Launching call marketing? Consider these tips for your mobile ad design

If you’re a small business owner driven to embrace the many benefits of a call marketing campaign, you’ll want to give serious thought to the design of your mobile ads.

You’re on the right path. Mobile ads are now so popular that worldwide spending is expected to grow from $144 billion this year to $247 billion in 2020. Furthermore, gearing your ads toward driving phone calls to your business is a smart move, since phone calls typically drive five to 10 times the revenue of web leads.

If you lack your own marketing team, you may wish to invest in software tools that can help you produce your content, implement your strategy, monitor your campaign progress and help analyze results. Either way, you’ll want to give thought to your ad design before you begin.

Let’s assume you plan to broadcast a banner ad — the visual ads made up of text, images and/or video that typically appear on the top or side of a page. Banner ads are the most common mobile ad format because they’re viewable on all screens, they’re relatively inexpensive, they can be executed in volume quickly and easily and they’re easy to measure.

What are some mobile ad tips when devising banner ads? Consider the following:

– Plan your ad to fit one of the most successful sizes identified by Google AdSense: 728×90px for a leaderboard, 300×600px for a half page, 336×280px for a large rectangle or 300×250px for a medium rectangle.

– When buying space, opt for locations above the fold and close to the page’s primary content. You’ll also want to consider optimal times for your ad to run, which should be highly dependent on your product and the demographics of your target customers — and when they’re most likely to be looking at their smartphones.

– For your ad design, think in terms of showing customers your message instead of just telling them. Your headline, colors and images should work together to appeal quickly and concisely to a customer need or want. Think knee-jerk emotion, not necessarily logic.

– Create a brief headline, then in different-sized copy state your offer (i.e., your value proposition) as clearly and simply as possible, in four lines or less. Example: “$10 deep-dish pizza today only.”

– Include a clickable call-to-action link or button that can automatically send a call to your company, labeling it with something simple such as “Call to order” or “Find out more.” Make it big enough for even large-fingered users to click. The lower right-hand side of your ad is an ideal location; use a contrasting color so it stands out. If customers are likely to call you later, consider prominently listing your vanity phone number instead of a click-to-call option.

– Incorporate your company logo for brand identification, but keep it smaller than the offer itself.

– Think about the psychological connotations of the colors in your ad. For example, in U.S. culture green often suggests health, freshness or wealth, while blue can denote safety, formality and/or coldness.

– Frame your ad to optimize viewability, perhaps with a one-pixel black or gray border to contrast with a white background.

– Avoid cursive or script fonts, overly thin fonts or fonts smaller than 10 points.

– Use imagery sparingly, if at all. Anything chosen should relate directly to your product instead of trying to represent an abstract concept.

– If opting for animation, keep it simple, limit the timing to 15 seconds or less, and tie the message to your call to action.

– Try to strike a visual balance; make your design eye-catching and instill a sense of urgency, but avoid elements such as flashing lights that may come across as obnoxious or overly intrusive.

– Keep your ad’s file size smaller than 150 kb to allow for fast loading with mobile devices. The most workable formats are JPG, PNG, GIF or HTML5 files.

– Create brand continuity between your mobile banner ads and your ads in other mediums. In a perfect world, the viewer should be able to immediately recognize and trust the source of the ad (your company).

– Consider conducting A/B testing, which can help you hone in on your most successful ad elements relative to your target customers.

When optimized to their full potential, mobile ads can go a long way toward reaching your preferred audiences. Use strategy to put together the designs that will have the most widespread appeal.

Talk to Custom Toll Free about finding a meaningful and highly memorable phone number that will help your call marketing campaign take off quickly.