These 10 tips will help you avoid being one of those companies with badly-designed banner ads.

1. 10 Banner Ad Design Mistakes You Don’t
Want to Make
These 10 tips will help you avoid being one of those companies with badly-designed banner ads.
This isn’t just a matter of personal taste: when your banner ads look bad, your whole company looks
bad. With bad banner ads, your ad campaign may actually be hurting your company’s reputation!
Follow these tips to make sure your banner ad campaign is helping your company build a positive
reputation that attracts & keeps customers.
© 2012 Canned Banners LLC

2. Tip 1: Don’t use too much text
Keep it short.
Bad Good
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3. Tip 2: Use clear, simple text
Make sure your ad can be quickly understood. Pick a
simple message and focus on it. If you need to advertise
multiple messages, use multiple ads.
Unclear Clear
Make banner ads in minutes: http://builder.cannedbanners.com

4. Tip 3: Is your logo readable?
Logos are an important part of building your brand. But a
bad logo can hinder your efforts to build awareness.
Bad logo: Good logo:
- Too small - Large
- Illegible - Legible
- Unclear - Easy to tell what company does
Make banner ads in minutes: http://builder.cannedbanners.com

5. Tip 4: Use professional photos
If you don’t have professional photos, buy stock photos
at sites like www.istockphoto.com.
Bad photo: Good photo:
Looks like a cell phone Professional photo of
snapshot. flowers.
Make banner ads in minutes: http://builder.cannedbanners.com

6. Tip 5: Pay attention to design quality
Unprofessional banner ads make your whole company
look unprofessional. Design quality is important.
Which one of these companies would you be more
likely to order food from?
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7. Tip 6: Use a clear call-to-action
You need to tell your viewers what you want them to do.
The ad on the left does not tell viewers what to do. The
ad on the right clearly asks viewers to order pizza.
Bad Good
Make banner ads in minutes: http://builder.cannedbanners.com

8. Tip 7: Use ads that match your website
As much as possible, your ads should match the look and
feel of your website. Which ad matches better?
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9. Tip 8: Don’t pay too much
Display ads have a short shelf-life. You should be creating
a new set of ads every month or so. Paying too much to
have ads made will completely destroy your ROI.
Campaign 1 Campaign 2
Ad space $1,000 Ad space $1,000
Ad design $500 Ad design $50
Total cost: $1,500 Total cost: $1,050
Total new sales: $1,400 Total new sales: $1,400
Return: -$100 Return: $350
ROI: -6.7% ROI: +33%
Make banner ads in minutes: http://builder.cannedbanners.com

10. Tip 9: Don’t hire an amateur
If a designer has no experience making banner ads, there
is a long list of mistakes they are likely to make, which
will end up wasting your time and your ad budget.
Things to consider when designing display ads
(professionals will know these things, amateurs will not)
• Dimensions (width x height must meet standard specs)
• File format (Flash, JPEG, GIF, PNG)
• ClickTAGs (Flash only)
• File size limits (45K is the most common limit)
• Does the ad have an obvious border?
• Etc, etc, etc
Make banner ads in minutes: http://builder.cannedbanners.com

11. Tip 10: Always be testing
Don’t assume that your first set of banner ads will perform
very well. They probably won’t. If you want to master
online advertising, be prepared to test, test, test.
Test photo Test text Test color
Make banner ads in minutes: http://builder.cannedbanners.com

12. What is Canned Banners?
Canned Banners is an easy app that lets you create your
own banner ads.
Get started at http://builder.cannedbanners.com
• Fast Make ads in
minutes.
• Easy No advertising
experience needed.
• Affordable Make ads
for $25 or less. Only pay
for ads you want.
© 2012 Canned Banners LLC

13. Contact us
Web www.cannedbanners.com
@cannedbanners
facebook.com/cannedbanners
© 2012 Canned Banners LLC