Characteristics of an effective advertisement

Businesses big and small use advertising to get the word out about their products and services. Some campaigns tend to do better than others, very often because of the effectiveness of the ads being shown. There is no single or known template for the perfect ad. However, there are some things that advertisers can do to make sure that they get the most out of their advertising dollars. The most effective ads that you will see online all bear some of the same characteristics, and it’ll become clear why you click on the ads that you do. Here are five characteristics of an effective ad.

Draw attentionGetting seen in the midst of a ton of online advertising is not easy. However, you want to be seen for the right reasons. Most people will agree that big flashing banners on a website are highly visible, but they are also incredibly annoying. An ad should stand out for all the right reasons, drawing your eye to it without using any sort of wild flashing lights or gimmicks to do the job. A quality ad that gets noticed tends to make people believe that the product or service being advertised will also be of high quality. Establishing and building trust from the right audience is a critical job of the ad.

Easy to understand and rememberIf you take a moment to think about it, I bet you can think of several ads from years past that still stick in your memory. It might be a jingle, a phone number, or a memorable character that makes it easy to remember. Ads that are easy to understand and remember tend to be the most effective, because they will come to mind when you want something specific. For example, the jingle for a local pizza joint might come into your head when you are craving for a slice.

Good call-to-actionThe goal here is to create a sense of urgency, usually in the form of a limited deal, or to find a way to get people to engage with the ad, which could mean asking them to click a choice on an ad banner. This is especially important in online advertising when users see ads everywhere and will try to skip the ads that they see. If your ad draws attention and is easy to understand then with a great call to action, it can be a very effective advertisement.

Quick to show positive resultsA well-put-together ad will begin to see some traction early, often soon after the moment that it goes live, assuming that it is given enough views and traffic. That is always a good sign, but it is not the only thing to look for. An effective ad should also deliver consistent results for the duration of the campaign, not just the opening few days. An ad that starts strong but fizzles quickly may need some tweaking. It is always a good idea to A/B test a few ad variants so you can understand what factors are positive and what should be changed.

High click-through and conversion rateAn effective ad may well get a large number of clicks, but what does the conversion rate look like? You need to monitor the ad performance in your ad server. If you are getting a ton of clicks on ads, but are not seeing much of a spike in sales or leads, you need to find out where the problem is. Very often, it is as simple as the product not delivering what the ad suggests or the landing page is too generic and not specific to the advertised offer.

AdSpeed ad server is a reliable & powerful ad serving and ad management solution that serves your ads, tracks impressions & clicks and reports ad statistics in real-time. Driven by the latest ad hosting technologies, the goal of Adspeed adserver is to provide a reliable platform that can help in executing online advertising strategy more efficiently.

Writes on adserver technologies, involved with Adspeed adserver software / Adspeed advertising platform.