Develop Banner Ads that Outperform the Competition

Posted Nov 10th, 2008 by Andrew Davis

In October, TomTom launched an interactive campaign designed specifically to drive sales to their new e-commerce platform. With the first set of results in from the initial campaign releases, I thought we should pass on our findings to help you develop better banner ads.

I was inspired to write this piece of insight after the team at TomTom called to thank us for creating some of the most effective and successful banner ads they, or their media buyer, had ever seen. How successful? Fifty times more successful than the industry benchmark!

Set a Benchmark

At Tippingpoint, we take great pride in examining and evaluating a client’s ROI for anything we do, and with a banner ad campaign we decided to measure our campaign’s success against an industry standard 0.21% click-thru rate for banner ads. This means that for each 1,000 times our banner ad is served up (or viewed) we should expect at least two people to click thru to the content we’ve promoted.

So make sure anytime you launch a campaign you set your benchmarks early to help define success.

Keep It Simple

I can’t stress enough how important it is to keep your concept, copy and animation simple. Take, for example, the two sets of creative we ran in October.

The first set of creative, designed to capture a browser’s attention prior to Columbus Day, was designed to be clever and fun. We tried to play up the irony between Columbus’ search for the new world and the fact that a TomTom will help you navigate with ease.

The second set of creative (set to run post Columbus Day), focused on a much more simple and straightforward set of messaging: “Best GPS. Best Price.” That’s it.

The second set of creative outperformed the more clever, witty concept by more than 20%.

Enough said.

Remember Who Your Audience Is

This entire set of creative is running on only one site: CNET.com. This means that we have an opportunity to really focus on delivering a clear message to a specific niche audience. At CNET, we can assume that the audience is tech savvy, that they thoroughly research, review, and read about a product prior to making a purchase, and that if they’re searching for a GPS device they’re aware of the TomTom brand.

Knowing your audience is extremely important when you’re launching an interactive campaign, so make sure you paint a clear picture of who will see the interactive ad and in what context.

Avoid Telling the Whole Story

Banner ads are like billboards on the highway. You encounter them unexpectedly on the way to your final destination. As a result, you have to avoid the temptation to tell the viewer everything at once. So, all a banner ad should do is capture your attention, entice you to read the content, and persuade you to take the next step in the campaign.

See how excited we were when the first batch of creative went live.

Check out what’s running now on CNET’s TomTom aisle page.

Too many banner ads try to capture your attention, tell you all about their product, and persuade you to make a purchase decision, all in a 728 x 90 banner ad. This just doesn’t work.

Remember, a banner ad is only an entry point into a more robust campaign, it’s not the beginning, middle, and end of the road.

Something like the “Best GPS. Best Price.” banner ad invites the viewer to ask questions: Why is it the best GPS? What exactly is the price? The first set of creative told the whole story in one shot, leaving the viewer with no questions, and it resulted in markedly lower performance.

Evaluate & Revise

With an interactive campaign, you immediately see what works and what doesn’t. Make sure your media buyer or media planner gives you detailed reports and recommendations based on your creative’s performance. If something’s not working, revise it. Try something new. If something is working better than the rest, figure out why and replicate its success. If you just sit back and watch, hoping that eventually your campaign will catch on, you’re missing the boat.

TomTom’s Success

Within two weeks of launching the campaign, the TomTom team asked us to revise all of our creative to replicate the initial success of the “Best GPS. Best Price.” Why? Because in five days, one banner ad delivered a click-thru rate 50 times better than our benchmark. That means that for every 1,000 people that were served the ad, 112 clicked thru to get the rest of the story.

It’s Not Over Yet

The TomTom campaign’s not over. So keep your eye out for more simple, captivating, results-driven interactive from TomTom and the Tippingpoint Labs team.