What are your thoughts on banner advertising? Do you consider it as dead as Flash? Or do you use its reincarnation (Animate CC) or purist HTML to create appealing, inviting banners?
Admittedly, banner advertising doesn't have the best reputation for many reasons. Many users have learned to ignore it or even distrust it, with ad blockers supporting this behaviour. However, in this article, we'll show you how banner advertising can be made attractive and thus achieve the desired effect.
The Revolution
Today, banners are no longer integrated with Flash, but created with HTML5. Adobe has also recognised this development and rebranded the software: Flash became Animate CC. While SWF files can still be created with ActionScript, a significant new area was added: the creation of HTML files in combination with Javascript. This development makes banners much more flexible (responsive!) and, one could say, finally brings them into the new millennium.
The Advantages
The greatest advantage of banner advertising is its broad reach. It is a cost-effective form of direct advertising. Its success is also measurable, and if a campaign is implemented correctly, specific goals can be achieved. It is particularly well suited for concrete discounts and promotional offers.
The Secret
But what is the key to successful banner advertising? The visitor must perceive it as useful additional information, not as a distracting nuisance. This can be achieved in three essential steps:
1. THE RIGHT TARGET GROUP TARGETING
The better I know my target group, the more effectively I can place banners on pages that are highly relevant to them and where they fit thematically, not standing out unpleasantly, but quite the opposite, representing useful additional information. For example, banner advertising for a sports brand on a fitness blog.
2. BANNER PLACEMENT
It's not just relevant where the banner advertisement is placed, but also how it's integrated on that page. The most important thing is that the user isn't deterred from their original action, otherwise, they will perceive the advertising as aggressive, consciously ignore it, and associate it negatively.
The same overwhelming effect occurs when too many banners are integrated on a page, or if the same banner appears multiple times on a website, as seen on Woxikon.de, for example. This comes across as intrusive and often leads to a negative attitude from the user.
ConversionXL describe the problem in more detail in their blog post Banner Ads Suck (and How to Make Them Convert Better): people read a page following an F-pattern, meaning the right side – where banners are usually placed – is often ignored.
An example mentioned in the article comes from Dr. Flint Mc Laughlin of MarketingExperiments, who found that moving the banner from the right to the left side increased engagement by 74%. Therefore, an unconventional (but not disruptive) placement of banners is always advantageous.
3. APPEALING, TRUST-INSPIRING DESIGN
All too often, banners are made with the mistake of excessive exaggeration: too many images, too many colours, too many fonts, too much animation. This makes them look cheap. And anything that looks cheap is usually classified as spam and, out of caution, isn't touched at all.
And why should anything different apply to banners than to conventional advertising? The keyword here is precisely the same: simplicity. This can be achieved through a plain design (e.g., a reputable font, an appealing image, an eye-catching button, and well-thought-out animation).
Furthermore, if the banner integrates well into the website's design, it will most likely be perceived as a helpful element (and not as annoying advertising). This can be achieved by keeping the banner's background transparent, or by choosing a style that harmonises well with that of the website and appeals to the target group's taste.
Some examples of what well-designed banner advertising can look like can be found in the blog post Designing The Perfect Web Banner Ad: 50 Examples To Help You Get it Right from the Canva Designschool.
After Flash died out, banner advertising was not predicted a rosy future. Yet it defies the gloomy forecasts and reinvents itself. Thumbs up!
