Banger BannersBest Practice for Banner Ad Creative that Converts

A TIMEZONEONE WHITEPAPER #2

CLAIRE McCALLUM, SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER

A TIMEZONEONE WHITEPAPER / BEST PRACTICE FOR BANNER AD CREATIVE THAT CONVERTS 2A TIMEZONEONE WHITEPAPER / HOW TO MAKE YOUR NEXT TRADESHOW PAY

WE CAN HELP

LookinggoodWhen it comes to display advertising, you only have seconds to grab your audience’s attention.

Bolster your ROI with these tips, tricks and best practices for banger banner creative that converts.

TIMEZONEONE CREATIVE PROCESS #creativewithpurpose

TOGETHER, WE’LL DIG DEEP TO UNDERSTAND YOUR CUSTOMERS + ASK QUESTIONS + IDENTIFY OPPORTUNITIES + COLLABORATE + CHALLENGE AND INNOVATE + CELEBRATE YOUR SUCCESS!

A TIMEZONEONE WHITEPAPER / BEST PRACTICE FOR BANNER AD CREATIVE THAT CONVERTS 3

But sometimes, they don’t live up to the hype. And between mobile usage, ad blockers, reduced

ad inventory and low click-through rates, you might be feeling pretty disillusioned by display

advertising and programmatic buys.

But before you cut and run and put your budget elsewhere, make sure you aren’t throwing the baby

out with the bath water.

Put your banner creative through this litmus test of best practice. After all, if it doesn’t cut it on a

phone, it probably won’t cut it anywhere else!

If you remember these steps on the following pages, you’ll be set for success.

Let’s get started...Looking to stake your brand’s claim on the web? Then banner ads are an excellent way to do it. They plant you out there in front of your target audiences, and are a simple and effective way to drive results.

A TIMEZONEONE WHITEPAPER / BEST PRACTICE FOR BANNER AD CREATIVE THAT CONVERTS 4

1. Set clear goals

First things first: What does success look like for you?

Why are you advertising?

• To raise brand awareness?

• Elicit a particular action?

• Drive online sales?

Partners will often provide a brief telling us what they

want, with no idea why they want it. Without a goal,

you have no framework to measure success.

You can’t really say whether your banners are working

or not, and you can’t come up with meaningful ways to

optimize them.

So, be SMART. Establish goals that are:

• Specific

o Be explicit with your advertising expectations

at the outset.

• Measureable

o Can you track revenue?

o Can you overlay sales data with

campaign performance?

• Agreed upon

o Are all stakeholders on board? Listen to and

challenge your media partners.

• Realistic

o Are you setting yourself up for success?

• Time-bound

o Put a date in place to measure success,

re-strategise and optimise.

There are many ways to measure success with ad

banners, depending on what your goals are. If you’re

all about brand awareness, then reach and impressions

will be of value to you. If you’re looking for sales, then

conversions might be the most important. For more

meaningful indications of engagement, you might like

to keep track of the following:

• Click-through rate (CTR)

o Is: The percentage of people who were

exposed to your ad then clicked on it.

o Calculation: Impressions ÷ ad clicks.

• Conversion

o Is: A pre-determined, measurable action.

For example, a form submission, online

purchase, phone call, or click on a member

website link.

o Calculation: Ad click + completed action.

• View-through conversion

o Is: A conversion that occurs within a specified

number of days after an ad click.

o Calculation: Ad click + completed action

within (most commonly) 30 days.

• Conversion rate

o Is: The percentage of ad clicks that resulted

in conversions.

o Calculation: Conversions ÷ ad clicks.

• Average cost-per-acquisition (CPA)

o Is: Average cost per conversion.

o Calculation: Cost ÷ conversions.

You know what you want the ad to achieve.

Next step is getting the audience to pay attention.

A TIMEZONEONE WHITEPAPER / BEST PRACTICE FOR BANNER AD CREATIVE THAT CONVERTS 5

2. Craft a strong call-to-action

A call-to-action is a persuasive hook that prompts

a response. The thing that shows them why your

product or service has value. The thing that tells your

reader what to do next.

So, it goes without saying you should make a big effort

to craft it just right.

Four things to consider:

1. Make it visibly clickable

a. If your ad blends really nicely with the site it’s

placed on, then users may not even realise it’s

an ad.

b. Users want to know what they can do if they

click on your ad, for example, “LEARN MORE”

or “BUY NOW”.

c. Buttons often increase the click-through rate of

your ad.

i. Contrasting colours ensure the

call-to-action stands out.

ii. People read left-to-right and

top-to-bottom, so bottom-right is a great

place for your call-to-action button.

TOP 10 HOLIDAY PARKS SPRING PROMOTION

Be holiday wise, take a spring break

BE WISE

30% OFF*

BOOK NOWBOOK NOW

*conditions apply

When you stay 2 nights or more

A TIMEZONEONE WHITEPAPER / BEST PRACTICE FOR BANNER AD CREATIVE THAT CONVERTS 6

2. Write an effective call-to-action

a. Use inspiring action verbs.

i. Start, get, stop, build, grow, find, join,

learn, discover, explore, show, plan, play,

try, save.

ii. Examples:

1. Discover Chicago Golf Courses >

2. Explore the Chicago Golf Scene >

3. Play Famous Chicago Golf Courses >

4. Put Chicago Golf on your Bucket List >

5. Play the Most Beautiful Golf Courses in the USA >

b. Tell your visitors what they get when

they click.

i. Example:

1. Learn More, becomes, Learn Where to Play Golf in Chicago >

c. Include “you” or “your”, or “me” or “my”.

i. Example:

1. Get Your Guide to Chicago Golf >

2. Start Planning Your Chicago Golf Getaway >

3. Show Me My Guide to Chicago Golf >

d. Other persuasive phrases like this:

i. Guarantee, results, free, because, new.

e. Create a sense of exclusivity or inside knowledge.

i. Examples:

1. Find Out Where the Locals Play Golf >

2. Play Golf Where the Pros Play >

f. Create a sense of urgency

(Hurry, Now, Last, Immediate, Today).

i. Example:

1. Plan Your Chicago Golf Adventure Today >

g. Offer social proof.

i. Example:

1. Discover Top-Rated Golf Courses >

3. Deliver what you promise

a. Offer an informative landing page and a great

user experience.

b. Ensure the content of your call-to-action and

landing page align.

4. Test your calls-to-action

a. What works for one audience may not

resonate with another.

You know why you’re doing what you’re doing, and

your audience knows what you’re asking them to do.

Time to align it with who you are.

CHICAGO WOLVES SEASON CAMPAIGN / OBJECTIVE: BRAND AWARENESS

A TIMEZONEONE WHITEPAPER / BEST PRACTICE FOR BANNER AD CREATIVE THAT CONVERTS 7

ALL NATURALPLANT–BASEDFULL FLAVOUR

PROUDLYAUSTRALIAN

3. Reflect your brand

Banner branding is important for awareness and

recall–even more so if you’re using your ads for

remarketing purposes. Your ad needs to feel like a

continuation of a visit to your site. Your brand needs to

be instantly recognisable.

• Banner on-brand

• Include your company logo in every frame of an

animated banner.

• If your logo doesn’t state what your brand does,

then explain it in your ads.

• Think about banners as a part of a bigger

integrated campaign, and the need to keep your

branding consistent.

• Align the aesthetic of your banner and

landing page

• Use colours, fonts, and themes to help visually link

your banners and landing page.

Next comes the words!

4. Write compelling copy

Here’s the deal. Despite all your hours of hard work,

consumers only look at banner ads for one-to-two

seconds. You have one-to-two seconds to engage,

inspire, and compel. How?

Do:

• Lead with your value proposition

o What’s the key piece of information you want

your users to take away or remember?

• Keep your headline copy short (5-10 words)

o Our brains can only process about 5 words

a second.

• Set your headline and body copy at different sizes

o Keep your copy to four lines or less.

Don’t:

• Use cursive/script fonts

• Use thin font weight

• Adopt a font smaller than 10pt

(unless for disclaimer purposes)

• Use all uppercase copy

(no one likes a shouter, anyway)

You’re sounding great —

now let’s get you looking great!

MASSEL SPRING CAMPAIGN / OBJECTIVE: BRAND AWARENESS FRANGO HOLIDAY CAMPAIGN

A TIMEZONEONE WHITEPAPER / BEST PRACTICE FOR BANNER AD CREATIVE THAT CONVERTS 8

5. Select effective imagery

Whether you’re commissioning photography or rolling

with stock, consider:

• Mobile

o How does your imagery fare on mobile’s tiny

slice of real estate?

• Simplicity

o Often the simplest is the most impactful.

• Authenticity

o Are people going to buy what you’re selling?

How else can you tell your story?

o User Generated Content is pure gold in this

space.

• Engagement

o Does your imagery invite, involve, and inspire?

• Resolution

o Are you putting your best foot forward

with this piece of imagery? Could the low

resolution influence the perception of your

credibility?

• Treating stock photography

o Don’t have the dosh for a photoshoot? No

worries; there are plenty of ways to make a

piece of stock photography your own. Simple

techniques like applying a gradient, cropping,

and text overlay can make all the difference.

Now let’s bring it all together…

A TIMEZONEONE WHITEPAPER / BEST PRACTICE FOR BANNER AD CREATIVE THAT CONVERTS 9

6. Choose the right size & type

Finally, the execution.

• Animated vs. Static

o Statics can often elicit a higher CTR than

moving image ads. Why? Ain’t nobody got

time to watch a 30 second ad.

- Keep animations short and sweet.

~ < 15 seconds.

~ Loop no more than three times.

- Design your rotation to support

your message.

- Test a call-to-action on each slide of

your animation to facilitate conversion

at any time.

- Ensure the final slide works as a stand-

alone ad with all the information and

design wizardry needed for conversion.

• Make your banner look like an ad

o Include your brand logo/name in

each frame.

o Have a clearly defined frame.

- The eye is naturally drawn

inside a frame.

- Extend your imagery and graphics to the

edge of the frame.

- For white banners, consider putting a

1-pixel grey border around the ad.

• Successful banner sizes

o Wider ad sizes are reader-friendly and tend to

outperform taller versions.

- We read left-to-right, after all.

o According to Google AdSense, you’re best to

design to:

- 728x90 leader board

- 300x600 half-page

- 300x250 medium rectangle

- 336x289 large rectangle

o And from humble experience, we’re fans of:

- 336x280 large rectangle

- 300x250 medium rectangle

- 728x90 leader board

- 300x600 half page

- 320x100 large mobile banner

A TIMEZONEONE WHITEPAPER / BEST PRACTICE FOR BANNER AD CREATIVE THAT CONVERTS 10

728 x 90 leader board

300 x 600 half-page

300 x 250 medium rectangle

336 x 289 large rectangle

320 x 100 large mobile banner

Please note that the above diagram

has been scaled down.

Optimal banner sizes

A TIMEZONEONE WHITEPAPER / BEST PRACTICE FOR BANNER AD CREATIVE THAT CONVERTS 11

Bonus refresher: Banner ad targeting options

You may well be across all these. But sometimes a ten-thousand-foot look at your targeting options can

make a world of difference to a campaign. Here’s a refresher of what’s available to you on Google AdWords.

• Demographic targeting

• Location targeting

• Topic targeting

• Interest categories

• Placement targeting

• Contextual targeting (keywords)

• Category exclusions

• Remarketing

o Previous website visitors

o Shopping card abandonment

o Email lists

And you can mix them up as well! Don’t be afraid to A/B test targeting combinations.

Here are some thought starters from Google:

Goal: Direct Sales

Targeting methods “Target & Bid” (default setting)

“Bid only” When ads can show

Keywords + placements Keywords +

placements

Not

selected

Keywords AND placments both required for ads to show.

Audience + age Audience + age Not

selected

Audiences AND age both required for ads to show.

Keywords + topics Keywords + topics Not

selected

Keywords AND topics both required for ads to show.

Remarketing + gender Remarketing + gender Not

selected

Remarketing AND gender both required for ads to show.

Topics + audiences Topics + audiences Not

selected

Topics AND in-market audiences both required for ads to show.

A TIMEZONEONE WHITEPAPER / BEST PRACTICE FOR BANNER AD CREATIVE THAT CONVERTS 12

Goal: Brand Awareness

Targeting methods “Target & Bid” (default setting)

“Bid only” What it means

Age + gender + affinity audiences

Age + gender + affinity audiences

Not selected Age AND gender AND affinity audiences all required for ads to show.

Affinity audiences + age*

Affinity audiences Age Affinity audiences required for ads to show. If affinity audiences and age overlap, you’ll see reporting for both. The bid used will depend on your bidding selection.

Keywords + placement Keywords Placements Keywords required for ads to show. If keywords and placement overlap, you’ll see reporting for both. The bid used will depend on your bidding selection.

Keywords + gender* Keywords Gender Keywords required for ads to show. If keywords and gender overlap, you’ll see reporting for both. The bid used will depend on your bidding selection

Topics + affinity audiences + placements

Topics + affinity audiences

Placements Topics AND affinity audiences both required for ads to show. If topics, affinity audiences and placements overlap, you’ll see reporting for both. The bid used will depend on your bidding selection

* Some thought starters from Google:

A TIMEZONEONE WHITEPAPER / BEST PRACTICE FOR BANNER AD CREATIVE THAT CONVERTS 13A TIMEZONEONE WHITEPAPER / HOW TO MAKE YOUR NEXT TRADESHOW PAY

SO NOW, GO FORTH AND MAKE IT HAPPEN

Time tomakemagicYou’ve got a great brand. Now rep it with a great banner. With these six steps, we think you’ll have no problems.

Let us know how it goes! Or if you’d like a little more guidance, we’re here to help.

ClaireTimeZoneOne can help you master your banner adverts

LET’S TALK

#TZOGO

Banner adverts can be challenging. It helps to have a marketing partner who knows what they’re doing.

Even better if that partner has a track record of delivering proven results.

Our team of banner advert experts can help you:

+ Activate ROI with a strong advertising strategy

+ Build buzz through marketing

+ Improve your advert’s impact

+ Nurture your leads

LET’S GET STARTED

Speak to Claire about your next online advertising campaign claire@timezoneone.com