Display advertising is a challenging market, with an ever-growing audience and growing competition. Although the industry has seen significant advancements in creative technologies, it still struggles when it comes to user experience. Here are four tips that will help you create visually stunning display ads than catch your target audiences eye.
The “visual ads” are a type of advertisement that is created to be attractive and eye catching. It can be used for both digital and print advertising. Here are four tips on how to create visually stunning display ads.
Advertisers aren’t only fighting for their audience’s attention with other businesses. At SMX Create, Rebecca Debono, creative director at Jump 450 Media and previously head of creative strategy at 3Q Digital, remarked, “Nowadays, the digital world is so crowded, we’re also fighting against our best friend’s new kids and dogs and really wonderful photographs of food.”
With so many platforms, technology, and diversions accessible, creating advertising that genuinely attract consumers may be quite tough. Debono and Julia Thiel, VP executive creative director at 3Q Digital, discussed how to create visually beautiful advertising to help companies break through the clutter and meet consumers’ motivators as well as impediments that may be blocking your sales funnel at SMX Create.
Create a design for the section of the funnel you’re aiming at.
Using multiple advertisements to target different parts of the sales funnel means that you have a pipeline that speaks to all prospective consumers, whether they’re completely unfamiliar with your brand or on the verge of converting. Debono related the following aims with advertising at various phases of the funnel.
- Top of the funnel: Introduce your brand and pique the curiosity of your target audience.
- Educate audiences about your brand/product and attract them with your offers in the middle of the funnel.
- Encourage the audience to take action at the bottom of the funnel.
Rebecca Debono is the author of this image.
“It has obvious logo placement, which really helps to develop brand recognition,” Debono said, pointing to an example of a top-of-funnel ad (shown above). The logo is also prominent on the product, which is enhanced by a brand-consistent backdrop pattern. The ad’s backdrop may also stand out against a white or black website background by including the company’s logo colors.
With a powerful CTA, the language components clearly demonstrate the product’s value proposition and urge prospective buyers to proceed further down the funnel. Advertisers may also utilize movement or animation, as well as text overlays, to pique people’s interest, according to Debono.
“As we get closer to the center of the funnel, I want to talk about how to truly communicate to particular populations,” Debono said, saying that the normal creative process can entail iterating on a top-performing creative asset so that it can be utilized to target a wide audience.
“It’s not a bad process,” she said, “but as we reach further mid-funnel, we discover that this process is frequently lacking a step, and that step is what inspires people, what will persuade them to purchase, or what will be their barrier to entrance.” Debono believes that delving into consumer profiles may help marketers address both the motivators and impediments that customers face.
Rebecca Debono is the author of this image.
“Perhaps the barrier is that there won’t be a flavor for me,” she said, “and so we could hit them with the message that there are 36 tastes to explore.” Similarly, by appealing to their motivators (for example, “freshly chosen components” for health-conscious customers) or removing obstacles, your advertising might assist develop a closer connection with audiences (such as local availability, with incentives like free shipping).
Rebecca Debono is the author of this image.
Debono displayed a series of materials for Kombucha brand Suja as examples of effective bottom-of-funnel advertisements (shown above). She identified the following criteria as being important in the effectiveness of performance ads:
- For further visual impact, the product is prominently exhibited. This also educates viewers about what they may purchase.
- Savings offers may persuade bottom-of-the-funnel consumers to convert.
- Customers have a clear understanding of what to do next when they see a strong CTA.
- Because bottom-of-the-funnel clients are likely already aware with your company and goods, the content and images are kept basic.
Differentiate your brand by varying your advertisements.
Rebecca Debono is the author of this image.
“Being distinct and sticking out in a sea of sameness, particularly if you’re in a crowded sector, is incredibly crucial,” Debono said, adding that people may not be able to tell which brand an ad is from if all of the brands seem to be aesthetically identical, as in the picture above.
She highlighted an ad that breaks the trend in the example below: Rather than concentrating on the product, the ad attempts to connect with the target audience directly by emphasizing the lifestyle that the business want to associate with the product. It also comes with a distinctive call to action (“Follow your gut”), which makes the ad stand out.
Rebecca Debono is the author of this image.
Although presenting product pictures is normally smart practice, marketers should keep an eye on the environment they’re advertising in to choose which form of creative to deploy.
“Being disruptive doesn’t mean you have to totally disregard your brand rules and do something that doesn’t even seem to be from your brand,” Debono added, citing another example (below) in which a corporation utilized the same typefaces and colors to create a feeling of harmony.
Rebecca Debono is the author of this image.
“You can see they’re both from the same company,” she said, “but they’re simply noticeably different, and that’s what makes a really amazing disruptive commercial.”
Using creative graphics and photographs rather than generic ones may also help your company stand out. “There’s nothing wrong with the stock picture… except that everyone in the world may use it if they want,” Thiel said, adding that stock video footage, commodity graphics, and stock symbols are all the same.
“One option may be to at least put your own spin on it and overlay your brand colors on the picture, maybe you use a different cut,” she said for marketers who may be forced to utilize stock photographs (possibly due to financial limits).
Think about the components of your brand kit.
The psychology of each hue and what you want to identify your business with are frequently factors in choosing the proper colors to represent your company. Colors used by your rivals and the correct color combination to guarantee that your adverts capture your audience’s attention (typically by using a brighter color) are other significant considerations.
Julia Thiel is the author of this image.
“Your logo is your storefront,” Thiel said, “and you want it to speak for everything you do.” “So the first step here when developing a logo is to consider what your brand should communicate.”
Julia Thiel is the author of this image.
She pointed out that the interweaving of the “3” and the “Q” in her agency’s logo is supposed to indicate collaboration. She also suggested using a combination of bright and contrasting colors, as well as distinctive iconography, to give your adverts a visual personality. “Last but not least, the font should always complement your brand and, in the context of digital advertising, it also has to be extremely readable,” she added.
“At the very least, you should constantly utilize your logo, brand typeface, and brand colors in your commercials – not all of them at once, but some of them,” Thiel said.
Consider the format.
“When dealing with RDAs [Responsive Display Ads], there are certain obstacles,” Thiel said. “For example, when it comes to the picture and on-image text, some of the banners are very, very tiny, leaving very little area for your image.”
Julia Thiel is the author of this image.
Because the placement is responsive, you may not be able to manage the cropping of your banner. “In my view, having on-image text on RDAs is not a smart idea, period,” she stated, stressing that on-image text might obstruct your visual identity.
“When RDAs are presented, headlines and descriptions are mixed and matched,” Thiel said, “so all of the combinations have to make sense.” The banner picture needs to work with all of the potential headline and description combinations, thus the visual has to work with all of them as well.” She also pointed out that the content might be displayed without the banner picture, “so it [the ad copy] really has to speak for itself.”
Thiel suggests the following for developing for Responsive Display Ads:
- Instead of cramming all of the material into the visual component of the banner, be succinct with your wording.
- Remember that the text is equally as crucial as the banner.
- Creating mix-and-match headlines and descriptions that are consistent with the brand.
- Filling the picture area with vivid, eye-catching imagery that is understandable at first sight and at a tiny size.
Don’t neglect creativity; it’s one of your most powerful tools.
Advertisers may feel that there are less options to distinguish their brand or actively impact campaigns as the PPC business grows more dependent on signals and automated systems.
“It used to be that the greatest bidding strategy or the best targeting plan would win out,” Debono said. “But in this day and age of automation, creativity is really one of the key levers that we have to pull in order to stand out and produce a fantastic campaign.”
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Author Biography
SagaReach Marketing’s George Nguyen is an editor who focuses on organic search, podcasting, and e-commerce. He has a journalistic and content marketing background. He worked as a radio presenter, writer, podcast host, and public school teacher before joining the sector.
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