TIPS & TRICKS

12 Banner Ad Design Tips For Affiliates That Attract More Clicks


Within this article, you’ll find twelve banner design tips to fuel the growth of your affiliate marketing business. Using this promotional strategy, you give yourself the best chance of getting as many people to click on your advertisements as possible.

We hope you find it helpful!

“Banner ads” are crucial in this game. They get embedded on other people’s websites to showcase either your brand or your product. They’ll also contain a link back to your website. Whoever has the best-looking banners is most likely to win the customer. As a result, it’s well worth spending some time making sure your ad is as aesthetically pleasing as possible.

Affiliates use banners to market to individuals because they’re a tried and tested way to catch a person’s attention. People react to visual stimuli. When you’re browsing across the internet, sight is often the only sense that’s truly engaged. Therefore, it makes sense to advertise your affiliate marketing business using this kind of technique.

Visual incentives are the best way to make your potential audience take action. For you, as an affiliate marketing-based seller, it’s the best way to lead to future profits.

That’s why, in this article, we’re providing twelve of the best tips for designing your unique banner.

How Do You Design Great Banner Ads? – TIPS

👉Tip #1 - Create your own banner design

Everyone should have their own unique design. As well as being helpful for advertising, having a set of colours and/or shapes that you regularly use (including a logo) is excellent for helping people recognise your business. If you don’t already have this set up, we’d strongly recommend taking the time to do so.

Once you have your brand set up, use these exact colours, images, shapes and logos on your banner design. For the most effective banner design for an affiliate marketing website, make sure it closely resembles your website. Since you are a virtual business, it’s what people associate most with you.

👉Tip #2 – Use the most effective, standard banner size

One of the most important tips is to make sure that you size your banner effectively when you finalise your design.

If the banner is too big or too small, your audience might either get too frustrated to read it or perhaps not even notice it.

Google AdSense indicates that the following banner sizes are most effective for converting clients:

  1. 728×90px — Leaderboard.
  2. 300×600px — Half Page.
  3. 300×250px — Medium Rectangle.
  4. 336×280px — Large Rectangle.

Keep in mind where the banner will be placed on the website – as we’ll now briefly talk about.

👉Tip #3 – Place your banner ads correctly

The placement of your banner ads is crucial. Poor placement can mean that all the effort you put into the design could go to waste.

The best place to locate your banner is near the top of a webpage. It should be above the fold and as high as possible up the page, near the contents bar. To grow your affiliate marketing business, you should keep this in mind. The more visible your banner is, the greater your profits could be.

(On a website, the “fold” is the bottom of the page when it first loads.)


👉Tip #4 - Three basic components:

There are three simple things you should never forget.

  1. Include the company logo on the banner design. This clearly identifies you as the owner and the business to which your potential customer might give their money. However, keep it small. It should be out of the way and shouldn’t dominate the value proposition or call to action.
  2. Value proposition – the central part of your banner should offer your target audience something. It should be the first thing viewers see when your banner pops up. For example, it might be some money off an item or to showcase a new product. You should make sure you include attractive prices and offers, making people more likely to click the link.
  3. Although it shouldn’t take space away from the value proposition, you should include a “Call to Action” (or CTA). CTAs entice customers away to your website. Common examples include phrases such as “Learn More”, “Click Here”, or “Get Started Now”.

When you design your banner, make sure to include all of these, and you’ll be well on your way to producing a successful marketing tool.

👉Tip #5 - Keep it simple

When someone looks at your banner, it won’t be for more than a second. Most people will keep on scrolling. You need the design of your banner to hold that person’s attention quickly, and if there’s too much information or too many pictures on it, it won’t do so.

To keep your banner simple, limit the number of pictures and colours, but most importantly, keep the word count low. Images are easier to look at than words.

That being said, don’t necessarily focus on making it too simple. There’s a middle ground in there somewhere with the perfect amount of content for a website banner design.

👉Tip #6 - Make your text instantly readable

As previously mentioned, the text on your banner ad needs to be readable.

Follow these general rules – do:

  • Make sure the headline is bigger than the body.
  • Keep your banner to less than four lines of text.

Don’t:

  • Use cursive scripts or fonts.
  • Use thin fonts.
  • Write the body of your text in ALL UPPERCASE.
  • Use font sizes less than 10 pt (aside from disclaimers and copyright notices).

👉Tip #7 - Use buttons appropriately

Buttons often increase the CLR (Click Through Rate) of a banner. When people can see something to click, it seems they’re more likely to.

When you include a button in your banner design, choose a colour that tastefully contrasts the background. Place them in the lower right-hand corner – the most logical place.

Some banners won’t need a button, so make sure to decide whether it’s appropriate for your specific type of affiliate marketing.

👉Tip #8 - Create a sense of urgency

Banner ads don’t necessarily have to be subtle. You can make them bold, standing out against everything around them. This makes people more likely to click on them, and you are therefore more likely to make a profit.

You can also use strong, emotive language and instructional voice in your banner. Consider powerful words such as “immediately”, “get it now”, or “time’s running out”.

👉Tip #9 - The power of image

Be selective with the images you use. They’re a potent tool for converting viewers into customers, but only if they’re relevant.

Ensure that you choose images – both graphics and photos – that directly relate to the product or service you are trying to market.

Using the right images will lead to the growth of your affiliate marketing business.


👉Tip #10 – Animation is king

Analysis shows that animated advertisements regularly outperform static banner ads. It can be a very effective method of persuading people to click on your message – however, make sure that it doesn’t take away from the banner’s content.

It’s crucial to keep the animation to a minimum, too. Don’t forget that your potential customers all need to have devices that will load this banner ad. If the animation file is too large, it might struggle or even fail to load on many people’s devices. This would instantly eliminate a huge section of your potential customers.

👉Tip #11 - Defined frame

If you can clearly define the edges of your banner ad, it will help draw people’s eyes to the centre. Consider using a border around the edge to enhance this effect.

Make sure that, at the centre of your banner’s design, you find a suitably enticing phrase or picture to hold people’s attention long enough for them to click on your link.

👉Tip #12 - Keep your file sizes small

As we’ve previously alluded to, when you design your banner ad, a good tip is to keep it small in size. We’d suggest that you should work to a maximum file size of 150 kB.

If your banner ads are too big, you’ll end up slowing down your viewer’s devices, and they won’t click on your advertisement.

Designing Banner Ads – Conclusion

This article has focused on twelve banner ad design tips that you can apply to the content you’re creating.

We hope it’s been helpful for you. These promotional strategies will help fuel the growth of your affiliate marketing business.

Thank you for reading, and be sure to check back soon.