Animated banners are a great way to grab the attention of your site visitors. They have the capability of grabbing attention in a few seconds. They also give the impression that your website has more content than it actually does, thus making users feel more comfortable about scrolling down to see what else you have to offer them.
The real question is how long should animated banners be on your website? The answer depends on various factors like the content of your site, the design of your site and other contextual factors.
To help you get an idea of how long animated banner ads should be on your site, read this article to learn more about the role of animated banners in marketing strategies and their suitability for different sites as well as different audience types.
How Animated Banners Are Used in Marketing Strategies
A good example of a site with a compelling banner ad is Amazon.com. Amazon has a great strategy for using animated banners for their site. They create an engagement-building experience with their banner ads and also make use of the product imagery to create an emotional connection with their customers. Amazon also has an amazing tracking mechanism for their banner ads.
What you might have noticed is that sites like Amazon and others do not use animated banners for just any website. They have a specific strategy in mind when they use animated banner ads. They realize that their customers are busy and are often distracted. They know that the best way to get their customers’ attention is to grab a little bit of their attention and then keep it for a longer period of time.
Hence, these sites choose to use animated banners to grab visitors’ attention and get them to stay for a longer time on their site.
Appropriate Length of Animated Banners
Now that you know how animated banners are used in marketing strategies, it’s time to see what length of time they should be on your site. First things first, we have to look at the context of your site and the nature of your business. Animated banner ads have a very short lifespan on people’s minds. If a user sees the banner ad on their screen for too long, they will subconsciously become annoyed by it and then consciously notice its presence less.
The adverting cycle in the human mind is not very long, and when something new is introduced, it is then replaced by something else. Animated banners have a very short lifespan as compared to sit-in ads like text ads or images.
The average lifespan of an animated banner is just 3 seconds, with the top ads lasting just 5 seconds and the lowest ones lasting 8 seconds.
Suitability of Animated Bareds for Different Sites
Now that we have an idea about the appropriate length of animated banners for different sites, it’s time to look at their suitability for different types of sites. First things first, we have to look at the type of content that your site offers and how that content is engaging. if your site is about travel and offers interactive content, then you should go for an animated banner that captures your visitors’ attention by using various types of animations. For example, if your site is about business and provides content that is helpful to people in the corporate world, you should go for a business-friendly animated banner that is easy on the eyes and doesn’t have a lot of complicated animations.
Suitability of Animated Bareds for Different Audience Types
Now that we have seen the suitability of animated banners for different types of sites, we can now see what animated banners are right for different types of audience. Let’s start with the broadest audience and move towards the broadest niche audience.
An audience with a neutral attitude towards your content is a good fit for an animated banner. This type of audience is not very interested in your content and is simply scanning your site to see if it has anything better to do.
An audience with a positive attitude towards your content is also a good fit for an animated banner. You can create an engaging and memorable experience with your animated banner that will make your visitors feel welcome and special.
Audiences with a negative or skeptical attitude towards your content are not good fits for an animated banner. You can create a compelling message with an animated banner, but it will not get noticed if the users are skeptical about everything in the world.
How to Find Out the Optimal Length of an Animated Banner Ad?
To find out the optimal length of an animated banner on your site, you can use a tool like Adobe Optim Optimizely Audience Extension to find out the most clicked pages and then look at the average time spent on those pages. If you are not comfortable with the data provided by the tool, you can also do some research on your own and find out what people are most likely to click on and spend their time on on your page.
For example, if you are advertising your online store, you can look at the most clicked pages on your site, check the most frequently purchased items, and see what people are clicking on when they are on those pages. You can use this information to decide what you should have in your banner ad.
How to know when to remove an animated banner from your site?
You can easily remove an animated banner from your site if it doesn’t have a purpose in your marketing strategy or if it is not converting the visitors on your site. When you go live with your first trial of an animated banner, you will most likely not know what to do with it. You will instantly want to put it on your site, without looking at the context in which it should be used. But as you continue to use them and get a better understanding about them, you will be able to tell which ones can stay on your site and which ones you should take off.
You should also keep an eye on the click-through rate (CTR) for these banners. If the customers are not clicking on your banners, you should remove them.
Wrapping Up:
Now that you know how long animated banners should be on your site, it’s time to get started with it. But before you start, you should have a clear idea of your goals with them. You can use this article as a guide to find out what your goals are with your animated banner ads, and you can also create goals for your conversion rate and time on site. You can also use an optimization tool like Optimizely to help you with this.
Once you know what your goals are, it’s time to decide what is the best fit for your site. This will help you with the following:
- How long your animated banners should be
- What tone your animated banners should have
- How your animated banners should be designed
- When you should post your animated banners
These are only some of the things you need to keep in mind when deciding on the best type of banner for your site.
