The digital landscape has never been more competitive and in today’s world, it’s no easy feat to capture the attention of your audience and drive them into action. But when you follow seven simple tips for creating the most effective creative display banners, you’re one step closer to standing out from the crowd and hitting those campaign objectives.
We sat down with our in-house studio to draw from their experience of working with many different clients and campaign briefs, to share their top ways of working to get your creative right, approved quickly and performing as effectively as possible.
1) Create multiple size formats
While clients may request different ad size formats, there are less than ten creative sizes that have the potential to deliver over 90% of inventory delivery. So with that in mind, our creative team sticks with these formats to ensure maximum efficiency, both within the creative process and the post-production trading process. And then they scale these formats dynamically to work across the entire inventory offering. These sizes are:
- 160×600
- 320×50
- 300×250
- 738×90
- 300×600
- 970×250
2) Have a clear value proposition
A display banner only takes up a portion of the screen. With consumers’ attention spans only diminishing, not only do you want to capture their attention, but you also want to ensure you are able to drive that one key message across to them.
Always present a clear value proposition, whether it’s your product, service or unique selling point. We know there’s a lot you want to tell your potential customers, but what is that one thing you want them to really know about? Is it a new product launch? Or a seasonal offer that is happening? Choose one, and shout it from the rooftops.
3) Keep designs clear and simple
In general, the overarching rule in programmatic is to keep your ads simple and concise. You only have a split second to attract the attention of your potential customers. The creative needs to cover the who, what, where, when and why. The more clutter, the less memorable. In other words: less is more.
4) Frame the creative
We’ve noticed, from over 10 years in the game, that users are naturally drawn to images inside boxes, and when you’re working with a white background, it’s crucial that there is a bold framework.
More importantly, these key elements must be present:
- Real life, engaging product imagery
- Brand logo
- Short headline
- Call to action
5) Consider the fonts
Not only what you say matters, the font you use to say it matters, too. So keep fonts consistent and clear. Try to avoid multiple fonts, cursive, or thin and small fonts. Use distinctive fonts or sizes for headers and descriptions; varying the font size between the two can establish the most important verbiage.
6) Tailored messaging
So, now onto what you say. When creating display ads, there tend to be two sets of distinct audiences: brand new customers and returning customers. The need to apply tailored messaging to each is vital to any digital success. Therefore you need to tailor the message to the audience as much as possible, leveraging data signals such as interest or website activity. The more tailored the creative messaging is, the better the engagement.
7) Strong imagery and animation
And you know how the saying goes: A picture paints a thousand words. Take the time to sieve through images and pick one that is impactful, meaningful and supports your messaging. And the animation of an image can take the display banner to a whole new level. As we all know, your customer’s attention is worth its weight in gold, so you need to do everything you can to make your ad jump out. Imagery is a sure way of doing that.
So, here you go! The seven top tips from our studio team to create your banner ad. Crimtan’s studio team services are part of our managed service when you choose to run your programmatic advertising campaigns with us. Our team of experts are here to provide recommendations and suggestions to ensure you have the best performing creatives tailored to your objectives.
And want to learn even more about how DCO can take your brand to new heights? Get in touch today.