Following up on our digital kick, we’ve learned that smaller ads are often more effective than larger ads, but aside from that, how do you get people to actually click on them?
The answers shouldn’t come as a huge surprise, but we often see the very opposite happening on a regular basis.
Be creative, and be relevant. According to Dynamic Logic, ads with poor creative can actually be detrimental to the person’s opinion of the brand. It is critical to have creative advertisements in any medium, but especially online since there’s a plethora of information going on and it’s incredibly fast-paced, so it’s imperative to grab the viewer’s attention. The content of the ad should also be relevant to it’s placement. If you own your own accounting firm, place your ads on the financial pages of wsj.com, not the sports section. If you own a bakery, don’t allow your ad to wind up in the political news section of azcentral.com, make sure it’s on the Food section. If people are already interested in certain information, cater to that and make your ad placement relevant.
Keep it simple. Some digital agencies might be telling you that you absolutely need to have your ad done in Flash. Au contraire, as said before the web is pretty much like the Stock Exchange on crack – it’s busy and everyone is susceptible to information overload. Keeping it simple will make it easier on your viewers, and won’t over-stimulate them. In fact, according to Dynamic Logic’s study on online ad performance, Flash ads performed the weakest across the board for every single branding goal.
Target strategically. Let’s dream big for a moment and pretend you’re Adidas. If you’re planning on advertising on nylon.com, you shouldn’t just advertise Adidas in general. Instead, it would be wiser to advertise Adidas originals for women, since the predominant audience is young women who are interested in things related to the indie sub-culture. Again, let’s say you’re still Adidas and you’re planning on advertising on dooce.com. This mommy-blogger has a very irreverent writing style and of course the content of the ad should match that. Adidas could choose to actually use the content of her site for the ad – such as depicting herself and her daughter, dressed in Adidas garb of course, in a situation that she’s blogged about. That example actually accomplishes all three goals.
Still not clicking? Then you probably need our help…
