Oh, the often maligned banner ad – small, sometimes obnoxious, often unseen. But in a digital landscape that is increasingly mobile-based — and where audience attention is limited to micro-breaks — the banner ad is a powerful workhorse in your arsenal of apartment marketing ideas.
According to the International Advertising Bureau, internet advertising revenues in the United States totaled over $20 billion in the second quarter of 2017 — that’s 23% growth from the previous year. Moreover, advertising delivered on a mobile device accounts for 54% of total internet advertising revenues.
What does this all mean? Banner ads are a huge and growing market, and hundreds of millions of people view them daily. It’s our agency’s job to cut through the clutter to help you market directly to your consumers.
Today, we’re going to explore six strategies our design team uses to create effective banner ads for our clients.
- Copy should be no longer than 5-10 words
The human brain can only process about five words per second, and with a banner ad, you only have about 2 seconds to grab someones attention and deliver a clear message. On that note, we recommend only having one action or message per ad for the sake of simplicity.
- Design it to look like an ad
Native ads that subtly plug an advertiser are great marketing idea for apartments, but that’s not the role of the banner ad. Again, since you have such a limited amount of time to provide a message to consumers, it needs to be very clear what you are (an ad) and what you’re selling. Use a subtle border around ads that are white or could otherwise blend into the background of a website, and add a CTA button for clarity.
- Use the most effective sizes
Why waste time and money with sizes that don’t statistically perform well? Here at Threshold/Carve, we only use the top performing ad sizes for our clients.
- Use uncluttered, bright images
Your ad will never stand out if the consumer doesn’t notice it. Consumers only glance at ads for a second, so be sure to use simple photography, with one, clear focal point to increase the clarity of your message.
- Keep branding consistent
Ensure that the banner ad makes use of your brand’s colors & fonts of the so it’s look and feel is consistent with the website its linking to. You don’t want to confuse consumers by making them think they clicked on the wrong link.
- Use bold colors & contrasting buttons
Use bright colors to draw consumer attention to your ad. This is especially important with call-outs and buttons, which should be contrasting colors for high visibility. This doesn’t mean your ad should be garish. If you use a photo for your banner ad with a blue sky background consider an orange button and orange action text.
Design matters, whether you’re designing something as complex as a logo as simple as a banner ad. If you need help with design strategies and apartment complex marketing ideas, feel free to shoot us an email or give us a call today.
