Banner design: how to design your own banners

Online ad­vert­ising is a powerful tool in the online marketing arsenal. Display ads like banners are important factors if you want to advertise suc­cess­fully on the internet. Ad­vert­ising through graphic ad­vert­ising media is usually known as display marketing. By in­teg­rat­ing target-oriented ad­vert­ise­ments into websites, you can catch the attention of potential customers without over­ex­cit­ing them with intrusive ad design. After all, poor ad­vert­ising can also damage your brand, whilst well-designed ad­vert­ise­ments lead to sig­ni­fic­antly more clicks and (generally) more sales. In spite of the ad blocker broblem, ad­vert­ise­ments are still one of the more effective tools of online marketing.

There are many different types of online ad­vert­ising, some of which work dif­fer­ently and have different effects:

• Pop-ups, pop-unders, and layered ads: These ads, which are par­tic­u­larly unpopular with many website visitors, are usually played out as soon as a website visitor carries out a certain action. Usually these ads use JavaS­cript and open new browser windows, which either pop up suddenly over the visited website (pop-ups) or are opened in the back­ground, so that you can’t notice them until you close the other browser windows (pop-under). Some ads respond to mouse movement or scrolling: an ad is often displayed in the same browser that hides the un­der­ly­ing content of the visited website (layer ads). Users can now block pop-ups and pop-unders pretty suc­cess­fully with ad-blockers, but not yet for layer ads. Since the afore­men­tioned ad­vert­ising often sup­presses or obscures the actual website content, many users consider this type of ad­vert­ise­ment to be dis­rupt­ive spam. It is therefore un­sur­pris­ing that providers like Google are now com­pletely abandon­ing these ad­vert­ising methods.
   
• Rich media: Small audio and video elements should reach the user quickly, but still fit seam­lessly into the website. These ad­vert­ise­ments can be placed stat­ic­ally or “jostle” into the content – e.g. through in­ter­sti­tials that are inserted before the ad­vert­ise­ment is set up. A key element of rich media is that it offers extended functions that motivate users to interact with it, compared to tra­di­tion­al forms. Small games and other in­ter­act­ive elements are often in­teg­rated into these displays. However, the com­par­at­ively large data volumes of rich media content mean that they cannot always be displayed on websites seam­lessly. The increased data volume can also interfere with browsing on the user side. This applies, in par­tic­u­lar, to mobile use, where a lower bandwidth is usually available.
   
• Text displays: The most min­im­al­ist­ic form of ad­vert­ise­ment – text ad­vert­ise­ments usually consist of a short ad­vert­ise­ment title, which sim­ul­tan­eously links to the ad­vert­iser’s web page, a UDL that leads to the ad­vert­iser’s homepage, and a short de­scrip­tion text. They are mainly used in search engine marketing.
   
• Video ad­vert­ising: Whilst online marketers initially focused on text and banner ad­vert­ise­ments for technical reasons (because they could be played out without problems even with a weaker internet con­nec­tion), ad­vert­ising videos became in­creas­ingly in­ter­est­ing with the growing use of broadband con­nec­tions. Ad­vert­ising videos are sometimes played auto­mat­ic­ally on a website. They can be in­teg­rated as usual in a certain area of a website, or be switched as in­ter­rupt­ing in­ter­sti­tial before the con­struc­tion of a just-accessed page. Layer ads that are placed over the website text also often contain video ads. Videos are usually in­teg­rated using Flash. Used in­cor­rectly, however, ad­vert­ising videos can have a very annoying effect, since they usually take up a lot of space on the web page (or cover it almost com­pletely), and often the sound is activated by default. On the other hand, videos can be used to present ad­vert­ising content in a more appealing or im­press­ive way than any other ad­vert­ising format.
   
• Banner ad­vert­ising: As part of banner ad­vert­ising, marketers use pre­defined ad­vert­ising space on websites to advertise (usually static) graphics for specific brands or products. These banners are resource-saving and usually do not replace the actual website content. However, ad­vert­ising banners are faded out by most ad blockers, although they appear to be much less intrusive than pop-ups or layer ads. Banner ef­fect­ive­ness depends heavily on the ad­vert­ised product and format. If you advertise a product that needs to be displayed visually (e.g. food or clothing), you only have space for a cor­res­pond­ing picture on the larger banners. For ad­vert­isers, tracking and targeting makes it easy to un­der­stand how many users become aware of their offer through a banner. Another advantage: banners are re­l­at­ively easy to create. Therefore, ad­vert­ising banners are also suitable for the marketing of smaller companies.

Ad­vert­ising banners are ideally placed using an ad network like the Google Display Network, and are a popular com­prom­ise solution: they are not as eye-catching as layer ads, and do not allow for a product present­a­tion as im­press­ive as elaborate ad­vert­ising video ads, but they are also perceived as less annoying by com­par­is­on. In contrast to pure text displays, they also work with visual stimuli. Well-designed ad­vert­ising banners entice the user to call up the cor­res­pond­ing offer page with just one click. However, the ad­vert­ise­ment design is also extremely important: in most cases, your banner ad­vert­ise­ment just has a few seconds to reach the potential customer. To have your ad­vert­ise­ment be perceived pos­it­ively, you need to pay attention to certain design prin­ciples. This article explains step by step how to create com­pel­ling banners.

There are dis­tinc­tions between the following formats, among others:

Keep in mind that the graphics for your banner should be no larger than 150kb. Suitable image formats are .PNG and .JPG, as well as others for animated ads. Ad­di­tion­ally, you should consider three core contents of your banner ad­vert­ise­ment:

• Logo: Your own logo is essential when trying to increase brand awareness. Good logos can be re­cog­nised in a fraction of a second, and can be designed so that they won’t be perceived as annoying. A badly made logo, on the other hand, can cause con­sid­er­able damage to the brand, since an un­pro­fes­sion­al logo will conjure the image of an un­pro­fes­sion­al product to the consumer. Therefore, it is worth investing suf­fi­cient time and resources into your logo design. Our logo guide will give you helpful tips on how to create an appealing one.
   
• User promise: Your ad needs to com­mu­nic­ate exactly what is on offer in just a split second. The viewer should be able to recognise the offer, so that their attention is “rewarded” with in­form­a­tion. If the in­form­a­tion is relevant to the viewer, interest is generated. If you’re ad­vert­ising low prices or a special offer, you can just display the price (“Flights starting at £10!”) or a per­cent­age discount (“Now 20% off shoes!”).
   
• Call to action: Your ad­vert­ise­ment needs to be clearly in­ter­act­ive. What will happen if a user clicks the ad? Simple text and buttons (“Go to shop”, “Redeem voucher”, “Register here” etc.) make sure the user knows what clicking on the ad will do, so that they will know for sure that clicking on the ad will be of value to them.

Since ad­vert­ise­ments often lead to action by the visitor, the button is probably the most important component of the banner and must stand out clearly from the rest of the display. Elements that contrast with the back­ground of the ad in terms of colour are usually very no­tice­able. In our example, the button in the ad­vert­ising banner is bright orange and is next to the special offer in­form­a­tion, making it the most attention-grabbing element of the ad­vert­ise­ment. Due to its small size, the mobile lead­er­board can be regarded as a kind of button – so you should not use a special button there.

The prompt should be po­si­tioned so that it forms “the end of the reading path”. In this way, the display first conveys the most important in­form­a­tion (the user promise) and then ad­vert­ises the click button (prompt). You should always keep the viewer’s natural reading direction in mind.

You can get a little more creative when it comes to using picture elements. Don’t overdo it though. An ad over­loaded with graphic gimmicks deters viewers rather than arouses interest.

Depending on the industry or brand, it can be useful to install a key visual. This is a key element that rep­res­ents your brand. If you run an online shoe shop, you ideally have a shoe pictured somewhere in your ad. Fast food chains usually show an ideal image of their product (like a hamburger) in the ad­vert­ise­ment. In our example, we want to show the customer im­me­di­ately that it’s all about desks.

If you offer a wider range of different products, you can also show a selection of your most at­tract­ive products in some ad­vert­ise­ments. These can be movie posters if you run a streaming service, for example. If you offer a photo service, a par­tic­u­larly at­tract­ive photo would suit that ad very well. Large formats like half pages and wide sky­scrapers offer you a lot of space to use cre­at­ively for this purpose. Always make sure that you have rights to the images you use, however.

Ad­vert­ising using personal pictures is also common: online shops often advertise with models who appear in their ad­vert­ise­ments. Sports equipment suppliers rely on prominent sports stars to arouse positive as­so­ci­ations. Food man­u­fac­tur­ers primarily use images to market their products for consumer needs. In the above example, the viewer should establish a con­nec­tion between the primeval forest landscape and perfume. Ad­di­tion­ally, the product can be quickly re­cog­nised thanks to users having seen the image in stores.

The in­tel­li­gent use of images in ad­vert­ising banners is therefore essential for marketing success.

If you use other people’s images, please make sure that you have secured the legal usage rights to these pictures. Otherwise, you run the risk of legal con­sequences.

The same applies to animated ad­vert­ise­ments: if you bombard the viewer, they will ignore them at best or be annoyed by them at worst. After all, too many image changes can con­sid­er­ably disrupt your internet streaming flow. For this reason, users use ad-blockers that block almost all ad­vert­ising formats. Some an­im­a­tions also cause the display to look a little dubious: for example, if you make your button or prompt glow brightly, possible gambling as­so­ci­ations may be evoked and could remind a viewer of spam pop-ups. Consumers will quickly consider them to be frauds and clickbait – this could damage your brand’s repu­ta­tion.

Ul­ti­mately, an animated ad­vert­ising banner can lead to success – but the design should be left to pro­fes­sion­als who can find the right balance and make an­im­a­tions look fluid. Poorly animated ad­vert­ising banners have a dis­turb­ing effect.

• Brand uni­form­ity: Try to design your ad­vert­ise­ments according to your website design. This increases the brand re­cog­ni­tion, and many users should be able to recognise what the company is ad­vert­ising by the design alone.
   
• Adapt the layout to the pages where your ads are likely to appear. Ideally, your ads should look like they are an integral part of the website rather than a dis­rupt­ive element.
   
• Focus on the basic design guidelines: Ad­vert­ise­ments have to attract attention and marketers often achieve this in unusual ways. However, even if you stick to certain rules when it comes to colour design or font choice, you can create a good ad­vert­ise­ment. To do this, fa­mil­i­ar­ise yourself with the concept of com­ple­ment­ary colours.
   
• Take note of colour symbolism: Colors can cause different viewer reactions and activate different as­so­ci­ations. If you sell an organic product, a green-brown color scheme will suggest en­vir­on­ment­al friend­li­ness. Beauty products often use pale pink and blue in their ad­vert­ising schemes. Be sure to consider your target group when choosing colours.
   
• Invest enough time and resources: A poorly made ad­vert­ise­ment can do more harm than good to your brand. If you are not sure enough about how to use graphics programs, you should leave designing your ad­vert­ise­ment to a pro­fes­sion­al.