Banner is a graphical web-advertising unit. The unit ideally measures 468 x 60 i.e. 468 pixels wide and 60 pixels long. Nowadays, banner predominates the online advertising. Banner ad is small rectangular advertisements that appear on all types of web pages. It varies in look, content and theme.
Banner Ads is the main source of Internet based marketing and provide global platform for placing your product or service information. This graphic component is somewhat similar to advertisements in a printed publication of any magazine or newspaper. But, banner ad has capability to turn a simple reader into a potential customer by redirecting them to advertiser's website.
Banners become the major part of the World Wide Web world. Ad copywriters continuously look for new designs to grab the visitors’ attention and compel them to click on banner. In order to insist viewers it is necessary that banner should arouse the visitor’s curiosity.
The Banner advertisement was first appeared on Internet in 1994 and after that
it is increasing in the Internet marketing. Now, with growing popularity of
Internet more and more individuals and corporate houses developing banner ads
for advertising their services, products and websites. There are several types of banners varies in sizes and shapes. Each of the banners is designed with a specific purpose and reflects particular messages. The placements of banners on website plays vital role in attracting people and generating clicks. For instance if you place banner at the top of your website or on your website header, it mostly showcased the company’s image while pasting the banner within the content area drives lots of clicks, and footer banners perform really well if they are particularly large in size. The technologies used to create these visual advertisements varies, some banner designers create banner in GIF formats while some designers use flash technologies to create more animated products that will obviously bring more clicks than visitors to a client's website.
Some of the basic banners designing tips are below:
Animation: Animation must be used carefully since the purpose of the animation is to attract visitors, not to irritate them. Animation should be used as a fine tool to attract attention but not interfere or clash with the design of the web page you are advertising on. It is advised not to allow an animation to loop endlessly.
Bright Colors: Blue, yellow, and green banners have a higher Click-through-rate (CTR) than black-and-white banners. Use the color red sparingly.
Use the word "Free/Discount/Special Offer/OFF" in your banner: Depending on what's offered, the word ‘free/Discount/Special Offer/OFF’ can increase CTR's. For example, offering a free software demo gets a good response. Offering free money arouses suspicion since people will want to know what the catch is.
Keep the message short: Simple banners have higher CTRs than lengthy, complicated banners.
Ensure you linked the banner to a specific page: When people click on the banner, they want to go directly to the web page that has the information they want. Your visitors do not want to hunt for the information.
Refresh or change your banners frequently: Studies have shown that CTRs drop significantly after 2 weeks. The CTR usually increases when a new banner appears.
