Advertising professionals know one thing for sure. What sells is how creative you are and even though there are some best practices backed up with research on what works best, no particular standards work well with every type of advertising campaign. It all comes down to the kind of advertising campaign you are running, what you are selling, and who your target audience is. What will work for most ads may not be what’s best for your particular ad. With that said, there are various industry best practices that any advertiser would be wise to take with a pinch of salt. The top 6 that fall in this category are as follows:
Flashy Ads Are Better Than Static Ads
Current technological advances have made it possible to create some really flashy ads with video, sound, and all sorts of other graphic effects. While the flash and dazzle is sure to attract attention, it may not be the attention you seek. More commonly, all that flashiness may act to irritate, annoy, and put off your target audience rather than entice them to click or purchase. However, if you are appealing to a more youthful audience or promoting artistic work such as a game or a movie then the flashier your ad is the better.
You Must Have an Urgent Call to Action
This advice is very relevant in most types of banner ads, especially for B2C kinds of businesses. However, the same does not work so well for B2B business advertising. Instead of an urgent call to action such as “Buy Now” you will need a softer approach such as “Call Us For More Info” or “Click to Learn More”. You want to encourage your target market to make purchases, but businesses do not make purchases on impulse and they do get repulsed if they think they are being hustled into a quick buy.
Images of People Sell Better
It is an industry assumption that ads that feature images of people are more relatable, attract more attention, and generally perform better. While this is true for most cases, the use of photos of people should be used with care. For businesses that sell consumer products, it makes sense to have a photo of someone wearing the product or using whatever it is the business is selling. But for B2B brands or businesses that sell more abstract services, using people in your ads may not be the best approach.
Stick To Certain Colors
Many experts have demonstrated the effect of colors on the choices made by consumers. For instance, you will hear credible sources tell you that red attracts user attention, oranges encourages buying, and green increases ad click through rates. While statistics show that this is mostly true, it does not work with all kinds of ads. Other factors have to be considered such as where you place your ad and the background you are working against. A better guideline to follow is using your own brand colors and corporate colors. This will give a more professional look to your advertising campaign and create long term awareness for branding and re-targeting.
Performance Means Click Through Rates
Advertising experts always flaunt Click Through Rates (CTR) as the ultimate measure of an ad’s performance. While CTR is important, what matters most to businesses is not how much an ad was clicked on but how many paying customers it brought on board. Even in a case where the company is not really seeking conversions, such as in an awareness campaign, the CTRs are not very important. Actually, the only scenario where CTR may be of importance is when running an A/B test between two different ads.
Ad Networks Perform Better
Approaching publisher sites on your own is hard work and very costly. It is much easier to develop your ad through your preferred online banner maker and submit it to an advertising network and just pay for Pay Per Click (PPC) or Click Per Impression (CPI) rates. Advertising networks ease the burden on the advertiser and works to target the highest CTR. However, as said before, CTR is not the ultimate goal of the business. For some businesses, especially those that deal with specialty or high end items, a more focused strategy to reach the target market needs to be employed. If you are selling some kind of machinery that is not for every day domestic use then it would be better if you target only those who are likely to have an interest in it rather than appeal to the masses. Appealing to the masses will diminish your Return On Investment (ROI) since you will find yourself paying for clicks made by curious people rather than interested buyers.
Industry best practices are great guidelines for knowing what works and what doesn’t. However, they should only be looked at as reference points and not rules written on stone. Every advertiser should rely more on creative and experiment with what works for their particular brand and not overly focus on what experts say.
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