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Niche Market for Designers: Banner Ads

Yesterday when I wrote about advertising on Whitespace for a year I had a couple people ask if we would also provide design services for their ads. What makes textads so appealing to companies and banners unappealing is that most people just don’t have the resources to design great banner ads and this got me thinking why I haven’t seen any designer specifically market their services as a banner designer?

At Work Boxers I discuss the effect design has on CTR and to me it only makes sense that someone in this industry become the expert of banner design. I am sure there are many people that can design a pretty ad, but can you design an effective ad? What if you could guarantee that your ads would get X% CTR for your clients assuming the ad placement is right?

Now this may never replace designing whole websites as your #1 revenue stream, but with the increase in banner ads on the web I definitely see a market for it. One of the perks of the new 9rules Ad Network is that we will list the members who offer banner design services so clients aren’t left designing ineffective ads for themselves and walking away upset with the poor ROI.

If you already offer design services how much harder would it be to add a banner design section and push that a bit? Competition will always be strong in the design industry so it only makes sense for designers to start finding niches where their services are needed.

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Published by Scrivs on January 12, 2006 in Business • Did you like it? Subscribe! Or Submit it to Blogosphere News!

16 people says things!

  1. Personally, I think what makes text ads appealing isn’t that they’re easy to design, it’s that they work better than graphic ads. People don’t even look at banners. When I loaded WS today, I didn’t read the graphics on the side, but I scanned the text below them. Text is content. Banners are cruft.

    By JC on January 12, 2006 1:20 pm

  2. Yeah, that has been the viewpoint for the past couple of years now, but from the stats I am seeing there is a tiny shift occurring. It’s like if I had a graphical ad below the entry to replace those text ads I’m sure you would view it.

    Old school banners are cruft, but well-designed newer banners can be content in their own right.

    By Scrivs on January 12, 2006 1:33 pm

  3. I work in the interactive department for an ad agency in Dallas and over the years I’ve designed a large number of banner ads, so I’ve gained a pretty good amount of experience.

    I also do some freelance work on the side and even have an online ad section on my site, but I have never had anyone come to me asking me to design banners, and I honestly don’t know where to look for clients in need of this service.

    By Derek Nelson on January 12, 2006 1:42 pm

  4. Well there are a couple million banners all over the Internet. Why not just do some old fashion cold-emailing? Just like a website I am sure there are ton of companies not looking for designers to take care of their stuff because “it’s so easy to do it yourself”.

    By Scrivs on January 12, 2006 1:43 pm

  5. I notice the image ads, because they stand out from the rest of the design and just look nice. I’ve used all the products except Squarespace and I know for sure I found IconBuffet and Campaign Monitor through advertising. They are very well targeted to the Whitespace audience I would imagine.

    Whereas I know that AdSense targetting is usually rubbish on blogging/web design sites and I just ignore it. The ad showing above the comments is some sort of affilate program for the Crazy Frog and others. It’s typical of what shows up and it’s really no use to me.

    OTOH, I would agree with JC for some topical sites, ust not this genre.

    By Mary-Ann on January 12, 2006 1:49 pm

  6. Scrivs - As far as cold emailing goes, my concern would be that there would be a TON of work involved in that process. Banner projects would be a lot smaller so you would need a larger number of projects. This means you would have to do a lot more selling.

    This is just an assumption, but it seems that it would be much harder to sell banner design services rather that web design services and most uneducated clients would probably balk at a fair price quote. Also, most of the larger clients that advertise online are already using an ad agency.

    Maybe I’m being too negative about it and I’d love to hear other ideas.

    By Derek Nelson on January 12, 2006 1:58 pm

  7. I definitely am more attracted to graphical ads rather than text ads. They just ad personality tot he product being pitched, and are generally more appealing. On a website like this where the overall color scheme is very limited, those colorful ads are a nice change.

    It’s funny that you bring this up because I just designed a 468 by 60 banner ad last night to help promote an old community site I decided to start running again.

    By Zeerus on January 12, 2006 2:25 pm

  8. Derek: I agree and that’s why I said I don’t think a business could be run solely on banner services unless you get the volume or only deal with clients that pursue large ad campaigns.

    Definitely shouldn’t stop you from advertising those services on your site though.

    By Scrivs on January 12, 2006 2:28 pm

  9. > #7 | Zeerus - I definitely am more attracted to graphical ads rather than text ads.

    What about flash based ads?

    I noticed most, if not all, blogs I’ve seen only run static graphic or text ads. Is there a general feeling against animated ads?

    By Derek Nelson on January 12, 2006 2:55 pm

  10. There certainly is a market for it, but there are also websites that specify on banners. The biggest one has to be http://www.bannersmall.com
    A site like 4design.tv also does banners.

    By Alex on January 12, 2006 4:05 pm

  11. Damn, a template monster for banners. Who would’ve thunk it?

    By Scrivs on January 12, 2006 4:09 pm

  12. Derek, I generally am against animated ads, especially Flash based ads. I just don’t find them appealing. If anything, a small bit of animated text (like one line of text being replaced by another) is fine, but when things start flying around in circles and popping up all over I get a bit annoyed.

    By Zeerus on January 12, 2006 7:18 pm

  13. wow bannersMall has done a TOOOOOOOOOON of banners.
    $20 aint bad though. they seem to do a lot of work for hosting companies

    By Brian B on January 13, 2006 12:02 am

  14. I would say it’s because designing them can be such a god damn chore. I used to do banners for a guy who always wanted fading in/out action, in god damn gif’s.

    On the topic of actually using graphic banners - I’d say IconBuffet made an okay one on your site. There’s some slick icons showing, and a nice little teaser with free icons, that don’t seem to ridiculous to be a hoax.

    It definetly drew my attention, especially on a site like this with heavily text-oriented content.

    By Brian Andersen on January 14, 2006 6:44 pm

  15. An interesting perspective on banner ads, and online marketing in general can be found in the adult industry (which I see you’re becoming a little more involved in now, Paul :)

    The guys marketing porn definately have a better grip on what actually converts in terms of page layouts/banner advertisements, and I think taking cues from adult sites (particularly the popular TGPs and MGPs) is always a good starting point when designing any site for maximum CTR.

    By Jake Tracey on January 17, 2006 10:23 pm

  16. I’ve used http://www.bannercheap.com several times - good stuff

    By Marshall on February 6, 2006 1:20 am

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