IS THIS EBOOK
RIGHT FOR ME?
This ebook is meant to be a guide for
the best practices you can implement
during the design and development
of rich media banner ads. It is an
intro-ductory level list of best practices with
recommendations and examples.
This ebook is ideal for starting marketers
and rich media agencies looking for a
set of publishing, design, and
develop-ment guidelines to follow for effective
rich media banner ads.
?
About the Author
Creative production for online advertising,
rich media, interactive development and
more
Digitaland All-in
Creative Solution
Amir Dori has more than 10 years of vast
expe-rience in creating, developing, designing and
producing creative products and marketing
materials for the online advertising industry.
His experience includes all creative formats for
rich media, web, mobile applications and tv.
View Portfolio
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Table of
Contents
Introduction
………..
5
Chapter 1: Goals
………
6
Chapter 2: Optimization
………..………
7
Chapter 3: Marketing in Action
……….
9
THE ULTIMATE BEST PRACTICES
FOR EFFECTIVE BANNER AD
DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT
Today, however, with the range of tools and the wealth of creativity that rich media
allows, effective banner ad design and development is no longer a straight path,
but a curving, branching road where each rich media option presents a new way
to communicate the sales pitch. In this twisting, highway with many paths to choose
from, design and development best practices are the guideposts that lead to
ef-fective banner ads.
Here is a simple, clear cut list of the ultimate best practices for effective banner ad
design and development. These guideposts are grouped into common
denomina-tors that serve as the foundation for the entire effort: the ad’s goals, design
optimi-zation, and marketing concepts in action.
Banner ads are the poster child of display advertising. They’ve grown from static
banners to rich media, but the core of their effectiveness as marketing tools stays
the same. Highly visual, aesthetically pleasing, technologically empowered and
engaging, banner ads have been in the forefront of display advertising and direct
response campaigns since the beginning of the online marketing industry.
“
Every choice in design and development is dictated by a
marketing strategy engineered to reach those goals.
Chapter 1:
GOALS
Your marketing objectives are the goals you want to work towards, which means that every step in your advertising effort should lead to that ultimate goal. Every choice in design and development is dictated by a marketing strategy engineered to reach those goals
Align your banner ad goal to the greater goal of your campaign. Each marketing campaign will have several different banners depending on retargeting, how deep the targets are in the sales fun-nel, and consumer persona profiling, among other factors. The goals of these individual ads should be aligned with the goals of the campaign so each can contribute directly to reaching that goal. Remember: clearly define your goals. Align your ads towards these goals.
Every CTA should stand out as an actionable item easily discernable and appealingly clickable. This requires careful wording, effective spacing and design, and efficient contrast and timing for interac-tive ads.
• The first item in your agenda is to clearly define your goals. Everything goes from there.
• Watch your Calls to Action. Every CTA counts, that’s why you not only need to align them to your clearly defined goals, but you also need to watch how you deliver them to your audience.
• What is your goal for this ad? Do you want people to click? Watch? Interact? Fill
out a form?
• CTAs should be prominent. They should not be mistaken as just another part of
the ad, the background, or the animation. They should be easily distinguishable and noticeably actionable.
• Different goals will need different banner ads and different creative
approach-es.
• A CTA should be delivered early in the rich media banner ad – early enough not
to miss the attention of users when they first take notice of or interact with the ad.
Chapter 2:
Optimization
Optimize, optimize, optimize. Strike a balance between creative delivery and efficient delivery, con-sidering both the creative effect of the rich media elements and the file size or CPU usage that the concept may result in as a final product. Keep technical specs in mind and always develop towards the Lowest Common Denominator (LCD) in guidelines when publishing across multiple platforms with their own specs.
• Stick to publisher requirements.
• Minimize the file size to fit as much creativity in as the limit will allow. Get creative with maximizing creativity.
• If the publisher guidelines say 300 x 250, you design 300 x 250. Banner ads
de-signed a pixel more or a byte heavier than specified will be returned.
• Optimize images:
• Limit how many images you use per panel
• Crop bitmaps and use only the parts applicable to the ad
• Optimize image files before importing to Flash
• Use vectors over bitmaps
• Optimize Flash Files:
• Set the frame-rate of the Flash asset to be lower than 31fps and higher
than 18fps: The first best-practice will ensure better CPU performance and the second will ensure smooth animations
• Ensure consistent Flash version across ad assets
• Avoid movie-clips on the first frame of the ad’s timeline in order to
enhance performance when loading on the page. This is also a best-practice when using Flash components or Ad Server MXP components
• Ensure all clivck-throughs and buttons are working
• Multiple publishers will provide varied specs. Stick to the LCD. If three publishers
say file sizes should not exceed, 40k, 50k, and 60k respectively, design towards the 40k limit to serve one concept to all three instead of scaling.
• Use borders. Use key lines or add a one-or two-pixel black border to ensure that the edges of your ad aren’t confused with the background of the webpage.
• Maximize your hotspot surface area.
• Keep the design flow.
• Ideally, the entire initial surface area of your banner ad should be an interactive
hotspot
• All panels in a banner ad that expands should be accessible through all the
other panels
• Ensure your CTAs have interactive hotspots larger than the actual elements to
make it easier for users to interact
• Follow the horizontal or vertical design flows of the panels for every element in
the ad
• For banner ads that expand or enlarge, the hotspot surface is usually limited to
25% to 33% of the entire banner ad’s dimensions
Optimization is key for the efficient design, development, and delivery of your ban-ner ad. An optimized banban-ner ad follows all set rules and guidelines as well as the LCD publisher specs, maximizing the creativity of the rich media while keeping the file size of the ad in check. All heavy elements that load more slowly are placed after the initial ad load to avoid slowing down the presentation of the banner.
• Use common fonts to avoid font-embedding, which bloats the file size
• Set click-throughs to mouse release instead of mouse press to work
around popup blockers.
• Optimize animation and interactivity:
• Don’t zoom or change the angle of bitmaps – they bloat the file size
• Text is more readable when its X and Y position is set to integers instead
of decimals
• Make sure your CTAs text anti-alias is set for “readability” and not for
“animations”
• Ideal video streaming bitrate is 800 KBPS
• Make sure you add video-loader components of Ad Servers for video
• Employ user-initiated audio
• Ideally, use on mouse click or on mouse roll over to begin audio. If a
mouse roll over is chosen then there must be a 1 second delay to trigger the audio.
• Be consistent with audio control: mouse click should end a mouse
click initiated audio, or a roll out should end a roll over initiated audio
• Interaction with click-through button should stop all sound
• Ask for permission. Always practice permission-based marketing.
• Be clear and straight to the point. Minimize distraction and avoid confusing your audience.
• Always include a close or stop button
• Avoid overlapping buttons
• Always include the basic animation or video control buttons: play, stop, and
mute
• Use only one offer or sales pitch per ad
• Close buttons should be consistent; roll over triggers should close via roll out,
and click triggers should close via click as well
• Focus on one goal per ad, aligned with the role of that particular ad, which
contributes to your overall marketing goal
• Do not use graphics that simulate interaction where there is none (e.g. search
boxes or static buttons)
• Avoid placing close buttons on expanding ads that overlap with the hotspot
that triggers the expansion
• Animation or videos that last longer than 30 seconds should be explicitly
user-initiated
Chapter 3:
Marketing in Action
After clearly identifying goals and aligning your design and development efforts towards your mar-keting objectives, and after ensuring optimization in every phase of the process, the more concep-tual design work starts. Just like in acconcep-tual banner ads in the real world, there are best practices in marketing concepts that make their presentation or design more creative, powerful, or persuasive. Of course, there are also marketing concepts unique to rich media banners.
• Always brand. Always establish brand association and recognition.
• All interactions and animation should end after the ad and resolve with an end-frame static
graphic that promotes your brand through either association or recognition
• Use the nuances and subconscious psychological communication of colors to aid in brand
recognition and association
• Use powerful, creative, persuasive copy
• Be consistent in design and aesthetics, as well as overall marketing pitch across all ad assets
