How to create a static banner ad?
In this unit we are going to see how to design a banner ad. This is typically useful when you have your own advertising program or when you would like to add a banner to a partner website.
What are the different aspects you need to take into consideration?
- Sizing.
- CTA.
- Layers and naming.
- Logo.
- Benefits.
- Colours.
- Ads have to look like ads.
- Font.
- Ratio.
- Alignments.
Sizing
Sizing refers to the dimensions of your ad. In general, most of software have a property menu in which you can define the dimension of your ad.
There are standard in sizing that you can find on https://www.iab.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/IABNewAdPortfolio_FINAL_2017.pdf
CTA
CTA stands for "Call To Action" and represents the action you would like your viewers to perform. Here are example of CTAs:
- Act now
- Add to your cart
- Apply today
- Book now
- Buy now
- Call us today
- Click for more information
- Compare prices
- Contact us
You need here to ask yourself the right information in order to define them. CTAs will have a higher impact when they are linked with graphical elements such as buttons.
Layers
Layers are here to facilitate your work. You are going to make many changes to your banner. If by mistake you merge some elements you will probably have to redo your work. Layers are time savers. You need to use them and you need to name them properly as some of your projects may be very complex and include dozens of layers.
It is also about capitalizing your work and save time for future projects. Note that you can also automate the creation of your ads thanks to scripts in GNU/Linux.
Logo
For sure having a nice logo is important but it is also important to have a logo you can use for different formats. Ads can be of many different sizes, this is where a logo which can be used in various way is really important.
Benefits
Benefits correspond to what make your organization product/service so special.
Colours
One key concept in advertising is consistency. It refers to the fact that the image you are currently showing up has a relationship to the website you are sending your viewers too. So the colours you are using for your ad have to be the same as the one on the website you are redirecting your traffic to.
Ads have to look like ads
A short term strategy is to make ads look like information content, as a result viewers are clicking on it, are then dispointed and come back to the original content. As a result it is always good to have ads which look like ad on which people are clicking on because they are interested in.
Font
So as the colours, the font has to be the same as the website you are sending you visitors to. Note that with ads you can use whatever font you want because at the end it is an image you are sending to the ad server. In the case of text ads, if you have to use a proprietary solution, you will see that the font is often imposed.
Ratios
Some ads look better than others because they have a nice ratio between the number of images displayed, the text and the different graphic elements. Feel free to measure those ratios of ads you are enjoying in order to define what would fit the best for you.
Alignments
Use the different features of your image editing software in order to well aligned each object.