|
The key figure of banner advertising is, actually a banner. A banner is a clickable advertising block that refers to an advertised website or an internal page. A good banner makes the site visitor interested, encourages him co click on the link to get more information about the offered good or service.
What is the difference between good and bad banners? How are good banners developed? What are their advantages? Let us try to answer these questions.
First let us familiarize you with the kinds of banners. According to the way of development all web banners split into:
- static banners;
- GIF banners;
- Flash banners;
- rich media banners.
Static banners are constructed from images (JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP). Such banners are created with the help of graphics editors, for example, Adobe Photoshop (for bitmap images) and CorelDraw (for vector images).
GIF banners are animated commercials. As a matter of fact, GIF banners consist of a number of frames that are displayed successively at a certain speed. In such a way the animation effect is created. GIF banners are also created with the help of graphics editors such as Adobe Photoshop, ImageReady etc.
Flash banners are one more kind of animated banners. Flash banners can boast of a bigger number of features as compared to GIF banners, and they look much showier. Flash banners are developed with the help of the ActionScript programming language in special editors, for example, Macromedia Flash.
Rich media banners are a real quintessence of all advantages of other kinds of banners. The features of rich media banners are practically unlimited: while creating rich media banners developers often use a lot of nice visual effects, sounds, response to user actions. Rich media banners are “smarter” than the rest of banners. They can change their size depending on the user action. They look like real videos, but have much smaller file size.
In spite of differences between the technologies used for development of banners, the external appearance of banners obeys certain rules. For example, almost any banner contains a slogan (a memorable phrase or motto), a graphic image that is the central element of the composition, and additional text that provides necessary explanations.
The sizes of web banners are also standardized. The size of the banner does not depend on its type (i.e. whether the banner is static or dynamic). Standard ad sizes are:
- 720x300 – Pop-Under;
- 728x90 – Leaderboard;
- 468x60 – Full Banner;
- 336x280 – Large Rectangle;
- 300x100 – 3:1 Rectangle;
- 300x250 – Medium Rectangle;
- 300x600 – Half Page Ad;
- 250x250 – Square Pop-Up;
- 240x400 – Vertical Rectangle;
- 234x60 – Half Banner;
- 180x150 – Rectangle;
- 160x600 – Wide Skyscraper;
- 125x125 – Square Button;
- 120x600 – Skyscraper;
- 120x240 – Vertical Banner;
- 120x90 – Button 1;
- 120x60 – Button 2;
- 88x31 – Micro Bar.
The most popular banner size is 468x60 (Full Banner). This format is used by all banner networks.
What is the difference between a good banner and an average one?
One of the most important banner efficiency criteria is click-through rate (CTR) – the ratio of the number of clicks on the banner to the total number of displays. Here works a simple rule: the higher – the better. A good banner has high CTR, loads quickly, attracts visitors' attention but at the same time is not annoying.
To make the banner load quickly you should minimize the file size; optimal file size for a banner is about 15-20 kilobytes. Designers use various technical tricks to make the file fit into this size without losing its quality. For instance, they use pixel-by-pixel drawing (each pixel is painted separately using the required color).
In order to attract user's attention the banner should contain call-to-action phrases like “Click here!” or “Register now!” or other phrases of this kind. In this case the main rule is not to overdo it, otherwise the banner will antagonize users instead of attracting them. A good way to attract users' attention is to use a certain intrigue, a riddle while creating a banner. It may be a pun or a cliffhanger.
Colors used for creation of a good banner should not be annoying and prevent users from perceiving the text. It is a common knowledge, that the most unacceptable color combinations are: red color on green background, orange color on white background, black color on magenta background, red color on white or yellow background and other combinations of this kind. Besides, it is a common rule that a banner should be framed with a 1-pixel border so that the user can tell the banner from the page background even if the banner and the background have the same color.
And the last point. Even if you like your banner very much and it seems to your that it is the best possible variant, you should give yourself the trouble to make several additional banners that will be slightly different from the main one and test all banners during a certain period of time. Only when the testing is over and you can compare the click-though rate of all banners you can finally determine the most effective banner.
TAGS
banner advertising,
banner,
static banner,
gif banner,
flash banner,
rich media banner,
internet advertising,
web studio |
Internet Ad 
