5 Design Tips for Flash Banners Ads

Last week we discussed what flash banner ads are and how they can help your online banner advertising campaign. However, in order to have a successful banner ad campaign that incorporates custom flash banners, you should follow some basic design tips.

1) Keep the file size small. We discussed this a little bit last week, but web sites don’t like big files and will charge you more for a flash advertising banner with a bigger file. To cut down on file size, try using a limited number of colors, gradients, and dashed or dotted lines.

2) Increase readability by using the best font. Font has to do with the size and the type. For size, you want to make sure that it is big enough for people to read your custom flash banner on the screen. An 18 point font or larger will work well. For the type of font that you use in your flash banner ad, make sure that you use a font that is safe for the web and will translate to all programs. Good examples of this are Arial or Verdana. It will also help your readability if you bold your font.

3) Always include a close button. Readers want to feel in control. Therefore, give them some control. If your custom flash banner opens up or expands when the mouse rolls over it, or if your flash banner ad moves across the page, be sure to include a close button so that your potential viewers can control when they see your advertising banner.

4) Limit animation and video time. Your flash banner is an ad, meaning that while you want to get people’s attention, you don’t want to completely pull them away from the page they sought out. You should try to keep your advertising banner animation and videos short and to the point. In general your custom flash banner animation should last about 15 seconds and your videos should last no longer than 30 seconds.

5) Include a pause button. Your purpose here is to grab potential customer’s attention, not to annoy them. Sound will direct their attention to your custom flash banner, but it can also annoy them if they can’t turn it off. Just like with a close button, always give your viewers the control and add a pause button when you include sound in your flash banner ads.

Contextual Targeting vs. Placement Targeting

Contextual targeting and placement targeting seem to be the buzz words in online banner advertising right now. But, do you really know what they mean and how they can help your banner ad campaign? Let’s explore.

Contextual Targeting
Contextual advertising in its simplest form means to place your advertising banner on a web site that has similar content. The reason behind contextual targeting with banner ads is that it is assumed that if there is a web site that is addressing a specific subject and you place a banner ad on that web site for a product that also addresses that subject then the readers of that web site are more likely to click on your ad and find out about your products.

For example, say that there is a web site teaching teenagers how to have healthy skin and you place an ad on that web site for an acne treatment, the chances of a teenage reader clicking on your banner is way higher than them clicking on an ad for deodorant appearing on the same site.

Placement Targeting
Placement targeting is similar to a contextual targeting, but a little bit more specific. Instead of matching up your advertising banner with a general web site you aim to match your banner ad up to a specific page within a web site and a specific place on that web page. In this case you are concerned with content and visibility in order to generate a higher CTR.

Let’s look at our healthy skin example again. If you want to use placement targeting for your acne treatment banner ad, then you would find a web site teaching teenagers how to have healthy skin, you would find the particular web page that recommends how to treat acne and then you would request that your web banner be placed as the leader board ad, or as a rectangle ad in the top portion of the page. Now your banner ad is even more likely to be clicked on because teenagers that select this page are in need of acne treatment. When they open up the page – ban, there is your advertising banner offering them the exact solution they are looking for.

Which is better?
It’s a toss-up. In contextual targeting you reach a broad range of people that probably already have a passing interest in your product, where in placement targeting you reach a smaller range of people, but a very specific group that is actively seeking a product just like yours. The bottom line is both targeting practices are good and for the best banner ad advertising campaign, you should use both to generate a high CTR.