How to Make a great Banner Ad?

Banner Ads

Banner Advertising, what makes it work? How can you get the best response rates and click through rates for your ads.  No, it’s not all guess work.   

Banner Ads are every where on the web.  Their job is to catch a customer and to get them to link onto a certain website or to buy a certain product/service.

Each banner you see is a product of guess work.  No one really knows if one banner will work better than another.

Some Do’s

During the years of banner making, a few points have become guidelines.

If you did all you’re homework and you know your target customers and have some advertising skills, then designing and writing a banner ad will be as easy as three little words:

Simple - Easy - To The Point

Before you grab your notebook, there is a little more to this than meets the eye.

Look over the points below.

-Know your competitors and know what you are selling. 

-Keep the ad simple.  Use fewer words.  Use color/animate

-Use fast loading banners.  Some people don’t like to wait for long.

-Know your target group!

-One product- One banner!  Have a link to your product web page.  

-Choose the right site to advertise and display your banner.  Is it a good fit or not?

-Some say that banners at the top of a page are looked at more often than the bottom ones?  Is it true?  Know what you want and where you want the banner to be placed.

-Interactive ads increase brand awareness by 67% than non-active ads **

-Customize, make the ad entertaining and playful

-Useful, is your product/service useful? **

2012 Challenges SEOs to Think local, Get Social and Get Blogging

Google has one mandate: to provide the most relevant results to its users, and in providing the most relevant results, users build trust and begin to use Google exclusively. Just about every one of us turns to Google daily to find information on everything from song lyrics to when the next time the Blue Jays game is in town. These are fairly straight forward questions to ask Google. There’s no doubt a lot of complex analysis behind the scenes; but for searches like these there are pretty definitive answers i.e. the Blue Jays are in town next Friday and the lyrics to Twist and Shout start with “Well shake it up baby now.”

Over the last decade most of us have performed thousands of searches, and each time we find what we want we to continue to build trust in Google. But what about more ambiguous queries like: “best real estate lawyer Toronto” or “best dentist in East Toronto?” We may have opinions on who’s the best, but who’s to say? More importantly does Google determine this?

Event Management 2.0 : The New Model for Success

Hi, I wanted to let you in on a free-of-charge event happening in Vancouver that you or your colleagues at Blitz may be interested in attending. As a marketing professional, you will learn effective strategies for promoting Blitz events. Registration is filling up fast! Thursday, April 19, 2012 12:00 PM - 1:30 PM PT V Yaletown 1095 Mainland Street, Vancouver, BC V6B 5P9 28 seats left! Friday, April 20, 2012 12:00 PM - 1:30 PM PT Shangri-La Hotel 1128 West Georgia Street, Vancouver, BC V6E 0A8 60 seats left! Over 35,000 people per year attend these events and learn better ways to:

In Social Media Connections Still King

With Facebook’s recent adaption of the Timeline page layout for brand pages, many Facebook marketers have shifted their focus to improving the look of their brand page.  While a shiny new layout is always exciting (“koodos” to Telus for the most creative use of the new layout I have seen to date), it is important not to forget that Facebook is primarily a conduit to connections.  For well over a decade, online marketing has focused on websites, to which marketers have attempted to drive traffic.  For many brands on Facebook the biggest challenge is shifting their thinking away from their Facebook page as a destination, and embracing their page as a broadcast tool.  The danger of a change to Facebook’s layout of brand pages, with Timeline being the most significant to date, is that marketers revert back to treating their Facebook page like a destination.

Initial reports on the change to page layout point to increased levels of interaction (link). Which is no surprise, given that Zuckerberg has an incredible knack for overcoming internal and external resistance to change, to ultimately produce an offering that strikes a balance between usefulness, simplicity and engagement.  The fact remains however, that the easiest way to develop a connection with a consumer at scale is through Facebook advertising, and the best way to foster that connection is through a sound publishing strategy.   At no point in a “relationship” between a brand and their fan base is a visit to a brand’s Facebook page a critical step; and even in cases where a visit to a brand page occurs, the ongoing interaction after the fact is generally going to happen in a user’s Newsfeed.

Reach Beyond - Advice from a New-Comer

By : Peter Wilken
Thanks Coco!

It was Coco, our uber-friendly chocolate Labrador puppy, who introduced me to Louise, the editor of this magazine, in a lick-fest on the beach by the Maritime Museum (the dog and Louise, not me and...well you know what I mean).

By chance, I was wearing an old BBDO Asia Pacific T-shirt. In a former life I ran BBDO's Asia Pacific region out of Hong Kong. Louise commented on it, and we got talking. “How about a piece on your thoughts about what Vancouver can learn from the rest of world?” she suggested.

So, after 25 years in communications, brand and business consulting working around the world, if the Vancouver communication industry came to me for advice, what would I say?

How to Make Your Website Attractive to Advertisers

By : Kristie Painting

No single innovation has democratized our world more than the Internet. With no more barriers to entry than a laptop and something to say, personal websites have flourished. And while the thrill of seeing your words writ large in cyberspace holds an undeniable appeal, many armchair publishers seek a greater dream of their achievements being recognized with monetary reward. But the vast majority of websites are never monetized. However, if financial gain is part of the game plan, here are a few vital requirements.

First and most important: content is king. This is true now more so than ever before, as demands on consumers’ time become ever more staggering. If your goal is to hold users’ attention, and compel them to return, you’d better have something meaningful to say.

THE NEW OLD - MEAN NEW RULES FOR SALES AND MARKETING

By - David Cravit

Imagine that’s it 1980 and you’re 65 years old.

What have your life experiences been? How much longer do you think you’re going to live? How much longer are people around you living? And how do the answers to those questions shape your behavior in the marketplace – and, thus, the attitude of the sales and marketing community toward you?

You were born in 1915 and you grew up in the Depression and fought in World War II. Your experiences made you cautious, a saver rather than a spender. You’ve been saving, in fact, precisely for this last phase of your life – 10 years, maybe 15, tops, in which to enjoy (hopefully) a relatively dignified and pain-free glide to the finish line.