Creating an Eye-Catching Banner Ad

Creating an eye-catching banner ad is essential for any business looking to advertise online. People's eyes are naturally drawn to a subject within a frame, so it's important to have a clearly defined frame with graphics that extend to the edges of the box. When it comes to file size, the smaller the better, under 150 kb, according to Google Adwords. Your ad needs to load quickly on a page before viewers scroll down and miss it.

JPG, PNG, GIF or HTML5 files are the most common work products.Designers typically work in Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop to deliver the JPG, PNG or GIF files, or in Google Web Designer or Adobe Animate for the HTML5 files. Flash ads are pretty outdated at this point, so opt for these other image file formats. Animation should be done in HTML5 nowadays. For static ads, there are a few "new photoshop tricks" to make them look sharp.

Besides creating them at 10000dpi, you can use tools like Google Web Designer, Adobe Animate, Fotor, Pixlr, Canva, Snappa and Instasize to create eye-catching ads for Google Adwords, Google Display Network, Annex Advertising Network, Bing Display and DuckDuckGo, as well as for social networks. VistaCreate also makes it easy for you to design an eye-catching banner ad.When it comes to placement of banner ads, the most effective ad placement for most of them is above the main content of the page and near that content too. Being able to quickly customise and edit a banner yourself can have great long-term benefits versus the expense of hiring a designer.Design branded banners for print and use at company events, conferences, conventions or signage announcements. Looking at examples of banner ads can help you understand what works best - photography is not always necessary but should probably be part of your banner ads if you sell actual physical products.

Animated banners often outperform static banners and can be very effective in website banner design but make sure they don't distract from the message of the ad.Ask yourself what you ultimately want to achieve with your banner ad to find the objective of your campaign. The most common objectives of web banner campaigns are to create brand awareness, generate leads and increase sales. Now that you have chosen an advertising platform, placement and ad size, you can start creating and designing it.When designing your banner ad, remember that it is futile to try to create visually complex ads when all you would receive most of the time is just a glance from a viewer. Dollar Tree's whole image is based on being cheap - often people feel the need to explain their message more and they do this by adding more text to their banners.You should spend at least as much time planning your banner advertising campaign as you do designing your banners.

Spending time researching your target audience will ensure that you don't completely miss the mark and create a banner campaign that fails.

Cathleen Wheeley
Cathleen Wheeley

Friendly zombie aficionado. Certified social mediaholic. Evil travel ninja. Infuriatingly humble coffeeaholic. Pop culture expert.