MarketingSherpa Blog

To be honest, I don’t even see them most of the time. It is as if the top and sides of the webpage I’m looking at are blurred—I know they’re there, but I don’t even notice them. For this, I thank “banner blindness.”

Banner blindness is the result of templated or “best practice” page layouts that place banner ads in specific places, such as the very top center of the page or on the far right side of the page. See the red boxes below:

Why is it called “blindness”?

The ad is there, but we ignore it because our minds have “seen that, done that” so many times before. We have established the typical banner areas as distracting from our goal on the page.

As marketers, if we are stuck in these blind areas, what can we do to increase the effectiveness of our banner ads? For questions like this, I always like to refer to the MECLABS Institute’s (MarketingSherpa’s parent company) Online Ad Sequence  heuristic for guidance:  

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Considering low costs and the potential return of driving significant volumes of traffic to your homepages or landing pages, banner ads would seem a safe bet to count as one of the most important elements of a successful marketing strategy. Yet in reality, most banner ads become lost in the afterthoughts of marketing campaign planning.

How does this happen?

One thing I have discovered in working with our Research Partners is the problem begins with an all too common approach to banner ads in which a focus is placed on “creating a few banner ads” instead of “creating highly effective” banner ads that appeal to visitors.

In today’s MarketingSherpa blog post, I wanted to offer three questions every marketer should ask themselves when crafting banner ads that you can use to aid your display marketing efforts.

Question #1. Do we know where the traffic is coming from?

Assuming you already have banner ads in place, a good place to start is by diving into your metrics to better understand the amounts of traffic your banner ads are currently generating.

If you are new to banner ads or have limited historical performance data, then consider some of the obstacles you must overcome to create an effective banner ad ranging from:

• Gaining a visitor’s attention
• Capturing visitor interests
• Driving visitor engagement to click on your banner ad

You should also consider the types of traffic coming to the website or page in which your banner ads are displayed because this information will play an important role in later design, messaging and CTA planning.

Question #2. Do we know where the traffic is going?

While it is important to know where your visitors are coming from, knowing where visitors are going throughout the overall experience can help you craft messaging and CTAs that deliver on the expectations set by the banner ads.

For example, if a banner ad redirects a visitor to a lead capture form, then using a call-to-action like “Learn More” would not be an optimal CTA versus using “Apply Now” or “Apply Now.” Analyzing where your traffic goes is also a great way to help you detect and fix any simple leaks in your funnel.

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Online display ad spending by B2C marketers increased 57 percent over the last two years…which means more competition for your ads to get that click, and more pressure to deliver ROI on your ad spending.

To help you get the most from your banner ads, we’re hosting a webinar this Thursday, sponsored by TRUSTe, to teach you “How to optimize your banner ad performance while complying with new privacy regulations.”

But before we share our discoveries, we wanted to hear what you had to say. Here are a couple of our favorite tips for optimizing display advertising…

Match your ad closely with the landing page

Create a landing page for this ad, don’t send people to your homepage and make them figure out what to do next or where to look for their answer. Your ad attracted them for a reason – usually to solve a problem, so make sure you offer a solution that they can find easily before they lose interest:

• Make sure your ad matches the look and feel of the page they will be landing on – from wording used, to matching the colors of the display ad with the landing page. You want to ensure the person who clicked on your ad knows they have arrived at the right site.
• Reinforce your message from the ad through headlines and copy on the page, as well as images.
• Along with your solution, make sure both the ad and the landing page have a call to action that clearly tells the visitor what step they need to take next in order to complete the desired action. Whether it be signing up for a newsletter or adding something to their shopping cart, a direct call to action promotes user activity.
• Test. Don’t assume your first ad you created is working out well. Always test and see what you can do to improve the ad and landing page. When you have determined a winning ad – test a new one, make it a continual process.

– Rebekah May, Founder, Whole SEO

First ask “Why?”

You need to know why you’re running display ads long before you start. So many companies have said “we need to try banner” with no idea of whether they want to run a branded campaign or a direct response campaign, and whether they want to run on a CPA, CPC or CPM basis. Display will flop dramatically if you don’t have a goal.

And then make sure that whatever your goal is, you must design your creative around it. There’s no point putting a brand ad out on a direct response campaign (or vice versa). I’ve seen people create banners that are so pretty but have no call to action, and then wonder why they get no clicks.

– Carl Eisenstein, Founder, DropDigger

Related Resources

How to optimize your banner ad performance while complying with new privacy regulations — Webinar, Thursday, March  31, 2011, 1-2 PM.

Sherpa 101: Online Display Ads, Part II – Copywriting, Design Tips & Ad Networks + How to Counter ‘Banner Blindness’

Online Advertising: The 3 obstacles you must overcome to create an effective banner ad

This Just Tested: PPC vs. banner ads?