They say that analysts are not the most creative people and I would agree. But as an analyst who has spent years reviewing successful campaigns and I can confidently spot patterns in display ads that perform from those that flop. Let’s take a look at some of the common denominators of display ads that perform.
Images
They say that the subject line is the most important thing for any marketing email, and I can tell you that the image is the single most important component of a display ad (by far).
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Images that perform best are those that do NOT appear to be stock photos OR professionals shot. Images that look almost amateur perform better. By “amateur” we mean the looks like someone took it on their phone without any lighting adjustments, airbrushing or any other pro tools to polish the the photos.
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It’s best to use images that “catch the eye” in some way or another. It’s OK to draw in who may not be your targeting audience (this can give you priority in some auctions if your ad is getting clicked a lot). You want to find that photos that causes “scrollers” to stop for a moment and think “wait … I need to take a closer look at this”.
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For whatever reason, images that have hands and feet in them consistently get higher click through rates. Who knows why this is, but test it and you’ll see the difference. Furthermore, images with people in them generally perform better than those that are completely in animate.
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When you have someone in the image, it’s good to have them looking at something or doing something that causes the viewer to think “what is he doing or looking at?” That’s why you often see ads that have people that seem to be looking or pointing at the headline of the ad. The advertiser wants the viewer to ask them question “what’s he pointing at?” and then read the headline.
Ad Copy
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Headlines should always be built around benefits … REAL benefits that you know the actual customers of the product or service value. If it has a vague headline or doesn’t strike right at the heart of why consumers would by this product, then it won’t work.
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It’s ok to use gimmicks in your headline (like asking a question or inferring some big urgency) but make sure it’s always wrapping a benefit.
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Calling out your audience by name also helps improve CTR: “Marketers”, “Moms”, “Gamers”, etc.. When someone is in one of those audiences, they will have a harder time ignoring the headline because it’s directed at them. The smaller, more-specific the group, the better this tactic of calling out the audience works.
Ad Design:
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Colors. The best colors are ‘hot’ colors (e.g. red, yellow, orange, green). For whatever reason hot colors catch the eye and improve CTRs. If you can’t use hot colors on the ad due to brand guidelines or some other reason, then try to make the call to action button a hot color.
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Call-To-Action. The CTA button should always be in the bottom right for 300x250. Putting the CTA bottom on the left or mid left almost hides it from the viewer; for whatever reason viewers have been trained to look at the bottom right. For 300x600 it should just be on the bottom center (not the center-center). 728x90 should be on the right (not the center).