Update Your Banner Ads for Top-of-Mind Awareness, More Attention, and More Conversions

Plus: Eight Places to Strategically Deploy Banners and Ads for Best Results

Are banner ads “dead?”

No! Just the opposite.They’re actually an under-utilized marketing asset. Despite the claims of many, banner ads are still an effective way to reach your audience and pull in revenue.

Consider how banner ads were used to great effect for Google’s Android Wear campaign. By using ads effectively, Google reported to have increased brand recall by 15.8%

Even though you might not get high click through rates on your banner ads on first exposure, that’s okay. You don’t have to use them with that expectation. Instead, your new goal with banner ads should be to keep up with your market’s attention and convey brand values. It’s a fantastic way to stay top-of-mind with your audience.

Banners and display ads will keep your audience’s attention, warm up your traffic, and convey the essential parts of your brand with some eye-catching design. Use them this way, and they can be an excellent investment and an efficient tool in your digital marketing arsenal.

The best practice is to use your ads in such a way that they never get old and boring. Constantly get them updated and refreshed for best performance.

Here are some more reasons to keep your banners updated:

Keep Your Branding Consistent

Now, you probably know the importance of keeping everything consistent — that is, all your marketing materials have to reflect the same message or values, from your ads to your landing pages to your content. Otherwise, your customers will get lost, feel confused, and lose interest.

That’s why it’s so important that to keep your graphics refreshed. Not only on your websites and your content, but also across social media and all of your inbound marketing. That means keeping your social media presence relevant, updating your website every so often, and of course, constantly testing different display ads

If all you’re offering is the same stuff that your audience has seen 100 times before, you’re BORING! And if you’re boring, that means you aren’t going to make any progress, your advertising will go nowhere, and people will start to ignore your ads like they aren’t even there. That’s because…

We Live in the Attention Economy

It’s been said recently that we live in the “Attention Economy.” What that means is that you can keep a customer’s attention longer than your competitors, you’re much more likely to get more of their money. The proof: a recent study found that users who are retargeted to with banner ads are 70% more likely to convert than those who didn’t.

That simple extra step of getting grabbed customer attention, held it, and resulted in better ROI.

Although some detractors say that banner ads can be annoying, or that nobody clicks them, the cold hard facts find that the opposite is true. By using your banner ads to get and retain customer attention, you get more money coming into your business. So…what does that mean for you?

It means that you shouldn’t be afraid to make your ads flashy, demand attention, and invite a click. But even more importantly…

You have to change your ads up every once in awhile!

Updating Your Ads Keeps You Relevant

By doing this, you invite more clicks and a higher conversion rate.

Banner ads have a 33% higher response rate than billboards…which means they have the potential to offer great ROI. For you, that means that a relatively small investment of a banner ad could turn into huge financial returns. Compare that with a company that spends tens of thousands of dollars on a billboard—and has no way to track the results! If you measure the numbers on your banner ads, you can constantly keep them tested for best results.

Pay special attention to the holidays. The spending holidays like Christmas, Cyber Monday, and Black Friday are only a few days away… do your ads reflect that? If not, you could be leaving that extra 33% on the table, ready for someone else to take.

Plus, keeping them updated prevents them from getting boring. There’s no better way to lose someone’s attention than to keep the same banner ad up on the site for a month without changing it; it starts to blend in and nobody pays attention to it. By updating your advertising constantly, you’re consistently raising your chances for conversion, and you’re staying on top-of-mind awareness. So even if you don’t get the conversions immediately, you can capitalize on that attention later.

Eight Places to Put Display Banners to Reach Your Audience

Website Headers
A website header runs along the top of all the pages of your website. It’s a valuable marketing asset because it communicates your brand to the users while they’re on your site.

Examples:

 

WordPress Banner
Wordpress banners are headers in a site built with WordPress. They require complicated plugins and some time to get right, but the results can be quite nice.

Examples:

Facebook Timeline Cover Photo
You’re probably already familiar with this one; users can put this ad across the top of their Facebook profile. Used properly, it can be a very powerful tool to reach a broad audience, convey brand priorities, and generate interest very quickly. Pair this with a great social media presence for double the effect.

Examples:

Twitter Header
Similar to a Facebook banner, the twitter header is one of the only visuals users will see when they come across your twitter profile. Use it well.

Examples:

Youtube Channel Art
Your YouTube channel artwork is the first impression a viewer has of your channel. While your users are waiting two seconds for a video to load, your chances of getting their attention are drastically raised if you have killer art. By keeping them on your channel for that extra amount of time, you drastically raise your chances of turning them into subscribers.

Examples:

Google+ Cover Photo
Even though Google+ doesn’t have the user base of Twitter or Facebook, it still has a place for your banner ad. If you have a Google+ profile, you should put your ad there because it’s one of the first things people see when they come to look at your profile.

Examples:

LinkedIn Header
Long a place for businesses to connect, LinkedIn is also becoming a busy place for digital marketers. If you’re offering anything B2B related or looking to connect with other people who can help you grow, your LinkedIn banner should effectively convey your offer. This will automatically set you apart from the competition.

Examples:

Display Ad Banners
This one is simple: your display ad banners are simply the face of your ads. They have to be attention-getting, catchy, and clickable. If you don’t meet those criteria, you run the risk of losing your advertising dollars. Luckily, partnering with a good graphic design or digital marketing team can make your ads pop.

Examples:

Invest in Banners For Optimized Results

Today, banner ads are a highly underrated marketing concept. But you can use that to your advantage. If your competitors aren’t investing in high-quality banners and display ads, then investing a little bit into yours might go a long way towards increasing your profit margin. When updating your banner ads, keep these three things in mind:

• Use them to make sure your branding is consistent
• Grab your customers’ attention
• Keep them updated to maximum conversions.

Do this, and you’re guaranteed to get the best performance out of your ads.