Are Sri Lankan Brands making the Maximum Use of Display Banner Ads as a Brand Communications Tool?

Hey guys, So let us start todays conversation with a little something about my very own country, Sri Lanka. It is a beautiful country for sure but I must say that we do many things wrong than right. So is the Online Display Banner Ads. The screen shot below will scream it out:

The effectiveness of above ads is very much questionable, as most of us wont take the time to click and see what it really is saying and some of us don't even notice unsurprisingly. 

It is true that there is some effectiveness of using a display ad than a typical text ad as display ads contain images, video and graphics.But the question is that the placement and the communication is not done properly most of the time. But also I must say, for a display ad to be effective it doesn't have to be clicked. If the customer remembers the ad and think of doing a search and purchasing, it will lead to a successful sale than a customer who clicked the ad. So if the ad can create the expected awareness for the brand, then we are through.

If you are a srilankan advertiser, the best payment method for your display ad would be CPM than CPC because of the above reason. Display ads are increasingly  used as a brand building vehicle rather than a driver of direct sales. But using CPC is also fine as customers are expected to click the ad for more information.

Another thing marketers can do is to incorporate as much rich media as possible into the ads they create other than sticking on to the typical image ads as in the above screen shots. A video that plays on an ad will be more effective than a static image. But again there will be a problem in a country like ours, about the technology available in computers and the downloading time. So maybe that is the reason why our marketers are sticking to typical image ads. But it must change for sure.

And most of the time we think that display ads are the usual horizontal ones we see at the top of the page. But that is not the case. Marketers should be wise enough to pick a position that suits their budgets and also communicates the message effectively.

Now that it is clear that Srilankan display banner ads are not that effective I will list down a list of best practices to make them more effective.

• Choose the best ad format- Size matters obviously. It's good to have a wider ad than a narrow, tall ad. Readability is key and wider, bid ads can capture our attention fast.
• Keep it small- The ad size can be big, but the image size, the video size better be small. As if the viewer's broadband connection is a slow one, downloading will be slow and the whole purpose of the ad will be lost.
• Choose the best position- The most effective way is to place ads around the must read content of your site or at the end of an article and between articles. In a nut shell, top is better than bottom and left is better than right.
• Blend in- If you have the choice, try to match the colours of the sites you will be available in. Then without emphasizing that it is an ad, you can get customers to think that it is part of the content and the ad will receive clicks. The problem would be the inability to predict site colour schemes. But it is said that bright colours are always better.
• Include a call to action- Always include a button saying, 'click for more information' or 'shop here' or something similar, as if we don't invite the customer to react he/she will think it's a billboard like ad and will probably just go pass it.
• Keep it short- It is a known fact that viewers don't like long content. So whatever creativeness you have, make sure you finish it in a short time
• Link to a landing page- This is important in order to lead the customer through an experience rather than just directing the customer to your sites home page. Ideally the landing page should be of the same theme of the ad, and the customer will feel the continuation.
• Test it- We cannot expect instant results. So it is always good to try out new layouts and new content with new formatting which will direct you to the best mix of ads to run.

Having said that we should also see how annoying some ads make us. Either they block the important content we need to read or either they are too loud or something else. So the advice that can be given is not to interrupt the reader in anyway, but try to do something value adding. For eg- adding a twitter feed to your ad or a 360 degree evaluation of your product if the customer gives permission. These will be more effective I guess.

So time to think marketers!!!!!!!!