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How To Make Advertisement Banner Surveys with Helpfull

Utilizing unique, effective banner adverts the recommended course of action for any business looking to increase their online advertising footprint. With Helpfull surveying, testing the effectiveness of your banner ad designs has never been easier.

February 5, 2023

How To Make Advertisement Banner Surveys with Helpfull


Banner advertisements are one of the most prolific and accessible forms of internet advertising.

They can be found strewn across nearly every news web-pages, sprawled across the sides of our browsers. Unlike their more obtrusive cousin, the pop-up adverts, banner ads are often static in nature - otherwise, they utilize a short looping animation to further attract the consumer’s attention.

There are many qualities banner ads possess that make them an attractive option for businesses looking to expand their internet marketing reach:

  • Banner ads drive traffic to your website
  • Banner ads are a great tool for marketing limited-time offers like sales and product pre-orders
  • Banner ads are low-cost and targeted toward specific audiences
  • Banner ads can be used to showcase a company’s personality and the creativity of it’s designers

Banner ads are easy to develop, quick to implement, and offer sizable returns on investment for your marketing dollar.

Toeing the line between an advertisement that audiences find effective - and ones that come off as obnoxious spam - is difficult, but it can be done.

The best way to ensure the effectiveness of your banner ad campaigns is to test your designs with an audience of consumers.

Getting feedback from a Helpfull community of panelists can be achieved with just one simple, easy-to-design survey. Using audience feedback throughout your ad development process is one way to develop eye-catching advertisements that are sure to get clicks.

How To Make Your Banner Ads More Effective

When designing a banner advertisement, the first consideration any designer should make is figuring out a clear goal for the banner.

Obviously, the goal of any banner advertisement is to drive clicks to the website - but how will you achieve that goal? Are you driving consumers to your site through sales, or promotional offers? Or are you simply advertising your services?

Every banner advertisement - regardless of its purpose - should contain three basic elements:
  1. The Company Logo
  2. The Value Proposition
  3. The Call To Action

Without these three components, your advertisement is sure to fail. Without a proper logo, audiences will not be able to identify your organization or associate it with your advert; no value proposition, and you’ll never sell your audiences on “why” they should even bother clicking. The call to action is most often the button you feature on the advert - something like “Shop Now” or “Find Store” or “Visit Website”.

Most businesses utilize one of four different types of banner advertisements, delineated based on size and orientation on the page:
  • Leaderboard - 728x90px (pixels)
  • Half Page - 300x600px
  • Medium Rectangle - 300x250px
  • Large Rectangle - 336x280px
When developing an effective banner advert, keep the following design considerations in mind:
  • Keep It Simple: Visual clutter distracts from the message your advert is trying to communicate
  • Use Buttons Appropriately
  • Ensure the Ad Has a Clear and Defined Frame
  • The Text Should be Instantly Readable: If your audience can’t immediately read your value proposition, they likely won’t take the time to decipher it’s text
  • Be Visually Consistent
  • Be Urgent: Use immediacy to draw customers to click now
  • Utilize Clear & Defined Imagery: Powerful visual elements attract consumer attention far more immediately than text
  • Keep Your File Sizes Small

Keeping all of these design elements in mind, the best process for developing an effective advertisement is to keep an open mind and create several iterations for every idea. Creating multiple design drafts not only promotes creative design - it ensures you’ll have a variety of concepts to test in front of your consumer audiences.

Once we’ve developed a handful of concepts for our banner ad ideas, we’re ready to move forward with our first survey.

Survey #1 - Testing Background Image Effectiveness

For our first survey, we wanted to test the effectiveness of the different background images we’ve selected for our example adverts.

We’ve taken on the role of the sustainable stationery company Nature’s Mark. We sell primarily eco-friendly paper and pen products, and we’re looking to drive interest in our business through banner adverts. We developed a series of Medium Rectangle (300x250px) adverts featuring our company logo, a value proposition, and a direct link for our online shop; the only differences in adverts are the background graphics.

For our first split-choice decision test, we’ve asked 100 Helpfull panelists to vote on the advert design that was “most effective at inspiring (them) to click on the ad”.


panelists votes on the advert design
Panelist comments on Testing Background Image


In just 17 minutes, we had received 100 new insights into our first round of banner advert designs. Of the audiences tested, nearly 40% of consumers chose the design that showcased a damp, wooded forest in behind our advert.

Our background choices were primarily divided into two categories: stationery, and nature. The two designs that showcased a natural background performed to a higher degree than all three of the stationery backgrounds. This information tells us consumers feel more compelled to click on advertisements that link our brand image directly to nature, as opposed to relying on typical stationery imagery. The higher level of emotional response solicited by our wooded background measurably increased the effectiveness of our banner ads.

Survey #2 - Testing The Effectiveness of our Call To Action

For our second set of testing, we wanted to look at how Helpfull surveying could be used to improve the effectiveness of advert captions.

The caption on your advert is the message you’re trying to get across to your consumer. It’s the value proposition that should ultimately drive them to interact with your ad, and get them on your website.

As we change the focus of our surveys, our metaphorical “hat” changes as well. We’re no longer eco-friendly paper suppliers - we’re now a graphic design firm, looking to draw clients in to get a quote on our website. The only difference between the advertisements we test this go-around is the text that appears on each advert.

Testing for effectiveness of advert caption
panelists comments on advert caption test


After 20 minutes of deliberation, our audience was able to come to a decisive conclusion on which advert was the most effective.

“High-Quality Graphic Design Work At An Affordable Price” was declared the winner by 43% of our polling audience. Helpfull panelists found our winning advert to possess the most honest, intriguing, and poignant value proposition of the bunch. While other design iterations came across as too casual or a tad abrasive, the selected advert appealed to the widest audience while maintaining an air of professionalism and tact.

Survey #3 - Testing Banner Ad Design & Layout Effectiveness

For some, testing for specific weaknesses in design elements may be the most appropriate way for them to develop their advertising campaigns.

For others, comparing and contrasting two or more entirely different design concepts can be an effective alternative.

With Helpfull surveying, different campaigns and advertising designs can be tested in front of diverse consumer audiences. For those businesses who have specific consumer groups in mind, surveys can be adjusted to test only target demographics.

In our final round of testing, we’ve taken on the persona of a youth-oriented fashion company livemör. We’ve got three completely unique adverts to test in front of an audience of 100 general Helpfull pollsters; the feedback we receive from these panelists will determine how we develop our testing moving forward.


Banner Ad Design test
panelists positive comments on Banner Ad Design & Layout


Between the three designs we tested, the two half-page adverts outperformed the more simplistic medium-rectangle design.

Audiences were much less decisive in their voting this testing iteration, and as such we couldn’t determine which of the remaining two advertisements were the most effective for our campaign.

We decide to run one final set of surveying - this time, with a targeted audience. As we’re a fashion company catering to a youth market, we want to only hear from consumers between the ages of 18 and 36. After selecting our target demographics in the audience selection page, we’re ready to run our final survey.


Banner Ad target demographic

After testing another group of panelists - this time, only ones in our target demographic - we’re able to better decide on which advert we should run. Both adverts were found to perform highly without demographics, which speaks to the effectiveness of our designs; ultimately, the “Find Your Perfect Fit” advert has performed consistently better than its counterpart, so we will run with this design for our campaign.

Although our other designs didn’t make the cut this go-around, the considerations we’ve received from our panelists can continue to influence our design process for marketing campaigns going forward. We received 200 new insights into our brand in the span of an hour; with these new considerations in mind, we’ll be able to draft far more effective advertisements in the future.

Improve Your Social Media & Banner Advertising With Helpfull Surveys

Utilizing unique, effective banner adverts the recommended course of action for any business looking to increase their online advertising footprint. Banner adverts increase click-through rates to your website, drive online traffic, and can be developed to fill a variety of niches in your marketing channel. Everything from sales promotions to product announcements can be showcased in a banner advertisement; with such a low cost to implement, the returns on investment offer attractive incentives for any business - no matter the scale.

With Helpfull surveying, testing the effectiveness of your banner ad designs has never been easier. The knowledge gained from hundreds of consumer insights, when used throughout the design development process, can measurably increase the amount of consumers that click on your advertisements. A simple survey is all that stands between your company and the renewed success of it’s online marketing efforts.

An intuitive user-interface, coupled with the ability to gather hundreds of consumer responses in just minutes, are just a few of the features that make Helpfull the ultimate tool for any artist, designer, or marketer.

Refine your marketing - sign up with Helpfull today, and get surveying within minutes!


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