Does Your Banner Ad Have a Call to Action?

Banner ad campaigns are used for many things such as building brand awareness, improving traffic to your web site, increasing sales, gaining new customers, etc. However, no banner ad campaign will be effective without a call to action.

What is a call to action?
A call to action put simply, asks your viewers to do something. This could be anything from filling out a form, to clicking on your link, to participating in an interactive game. The point is that it makes a specific request. For online banner advertising, the most likely call to action is to click on your link and therefore be transported to your web site. On your web site you can have a separate call to action such as filling out a form or making a purchase.

How to create an effective call to action?
An effective call to action can do wonders for your banner ad campaign, your CTR, your sales and your company branding. Advertising banners are for the most part small and viewers don’t get a lot of information from them, so an effective call to action is essential to get them moving towards learning more about your business or your products. When creating a custom web banner or reviewing your current advertising banner, you should make sure to do the following:
Convince the viewer of their need to follow your call to action.
Provide only one call to action – don’t ask viewers to do too much at once. You only want them focusing on one thing at a time.
Be very direct in your advertising banner. Tell the viewer exactly what you want them to do, like “Click Here”.
Make it stand out from the rest of your advertising banner with things like contrasting colors, bigger font or animation.
Offer an added bonus or something extra to sweeten the call to action.
Make it seem urgent, like a limited time offer. By changing your offer, this is a good way to keep your banner ad fresh.
Back up your call to action by providing your potential customers with what they are looking for when they click through on your advertising banner.