Banner Blindness, as the name itself, suggests, means to turn a blind eye to the banner. It usually happens in the case of ad banners. Because of this reason, many people decide to refrain from implementing PPC in their marketing campaigns. They consider SEO, Search Engine Optimization, a process which helps your website and content rank organically on search engines. But the question is – ‘Is the potential of ads really worth underestimating?’ NO! Ads have a massive potential to generate exclusively ready-to-buy leads. All you need to do is – Study:
- Which types of ads does your targeted audience interact with the most?
- What does your targeted audience expect from your ads?
- Which colours and typography would convince the unconscious mind of your targeted audience to focus on the ads?
Before reaching the solution part, it is essential to get to the exact causes of banner blindness. So here are the predominant reasons why people, in general, tend to avoid ads.
WHY DO PEOPLE AVOID ADS?
Human Psychology
Many researches, surveys and studies are conducted to find why people avoid ads. The fundamental answer that usually brings about is – Human psychology. People’s conscious or unconscious mind finds consuming the text on advertisements as a long-drawn-out method. Since people nowadays are pretty particular about their time, they avoid things they think can take a lot of time.
Conscious avoidance is not the only culprit in this scenario. The unconscious mind also plays a significant role in convincing humans to avoid this.
For example, A person is consuming the content presented on the page with thorough concentration. Then his mind will tell him to ignore distractions to ensure his flow doesn’t break. In that case, no matter whether the person reading the content falls under your targeted audience sphere, he will never look at your ad, irrespective of how awesomely it has been designed.
While writing this blog, I conducted a short survey on some of my friends – I sent them a link: https://www.topuniversities.com/student-info/studying-abroad/7-ways-quickly-improve-your-english-language-skills
I asked them about the 3 things that they notice in the first 5 seconds of opening this link. Here’s the data, I received –
RESULTS:
The result is 98% of the people didn’t notice ads in the first 5 seconds of opening this blog.
Limited Attention Capabilities
The users who find it difficult to establish their concentration anywhere are the ones who will ignore your ads anyways. Don’t consider it as your fault. It’s the user’s incapability to focus. Such people can even ignore the ads that say –
Similar Location, Patterns & Colour Choice
You all would agree that monotonous content, images or ads irritate us. To keep our minds calm, we usually try to follow the ostrich behaviour of wilful blindness. What I’m trying to say is – If you are not doing anything different from what others are doing, there is a high chance that you will be ignored.
So, standing out when it comes to ads, is quintessentially important. Consider playing with colours, experiment with placing ads at different locations and opt for new patterns to display ads.
HOW TO CONVINCE PEOPLE TO LOOK AT THE ADS?
Use Inline Ads
The ads are placed at extreme corners or rights and lefts of the page to grab the user’s attention. Because users’ unconscious mind says that this space is usually reserved for ads, which is something I’m not looking for currently.
Having inline ads, like the ads placed after the paragraphs, usually comes out effective. Also, you can have ads at the top or bottom. The ad will be displayed whenever the user clicks to open your page. Then he won’t have any choice but to get rid of it before reading.
Ads mustn’t look like Ads
Here comes the surprising factor – Following the same patterns for making ads will not do anything. You must do something unique and out-of-the-box. For example; If the other businesses in your niche, who are competing for a particular targeted audience, are using bright blue colors in their ads. Don’t follow them blindly. Unless and until you have a really convincing and strong reason behind this, don’t go for it. Consider using a different color, so that the difference which is being highlighted in your ad campaigns becomes the reason for the people clicking on the ad.
Don’t Use Too Many Ads On One Page
Using too many ads in one webpage will make each ad lose its attention grasping power. It will also highlight the lacking in your targeting strategy.
Keep The Content Minimum
Don’t use much content in your ad. It will make users fail to consume the important part of the content. Having a lot to say usually delivers vague information to the user. If you can’t compromise the content length, what you can really do is –
Step 1: Use minimum content on the banner (Usually 4 to 6 words)
Step 2: Create a landing page, where the user who clicks on the ad banner will be redirected.
Step 3: Present all the information here, which you wanted to convey to the user.
Exceed the limit of 4 to 6 words, when you have really awesome information to deliver. Like the one given below:
In some cases, you don’t even need to write a sentence. A number or a word is something that’ll convey the message effectively
Conclusion
Banner blindness is eating the roots of PPC like a termite. To ensure the effectiveness of PPC remains intact for years, the executives must work on making banner ads more influential. This blog has answers for all the questions that you might have about – ‘How to make ads more influential?’