I guess the main problem that is inherent to all banner image adverts is the stereotype that comes along with them – spam. However, this was not once the case. Banner adverts use to get very healthy CTRs but have continued to dwindle over the last 10 years – hence why advertisers feel the needs to make the adverts more extreme to regain the once achievable CTR. However, making a pop-up ‘spammy’ advert is not the answer as you may get clicks but not contextual ones at that (who are unlikely to convert for you). For this reason, here are a few tips you can use to help make sure your banner adverts get a respectable click through rate.
 
 

#1 Fill Your Banner Advert with Text

Truth be told that the banner adverts out there that are filled with content and text generally get high CTRs as compared to the adverts that are simply images. I like to think of this as a hybrid between an image advert and text advert where you get the positives of both formats to produce synergy-like results:

• The content in the image advert contains all of the information that would have been in the search advert.
• But, because it is in the spacing of an image advert, the advertiser has a lot more freedom with how they want to show that information, in what colours, orders and more.
• You will still get contextual traffic since the web user will have read the content before they click on the advert.

Therefore, if you have not given it a go, I would suggest you try and advert that is simply text in an image advert spacing.
 
 

#2 Keep Away From Mentioning Any Numbers

Although it can sometimes be quite effective to mention numbers in a search advert, the opposite applies to image adverts. This is mainly because search adverts are directly competing against other search adverts above and below them. Therefore, they need to be much more competitive in order to get the click from the web user. A banner advert, on the other hand, does not have this problem – they are displayed by themselves on publisher websites. Therefore, do they need to be as competitive as search adverts? No. Pricing splits web users quite significantly to the point that the web user could be all for a product until they see the price. Therefore, to prevent this from happening, try not to include any numbers in your image adverts: only provide the web user such information when it is necessary (such as on a landing page).
 
Ultimately, the problem that is apparent when it comes to optimizing banner adverts is that many advertisers think the same techniques used to optimized search adverts apply to optimizing banner adverts. To some extent this is true. To many others, this is not true. The freedom and low competitiveness against other banner adverts means that to achieve a healthy CTR and win the web user over, you will not need to bring out as many USPs as you might think so early on into a PPC campaign.