How To Design Effective Banner Ads On The Cheap
If you are running any kind of display advertising (Adwords, Facebook, Twitter, mobile etc.), you’ll eventually need to design banner ads for your campaigns.
The challenge with banner ads is that you need a nice design that delivers a succinct message in 2 seconds or less.
It usually takes multiple design iterations until you get it right. And getting there can be a huge pain!
Trust me, I speak from experience. I’ve managed the design process for hundreds of banner ads for clients.
You can sit down and design them yourself. But if you are not an experienced designer you end up wasting a lot of time.
I’ve also tested many banner tools out there and they often make your banners look cheap (“Congratulations, you are the 1,000,000th visitor!”).
You could hire a designer or agency to design the banners for you. This is one of the better options but good designs tend to be expensive (one banner set = $500+).
How To Crowd-Source Your Banner Designs
The best solution I’ve found is to crowd-source your banner ads on 99designs.
Here’s what you get:
- Full banner set (6 – 10 dimensions)
- 30+ variations from different designers
- Unlimited revisions
All of the above for $199. That’s good value for money.
Here are three tips to get the most out of your design contest…
1. The formula for effective banner designs
Here’s the formula for effective banner ads: “strong ad copy + compelling design”.
Designers focus on design, you need to come up with the ad copy.
Create a new banner ad contest and make sure to include the following in your brief:
- Headline
- Sub-headline or bullet points
- Button call-to-action (“Learn More”, “Enquire Now”, “Sign Up Now”)
It takes time to come up with good ad copy. Write at least 5 – 10 headline variations before you choose the winner.
2. The most important banner sizes
Specify the most popular banner sizes in your design brief. If you use uncommon banner sizes, your display campaigns won’t get many ad impressions.
Here are the most effective banner sizes in order of priority:
– 300 x 250
– 728 x 90
– 160 x 600
– 468 x 60
– 120 x 600
– 300 x 100
– 300 x 600
– 336 x 280
– 320 x 50
– 300 x 50
– 216 x 36
– 168 x 28
– 300 x 75
– 216 x 54
– 168 x 42
– 192 x 53
3. Examples of previous banner contests
Here are a few examples that will help you with your first design contest:
- 113 designs from 34 designers for $299
- 38 designs from 21 designers for $199
- 25 designs from 8 designers for $199
That’s all you need!
If you want feedback on your designs, post the link to your contest in the comments.
Nice one Stefan, I hadn’t thought of using 99designs and that is indeed good value for money!
Same here, I only figured out recently that 99designs is a good option for banner designs!