How To Fix 5 Banner Advertising Disadvantages

Trust me, I have been there. I know what you feel when you have to do something real quick, and you have to get through your fears. We face this feeling almost every time, because we live such an accelerated life. 

We want to achieve most of our goals in the shortest possible time, and we become stressed inevitably.

That’s the moment when the negative thoughts pop into our head. I like to call it the “What if?!” monster: What if I fail? What if I can’t do it? What if I will never have the chance again? and so on. These are the most common fears in almost every situation, and they are also quite dreaded in the world of display marketing. 

If you are like any other marketer or small business owner out there, you probably have multiple tasks at the same time. I mean loads of tasks that you have to do by yourself and you have to find a solution.

Well, that doesn’t sound so bad, because we know that Youtube tutorials can teach us anything and Google has an answer to all of our questions. The problem is that most of these tasks are pushing us out of our comfort zones and the “What if?!” monster will show up in our mind. 

Most of the people would think that banner ads are created only by designers or by those who have skills in Photoshop. Marketers and business owners know that this is not entirely true and that they create more banner ads than any professional designer altogether. Surprisingly, that doesn’t mean it’s easy for them. Marketers may need new banner advertising rates for a certain campaign real quick and small business owners may not have enough money to hire a designer. 

Let me talk about a few “What if?!” monsters from my experience and you may also find a solution to yours here.

#Disadvantage 1: What if I can’t do a banner ad?

 

It may seem complicated. It did seem pretty hard to me when I first had to design banner ads. There are so many details that you have to watch out for, like the right banner size, the color combination, the ad copy, and the call-to-action. I didn’t even mention yet the software that you have to use to make a banner ad. And who has time to learn all that? 

Assuming that I’m not the only one in this situation and that there must be a solution for all of my problems, I’ve started to look for answers. Did I find it? I have found a tremendous amount of information about the best practices in this industry and even more. 

Solution: There are blogs that you can follow to learn new things about banner advertising. If you worry about the look of your ads, or you are in lack of inspiration, I strongly recommend that you check out this list of social media channels for designers. If you are in a hurry as many of us do, and you are new to banner advertising, you may get a quick heads-up by reading this article by Jeff Bullas. 

When it’s time to put your knowledge into action, you can choose from a few outstanding banner creator apps. It all depends on what you want to use your banner for.

Bannersnack, for example, can help you to create interactive banner ads easily, and it instantly gives you an embed code which you can use to directly integrate you banner ad into your website.

 

#Disadvantage 2: What if potential customers will ignore my banners? 

 

Probably it is the scariest thought. Imagine that all your work and research was for nothing and all the time and money that you’ve invested in this project is gone. I thought of this many times while I was working on banner ads and advertising campaigns. Of course, we all want the best for our customers, and we are only interested in a win-win situation. 

The ugly truth is that this fear is not irrational.

We have all heard of banner blindness and (if you have some experience in online advertising) you may have had to face low Click-Through-Rates or Conversion Rates. It happens, and it hurts. 

Solution: From my experience, the best thing that you can do is to be patient, to invest more time in studying the digital industry and to optimize your campaigns. 

It takes a lot of time to create a rocking display campaign. You have to A/B test certain settings, banner designs, and call-to-actions, so a poor campaign performance, in the beginning, shouldn’t scare you.

Patience can solve more problems than you might think. 

 

#Disadvantage 3: What if banner adverts are not what my business needs

 

I’m sure that you’ve asked yourself this question at least once. There are certain reasons why you might think that banner advertising is not a good fit for your marketing strategy, and you are unsure if it’s a good move or you will just throw your budget out the window. I get it.

Solution: By banner advertising, you can sell almost anything (just don’t forget about advertising policies). While analyzing your product and your website, or a certain landing page that you would like to use, you may find a way to implement banner advertising in your marketing strategy.

Just think about what you want to achieve. Do you need more sales or leads? Do you wish to build brand awareness or to increase website traffic? Design your banner ads accordingly to your answer and you will see that it perfectly fits into your growth strategy.

 

#Disadvantage 4: What if I don’t have time to launch an advertising campaign

 

You are ready to launch an advertising campaign; you have all the settings figured out, and you have set your goals. It already took a lot of time, and there is one more thing that you have to do: to design your banner ads. You want to see results as soon as possible so you would like to make banner ads in less than 10 minutes. 

How do I know all this? I’ve done the same thing before I’ve learned that banner ads represent the most important part of my plan, and they are worth the time. I don’t mean that creating them took so long. That can be done in less than a few clicks if you are using the right banner creator app. What you have to do is to analyze your website and your product, and decide what design, message, and call-to-action you would like to use. 

Solution: You can easily calculate the time that you need to design clickable banner ads. First, think about the sizes that you would like to use. The best practice is to include only these three standard banner ad sizes: 300×250, 728×90, 160×600. Check your website and choose three basic colors that you would also like to use in your banners. The last step is to define your message.

Now you can start designing your ads. It shouldn’t take more than an hour. If you think about how it can boost your sales, you will realize that it is worth the time.

 

#Disadvantage 5: What if I can’t define a message for my banner ad?

 

Advertising is about communication. That’s the reason you can face the same fears as you would do if you would have to talk to a stranger: your message will not be heard, you will be misunderstood, or people will not take you seriously enough. People might even think that you are lying. It’s scary and unfair. 

Solution: The problem is that you can’t just launch your campaign without a strong message. If you are not confident about yours, and you are not ready yet to leave your comfort zone, the best thing you can do is to ask other people’s opinion. It may be a colleague or someone else whom you trust.

I’ve done that several times before I was sure that I can do this. It is perfectly normal and even recommended.

 

Conclusion 

My biggest advice to you is this:

[Tweet “Never give up on designing your banner ads.”]

Maybe it seems too complicated, and you prefer to change your marketing strategy, or you just hire a professional designer (which could be quite expensive), but you have to know that you can do it by yourself.

You can understand your product better than anyone else.

What do you fear the most? Let us know in a comment below!