that you are selling.
Color Coding
The effect of different colors on viewers’ mindsets and actions has been debated for a long time. There is a set of effects tributed to each color that many people have been able to agree on. For example, people believe that red is a color that always attracts attention, and green can improve the number of click throughs a button gets.
While there is some evidence to support these assertions, they are not always effective or applicable to your situation. It is better to use the color that feels right for your situation.
Measuring the Right Metrics
There are plenty of rules regarding which metrics you should measure for specific features. Unfortunately, those rules may be inaccurate depending on what you want to measure. One of the biggest problems is trying to measure conversions or engagement. Many companies try to measure the Click Through Rate (CTR) as a means of seeing if ads are effective. However, click throughs do not effectively measure engagement or conversions. It only shows the number of interactions with a specific element.
Rather than sticking to the rules about how to use metrics, double-check to see if that metric will deliver the results that you are looking for. There are many different ways to measure metrics. All you might need is a slight adjustment in how you measure a specific metric. Fortunately, there is a large number of tools available to help you measure metrics that let you choose from an even larger number of methods and metrics. That way, you can easily switch to the right method and collect the right data without instituting a new metrics program.
Overusing Fake Urgency
When you are trying to close a sale, one of the techniques that is frequently used is creating urgency. There are many ways to do this from invoking FOMO (the fear of missing out) to limiting the amount of time an advertisement is available for. The idea is to combine these with other techniques so that customers feel a sense of urgency and take action immediately. Because they don’t want to miss the opportunity, many customers will take action. However, overusing this fake urgency can backfire. Don’t rely on fake urgency too often. Instead, try to reserve it for the moments that matter most.
Try New Things with Ad2Cart
Ultimately, the best way for you to fix a lot of these issues and find what works best for you is to keep trying new things. Ad2Cart makes that easy by giving you access to one of the best banner ad making tools available. Check out Ad2Cart for help making better banner ads for your company or brand.
