Why You Should Spend More Time A/B Testing your Ads (or not…)

Why You Should Spend More Time A/B Testing your Ads (or not…)
A/B Testing-Crakrevenue

Affiliate Marketing

Written by

Papa Whale

PUBLISHED ON

July 3, 2013

Category

Affiliate Marketing

CR_BLOG_lab

It’s time we had that talk. With pop-up blockers and anti-ad guards that deter advertisements, some people actually think that banners are dead.

First, here are some numbers assessing this pessimistic theory:

• The typical Internet user is served 1,707 banner ads per month. (Comscore)

• Click-through rates are .1 percent. (DoubleClick)

• The 468 x 60 banner has a .04 percent click rate. (DoubleClick)

• An estimated 31 percent of ad impressions can’t be viewed by users. (Comscore)

• Eight percent of Internet users account for 85 percent of clicks. (ComScore)

• You’re more likely to survive a plane crash than click a banner ad. (Solve Media)

Source: Digiday.com http://www.digiday.com/publishers/15-alarming-stats-about-banner-ads/

Well, we’ve got news for you – banners aren’t dead, and they aren’t walking zombies either. With the growing number of sceptics out there, the crappy ad tools are out, and cool well-designed ad tools are in.

So how can you make sure that you’ve got great banners? We’ve got just what you need.

Online surfers are so blase about bad ad tools, they don’t have time for them and don’t bother giving them a first or second look. That’s why it is so important that when you’re selecting your ad tool, you use the right one.

Grab their attention and bring 'em in

There are 5 essential characteristics of a great, high-CTR banner.

Picture

You’ve heard it a hundred times before: a picture is worth a thousand words. Your picture here will work wonders for showing online surfers what you’re all about and why they should be interested. That means the picture has to be on topic and will work even better if it’s relevant and up-to-date. In a sea of ads coming from every direction, your picture needs to stand out from the rest to attract and hook internet surfers.

Text

You don’t have to be Bob Dylan’s relative to write catchy lines. I’m not saying it’s very easy either. You’re going to have to test a few sentences out before you can tell what works so you’ll get better at it with time. The best way to start out is by looking at other banners. Do not copy other’s witty text – you can always find a way to put your own unique spin on it. Just make your text sizzle to make it click-worthy.

Design

It helps to have an eye for design and aesthetically pleasing looks - however there’s no beauty contest when it comes to this. As with pugs, sometimes an ugly look can still be attractive. With art and design there’s an element of balance of the placement of the objects, the light and dark contrast and colours also play an important role. This might not come naturally to you, but you will figure it out by testing different variations.

Call to action

We’ve talked about this before and still it’s surprising to see how many people forget this golden rule: no ad is complete without its CTA. After all of that hard work you’ve put into making a sleek ad tool that leaps off the screen and grabs your viewer’s attention, bring it home by making your CTA nice and clear.

And finally...

A/B Testing

Here’s comes that evaluation process that we’ve been talking about. You’re going to need a lot of testing to get your ad tool up to par. Once you’ve created your ad tool, you’re going to test two variations of the same banner online.

Again and again. Over and over.

See which one performs better and burn the version that was outperformed. A/B Testing your ad tool to optimize its performance to make sure that your banner is effective.

When done correctly, banners will become your best tool in cranking up the amount of traffic activity.

Banners can seem like an endless, time-consuming circle of designing, testing, redesigning, testing, etc. It’s the key element for a successful banner campaign. Your competitors are doing it, so compete by doing it better.

Or you could just relax and let us do the work.

That’s why we’re always working on eye-catching banners using this five step process and testing them so that we know they work.

That means that you don’t have to spend precious time figuring out the right colours and design with A/B Testing. Don’t burn your traffic while testing new creative material either!

Because we're taking care of this. And on millions of hits.

It’s such a vital part of the business that our staff works week-long to create newer and better ad tools!

Our media buyers test ad tools on our own traffic and then our creative experts add their insights so they can better craft their next money-making piece of art!

Creative materials are then tested to make sure they reach the maximal click-through rate before they become available to our affiliates.

Put your banner to the test, considering the 5 essential elements that we mentioned above. Resurrect your earning power. Or save your time and effort and let us design your new ad tools: contact your affiliate manager to help you select the ad tools that best suit your needs!

Banners that work. Now that’s good news!

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