Designing an Online Advertising Campaign

What to consider when making digital creative assets for your advertising campaign.

Think of some of the best advertising campaigns you have seen. What did they have in common?

Most likely, the design was clean, concise, and clearly targeting a particular type of customer. If you noticed it, you’re probably the kind of person they had in mind!

Clean

The overall look and aesthetic of the advertising campaign is important. It’s the canvas for the conversation you are setting up for the individuals who are interested in contacting you. Having a good eye for graphic design is extremely helpful here. If you don’t have the eye, don’t worry! There are plenty of freelancing services out there with great creative folks who will be happy to put some visuals together for your campaign. If you have some great templates for your brand which follow your brand guidelines, you’ll be able to pull campaigns together much more quickly. Alternatively, you could also find some great templates online to help get you started. Just adjust the colors and add your own text and images to get started!

Concise

One of the mistakes I see all the time when business owners are starting to develop the creative for their advertising campaign is they think they need to put every single detail into the ad. However, cramming everything about your business or offer in the limited amount of space has some obvious issues.

By using all of your advertising real estate to fully explain everything you want to convey to your prospective client, you will effectively convey nothing to them. That’s right. More words = less people reading them. You are not advertising to a captive audience, and they will continue on with their day without even giving your ad another thought. Try to think of the advertising space you have like a billboard on the freeway. The person who is seeing your ad is cruising by at 65 MPH, and they probably are not going to slam on their brakes to hang on to every word you have carefully crafted. Give them the big idea in as few words as possible so it sticks in their mind and causes them to change their route and take an action toward your business.

Also, by spelling everything out, you could possibly be taking clients who could be a good fit for your business and having a one-sided conversation with them. If you’re telling them (what they think is) everything about your business, they might automatically think “Well this isn’t for me!” when in reality, you could have an offering that fits exactly what their needs are. Advertising should be a step to having a meaningful conversation between the person who is searching for a product or service and your business.

Clearly Targeted

As when doing anything with your advertising, have a clear idea of who your target audience is and who will be interested in your campaign. By thinking through what appeals to them, you can include those elements in the creative for the campaign so they are drawn to your message and are more likely to take the next step to reach out to you for more information about your product or service.