You have planned your PPC campaign in the best possible manner. You have included everything you think is important to give it an edge over your competitors. Different platforms have also been selected where you are showing you ads. Yet, it seems, you are not getting the desired returns. So, where does the problem lie? Have you included banner ads in your ad campaign?
Well, if you haven’t, you need not look any further. It is surely one of the major reasons why your ads are not fetching enough results. But why? These days, banner ads are regarded as one of the major forms of advertisements used in internet marketing. With the increasing popularity and effectiveness of these forms of ads, a lot of companies are designing banner ads for their marketing purposes.
So, how do you design yours to make it stand apart in this crowd? How can you make it more clickable?
Here’s a sneak peek at a few tips that might help you achieve the best designs for your PPC campaigns. If you are able to follow these accurately and produce properly designed banner ads, they will help you to increase ROI on PPC campaigns to a certain extent.
#1. Select the Right Size for Your Ad
It’s the size of the banner ad that plays a major role in ensuring that it has the maximum effect on the viewers. It also ensures that the viewers are able to see the ad almost immediately after landing on the web page where it has been placed. However, there’s something more to it. Where 
you are able to post the ad is primarily the space that you will have to buy. So, the design is also likely to depend on it to a significant extent. Some of the most common dimensions that you need to follow while designing the ad are:
- 336×280 (common as Large Rectangle)
- 300×250 (termed as Medium Rectangle)
- 728×90 (called Leaderboard)
- 160×600 (popular as Wide Skyscraper)
These ad spaces are usually located above or adjacent to the content space of the web page. You need to plan the designs of the ad within these dimensions and make the most of these.
#2. Follow a Proper Hierarchy
When you are designing your PPC ad, it not only contains the message that you want to share with your potential customers, but also a lot of other things. The message usually is the value proposition of the ad. Along with it, the ad also contains your company’s logo as well as the call to action, which is one of the most important parts of your ad. You need to arrange these by following a proper hierarchy. And this hierarchy should be reflected in the way these parts are represented in the ad.
- The logo should be visible but not as important as the other two parts
- The value proposition should take up majority of the space
- The call to action should be conveyed in form of a button
This designing hierarchy ensures that the impact of the ad is the maximum on the visitors to the webpage.
#3. Add a Distinguishable Border
One of the major problems of a lot of banner ads is that they almost merge with the background or the other ads adjacent to it. The reason: they do not have any specific border. This is a major part that you need to keep in mind while designing the ad for your PPC campaign. The best thing that you can do is include your messages and the whole ad within a frame, which is clearly defined. This is surely going to help a lot in making your PPC ad stand out in the crowd.
#4. Include Buttons in Designing
It’s true that it is a good idea to convey the call to action through the shape of a button. But that’s not the only space where you are going to use the button. It has been noticed that call to action buttons actually increase the rate of clicks on the banner ads. However, you need to follow a number of procedures to design an effective call to action button. And once you get it right, you will surely experience the ad to bring in more results than you had expected, thus giving you a lot of business.
#5. How to be Prudent While Selecting the Fonts?
Fonts play a major role when you are designing the ads for your PPC campaign. With so many fonts available on the internet, you will be spoilt for choice. However, you need to be prudent and select the right one for your ad. Ensure that the text that you have included in the ad is properly visible and readable to the viewers. Only then you can get your idea home within a short time. You need to select different sizes for the headline and the body copies. It is always better to avoid the cursive and script fonts. Besides, make sure that you are not making the whole copy in the upper case.
#6. Include Animation Ad, If Possible
Can you design an animation ad? Then why not go for it? In many cases you will notice that the banner ads that you are designing have all the features that are required to make them perform at their best. However, you still find that it is not performing at par with its competitors. This is when you might need to rethink about your PPC ad design. Include animation if possible to ensure that you get the best results. However, the videos should not exceed 15 seconds and the loop should not go beyond three times.
#7. Select the Colors Prudently
When you are designing an ad, you will have to pay major attention towards selecting the colors. It is important to choose the colors of the ad in the most appropriate manner. You will have to keep in mind a lot of things while choosing them. Ensure that the ad shows clearly against the background of the website where it has been published. You should focus on the brand colors while designing and use those shades in the ad. In addition, you should also keep in mind the different emotions that the colors convey and use them accordingly.
And Beyond the Designing
Creating a perfect banner ad is, of course, not the last thing in your marketing procedure. In fact, it makes no sense if you are not able to place the ad in the right position on the page you are targeting with your ad. This is where you will need to be prudent. Always remember that no matter what you do, the organic element of the page will always be more visible to the visitor than the ads. However, you will need to make the best of the places where you can place the ad. This is surely going to play a major role in ensuring that you are able to do away with the banner blindness problem, which is quite common on the web.
To get your marketing endeavors right, you need to manage your PPC campaigns in the most effective manner. It is important that you avoid the common PPC mistakes to ensure that your marketing endeavors do not fall flat.
Images: ”Pay per click concept illustration with laptop and cursor/Shutterstock.com“
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