Which Banner Formats and Advertising Sizes Will Work Best on My Website
Posted in Banner Design
Which Banner Formats and Advertising Sizes Will Work Best on My Website
There are a number of banner adverts that are designed to compliment and work well with certain websites. We take a look at which formats are the best to use for maximum revenues.
Banner ads are used to attract attention and generate click throughs for your advertisers, as well as boosting revenue for you when placed on your website.
However, when it comes down to asking your advertisers to produce the right banner, there is so much more to it than just getting them to throw together a few words and pictures. There are formats that pull better responses than others and it is as much about creating the right message as it is about the design and use of colour.
Now you may be wondering why you should get involved in advising on production and design issues relating to ad copy, but it is so important to do so for long-term success. The point is that there are very few publishers and website owners who go the extra mile for their advertisers and what you need to do is procide your advertisers with information that will help them to achieve better results from their advertising–you can bet they’ll remember you for it.
As a website owner, online publisher or webmaster, the first thing you need to do is take a good long look at the structure of your site. Does the design and profile of your visitors suit a more subtle advertising approach, or do banner ads really need to shout at your visitors. You must then decide on which banner ads will work on your site and and advise your potential advertisers in a thorough and professional manner.
There are many different banners in many different shapes and sizes. It can become a little daunting until you take a step back and really look at how your web pages are structured. Remember your goal is not to learn about the many variations of ad banner formats, but which designs will work in the best way for your clients on your web site.
Before we get into a little more detail, you want to make sure that you only use formats that work well within the template of your main pulling pages. The only way to do this is to test and test again.
There is no point placing random ads on your pages without testing what works and what doesn’t. Therefore, you must set up a simple tracking system to monitor the click through rates of banner ads. You should try many different designs and then work out the percentage of clicks per thousand impressions.
It seems that in todays advertising marketplace, wide banners are working the best for most webmasters and this is certainly the case on most B2B websites. You might be asking, which wide formats do work well and how do I know if my website is right for a particular design. Well, it’s down to testing again, I’m afraid. There are so many variations on the page and that is before we have even considered the age, buying habits, mood and general requirements of visitors. You just have to test.
One of the most popular formats is known as a leaderboard and is a horizontal format of around 728 x 90 pixels. There are smaller variations of landscape proportions at 468 x 60 pixels but these are usually referred to as full banners. first one is the 336 x 280; this is known as a large rectangle. The second popular format is 300 x 250 formats; this is known as a medium rectangle, and then skyscraper ads, which are usually 160 x 600, or 120 x 600.
After you have chosen the correct sizes, you can then test out the banner ads and other formats by looking at different animations and static approaches. There are specifics that seem to work in regards to banner advertising and it seems that the most effective banners blend in well with your website, in terms of colors, layout, and design.
It was once thought that flashy and bold was best. Sure it may get the attention of your user, but it will most likely annoy them more than make them want to click. Remember, you are looking for long term relationships with your visitors as much as with your advertisers. If you get visitors and then don’t do what you can to get a good amount of them to come back, then your advertisers won’t get the clicks they want anyway.
