Want an ad that Rocks? by Arthur J. Barbato
Arthur
Attracting new clients and retaining current clients is mission
critical to all who seek to prosper in our interactive world. The best
approach to defeating the daily assault of new challenges is to embrace
marketing's oldest golden rule - repetition, and applying it to
entice interaction with new clients who only buy from brands they are
familiar and comfortable with. That requires a campaign; no single ad
will work (imho) without sufficient repetition no matter the content.
Because of the power of repetition or as David Ogilvy and others have
referred to it, the "anchoring" principle is still the golden rule.
That is why SEO firms are doing such a strong business. You need a
professional doing your search marketing or you can fail as easily as
an amateur driver trying to qualify for a NASCAR race. It can be
done-it just doesn't make sense to waste your time and energy, does
it? Yes, in search being first is better, even if being first is not
at first blush important because you are already number one. Cyber
squatting with your competition buying top bid with your brand name
foils the search more often than most would like to admit. With respect
to banners there are several augments worth considering and some
innovations to keep you first.
One study, on a gaming site suggests the 300x250 is the most effective
ad size, but in my experience 728x90 and 160x600 can keep pace with the
300x250. It all depends on being first, yes and on pleasing colors and
limited text that entices interaction. "Join us", "visit us"
and other simple invites to interaction are winners and have little
competition. Remember, people in the interactive advertising space are
very quick scanners of ads-even as they read an article of choice they
can be induced to click a banner that gently attracts their eye with
pleasing colors and movement.
How is this possible? Well, on adotas.com, as an example, many of the
click throughs come when a reader is exposed to the email updates and
chooses a particular news item to read---they click on a news item---
and they are brought to the article of their choosing and there's
your ad---first ---among many, but most important--- first for every
reader that chose a link to follow from the email update!
How about the type of ad presented? DHTML ads that are viewed with
dancing laptops and cars screaming across the page distract the
reader-yes, they get your attention. Some actually intrude and
interrupt the reader by covering the article they have chosen to read.
But do they entice interaction? Only, in my opinion, when viewed
repeatedly. No single expansion ad can compare with even a simple jpeg,
animated GIF or Flash ad banner that is simple, elegant and repeated
often.
Ads that flash in a strobe (three changes per second) like manner are
often ignored and feedback indicates they annoy far more often than
they attract clicks. On adotas.com, the most effective ads are gently
pleasing eye-candy with limited script and zero outlandish statements.
Invites with the fewest words and pleasing colors are particularly
well-received and ---with sufficient repetition---- hugely successful.
Movement? Yes, the direction of the movement within your ad can induce
a ROI to make your COO smile or ---scream. Text that moves toward the
viewer works and text or images that recede are ignored consistently.
Tag Lines matter. Whatever you are presenting - - - two to five word
text messages in the first few frames of your banner's animation
gives your banner an advantage over your competition that is
measurable. Whether you are presenting affiliate invites, SEO, context
optimization strong Network presentation offers---it takes professional
skills to produce ads that rock. Each has its particular bugaboos. For
search engines--- the overriding consistent parameter is still simple
enough for all to understand. Search engines enjoy a "Link"
measurement algorithm to determine your site's rank. It takes
professional skills to optimize for search engines.
The caveat is that done improperly you can be blacklisted in the wink
of an eye. Your job, whether you are in Search, Network or "offer
marketing" is to communicate your invite ---not your proficiency---
in a few word and selected images. Opportunities communicated
succinctly with a clear "call to action" within the two to five
word message parameter are clearly scoring higher click throughs than
messages that are verbose or are filled with braggadocio. Allow your
later frames to entice and you will command a click without text
competing with hyper-active images. You win--- Big Time ---with a
cogent message---that is repeated often.
Vibrant colors on a 'vintage' (read: dark) background consistently
produce measurably better results than white background banners. White
backgrounds score poorly in the click through department, so, be
careful in employing a white background---leave this to the mad
geniuses of your creative team who have proven track records. Text that
moves toward the viewer is also scoring statistically superior click
through rates in ad after ad.
Keep It Simple or Starve is still as true today as it was in the time
of Moses. Whether you employ Flash8 or animated GIF --- keep it simple
and don't go too deep into changes ---even though Flash affords a
bounty of transparency depth. Ads that contain text or images that
recede are utter failures and should be abandoned before your client
opts to find another agency. While it's true that receding images in
Flash8 initially captivate when compare with the static alternative
these ads were duds in the critical Click Through Rate (CTR)
department. Fast changing text or image files, while initially
grabbing eyes, were ignored by clickers by such a wide margin that your
job is at stake and there are some media firms that specialize in these
"Wowie!" type ads destined for a spanking as Q3 reviews4 approach.
Human forms that smile (celebrity endorsements add an undeniable plus
factor) do increase click through rates unless heads are cropped
poorly. I've heard that banners with heads intact score better than
heads that are cut-off, what are your thoughts here? Is the jury in or
still out on this particular visual aspect? Final notes: Size does
matters---but position rules. What are your thoughts?
Call me -212-777-6778x305 to discuss building your buzz into a roar or
better yet post here your comments. Flame on?
by Arthur Barbato