Humans are visual creatures, so we tend to be more attracted to images rather than text. Additionally, the human brain can process visual information 60,000 times faster than text. Therefore, images will have a bigger impact when you are designing banner ads.

Although images can make your ads more persuasive, they can also ruin your message when it is not designed carefully and thoughtfully. Therefore, this article will discuss 5 visual elements you need to consider when designing banner ads.

• Size

Size plays an important role in designing ads for your website. Ads that are too big will disrupt the layout of the website and may look intrusive. Most people also don’t like disruptive ads that block their view on the website. Meanwhile, ads that are too small usually will be hard to notice. Standard size according to Google Adsense are 728x90px, 300x60px, 300x250px, and 336x280px. 

• High-Quality Images

Once you know which size you’re going for, you can pick the size of the image accordingly. Find clear and crisp, high-quality images to present professional looking banner ads. You don’t have to use a professional photographer to get high-quality photos. There are plenty of stock photos websites you can always refer to when looking for the appropriate image for your ads.

• Relevant Images

Find a relevant image that supports the message that you’re trying to convey. For example, ads for products should show how good your products look. Meanwhile, ads that are showing limited promotion or discount can use a clock to show limited time. While finding the right image is important, find the value proposition first before selecting one. 

• Colouring

Composing a colour palette is not only about choosing which combination will look good. Colouring plays an important part in evoking the emotions of your audience. Every colour has a different association which can vary in different cultures. Therefore, do your research before picking which colour to use.

Here are some example of colours and the emotion they evoke in a Western audience.

• Yellow

Yellow is associated with friendliness and cheerful emotion. It is an eye-catching and bright colour that invoke youthful emotion.

• Red

This colour is powerful and invokes excitement, love, passion, and even anger. This colour is attractive, but you need to use it in moderation because too much red can be overwhelming and not easy on the eyes. If you want to invoke a calm, serious, or mature emotion, avoid using red in your colour palette.

• Green

Green is commonly associated with wealth, environment, health, freshness, growth, or new beginnings. It is also easy on the eyes and makes the perfect colour for ads that emphasize nature or health.

• Orange

Orange is playful and full of energy. It is not as powerful as red, but still exudes energy and look stands out. That is one of the reasons why a call to action button usually use orange colour.

• Blue

Blue conveys trust, serenity, intellect, coldness, masculinity, refreshment, formality, maturity, and clarity. 

• Black

Black is associated with power, prestige, luxury, formality, and exclusivity. 

• White

White shows purity, modernity, cleanliness, honesty, and simplicity. The traditional palette of white background and black text is the most readable combination.

• Gray

This colour conveys practicality and neutrality. It is also perfect as a background because it can intensify other colours.

• Brown

Brown is commonly associated with nature, seriousness, masculinity, humility, and toughness. It is a good colour choice that can balances out stronger colours.

• Purple

Purple is extravagant, feminine, luxurious, wisdom, and magical. This colour option usually invokes a soothing effect.

• Pink

This colour is associated with love, youth, babies, or sweetness. 

Once you know which emotion you want to invoke with a certain main colour, the next thing to consider is which colour combination will look good. Pick a combination that has good colour contrast and appropriate for the context.  

• Animation

Last but not least is animation, which can be very effective for a website banner ads design. While the animation is helpful to catch your audience’s attention, it is important to design one that does not distract them from the message you are trying to convey. A good animation for banner ads usually doesn’t last more than 15 times and doesn’t loop more than 3 times.

When you are designing banner ads, you have to make sure that they are not disruptive, but at the same time interesting enough for the audience that they want to click them. These visual elements are some of the important things to consider when you are designing ads for your website. It may take time to develop the idea and design good ads but will be worth the effort to generate a conversion rate.