Connect Your Banner Ad to Your Landing Page

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Part 4 – It’s all about the Landing Page

by Rusty Bishop

In my past few articles, we’ve been discussing banner ads for targeting scientists. If you haven’t done so yet, have a look at my last post on targeting banners to specific scientific content for more clicks. This article builds directly upon the last one.

Design Landing Pages for the Ad

I would argue the goal of your banner ad campaign is not web traffic, but actually making a sale or capturing a lead. So in Part 4 of this series, I want to challenge you to think beyond clickthroughs to conversions on your site.

The concept is simple,

• Entice someone to click on your banner
• They go to your website and arrive at the page you linked with the ad
• They review the information or offer
• They like what they see and take the action you desire

Banner > Click > Read> Convert

This is the ideal outcome. However, it seems to happen more infrequently than it should. Many banner ads are, in fact, disconnected from the banner message. Others lead to home pages or, worse, information capture pages or forms. These are big roadblocks in the conversion process.

For example, here’s the banner ad from my previous post by InVitria appearing on Biocompare.com.

The ad specifically offers us to “click here for a sample.” So if we click on the ad, we expect to land on page that has an offer for a free sample.  A free sample of what though?  The product is advertising optimizing hybridoma cell culture production.

So let’s click through to learn more about the product and get our sample….

Have a careful look at InVitria’s landing page above.

“Free sample”, “hybridoma”, or anything remotely pertaining to those concepts are missing. The ad takes us to a general product information request form on their website. I underlined that in the breadcrumb above.

I would wager very few scientists complete this form at all since it is completely disconnected from the ad. How would a visitor have any idea what to do next? They wouldn’t. Most likely, they would bounce off the page and move on.

The key to a successful banner campaign is connecting the banner to the offer. The important elements are a page title that is scannable and tells the visitor they are in right place, the details of the offer or content you want them to read, and finally an easy way to convert (email, phone number, etc).

Let’s try another Banner… Here’s one from Themofisher (also on Biocompare.com)

The offer is 2 for 1 on protein gel 10 packs (never mind that its July 5th and the offer expired June 30th).  Seems clear enough.  The ad tells me to “learn more here”.  Where is “here”?  In the ad?  Am I supposed to leave Biocompare.com to learn more?  You get the point.

So Let’s Click Through….

Great! At least, the landing page is about Protein Gels. I can tell that by the very nice page title that is in the perfect eye spot for me to scan (circled in red).

But where’s the information on the 2 for 1 deal? How do I get it? There’s absolutely no mention of it. Did it expire? Again, I’m confused.  What am I supposed to do next?  How do I order?

Summary

The take home message here is in order for banner ads to result in actions, they need to be connected to a landing page that continues the conversion process.  It’s hard enough to get scientists to click on a banner, don’t make them work once they get to your website. Don’t fumble the opportunity to convert.

Make it easy for them.

Your landing page must be about exactly what the banner is advertising. 2 for 1 gels ads need to take me to a 2 for 1 gels page.  A “free sample” ad needs to take me to a “here’s how to get a free sample” page.

Make it easy for your potential customers. Please don’t send me to your homepage from a perfectly targeted banner ad. I want to buy your product!

Looking for a Camera? Here, Let Me Show You a Car

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Part 3 of the Life Science Banner Ad Manifesto

by Rusty Bishop

If you’ve been following along, we have discussed a great banner ad by Thermo Scientific and followed that with some tips on designing ads for visibility in the context they will be displayed.

Creating an ad that is noticeable is only one aspect. In this article, I’ll discuss banner placement in context with some specific examples pulled from Biocompare.com and Bio-Rad, InVitria, and Millipore.

Context is Key to Success

Strategic placement of banner ads is key to click-through success.  Think about your own personal web experiences. Let’s say you are buying your significant other a digital camera. First, you head over to CNET or Gizmodo or Amazon and start reading reviews, looking at specs, etc. Then you may read a few articles on tech websites with camera reviews or articles on specific camera need (outdoors, night photos, etc).

As you are scanning the copy and clicking on links to new information (surfing), would a banner ad about Ford Pickup trucks catch your eye?

What about seeing a banner advertising a guaranteed lowest price on digital cameras from Best Buy?

The camera ad is likely to get more clicks.  That’s web context. You are searching for information about cameras and therefore camera ads are more likely to be effective.

Please do not confuse this with, “I am reading about cameras and therefore I am interested in any technology ads (computers, cell phones).” Doesn’t work like that.

Examples from BioCompare

The same is true of scientists searching for product information. Let’s take antibody purification products as an example.

If I’m looking for antibody purification products (protein A sepharose, protein G, etc.), I’ll be surfing for product information pages and articles about antibody purification.

For example, here’s the Antibody Purification page on Biocompare.com.





This page has links for Antibody media, buffers, columns, and kits. That is the context for this page.  A scientist looking at this page is, by definition, interested in these products. If not, they will quickly bounce off the page and never see your banner.

Are the Banner Ads in Context?

Let’s take a look at the two banner ads that appear on this page keeping in mind the context of the page.





I would argue that the Bio-Rad banner at the top (indicated by the red arrow) is disconnected from the context. This banner is for Eva Green SuperMix which is for quantitative PCR identification of gene expression.  It’s a great product. I’ve used it. But would you be interested in learning more if you were shopping for antibody purification products? I consider this placement to be off target.  Sure, you might get some branding and the random click, but I’ll bet the rate is low.

Now, let’s examine the square banner ad from InVitria indicated by the green arrow. I took another screen shot so we could read it carefully.


The message is hybridoma cell culture production. That’s pretty close to the target. Hybridoma cells are used to make monoclonal antibodies. The antibodies are excreted from cells into the culture medium and you need to purify them.


This is a pretty well targeted banner ad given the context of Antibody Purification page. They also offer a sample.  That’s pretty enticing!

Compare and Contrast – Science Banner Ads for Visibility

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Banner Ad Design for Branding to Scientists

by Rusty Bishop, PhD

In a previous article, I pointed out a brilliant branding banner ad produced by Thermo Scientific on Science Magazine’s web site.  Take a second to scan the post, if you haven’t. I’ll be right here when you get back.

Since the post, I got a few emails (comment please!) asking me for more examples and some thoughts on banner design and placement on science websites. I thought, sure that’ll be easy, after all I did spend two years with Scientists Solutions selling and tracking banner ads…

…but pretty soon I was looking at writing a book!

So I decided simplify.

First, let’s tackle design. In future articles, I’ll tackle specific sites you might target, potential pitfalls, dangerous ROI thoughts, and enticing clicks. Hopefully, with a little help from you, we can break some new ground to help each other out.

The Purpose of Banners

The purpose of your banner is to:

1) brand your company to scientists

2) establish awareness of your product amongst scientists

3) attract scientist clicks to your landing pages

4) create direct sales (phone, on-site stores, via reps)

Science and Nature Publishing have two of the most visited sites on the entire web (Alexa rank 8,359 and 3,243 respectively) making them an attractive, but potentially expensive option for your banner campaign.

The First Step is Banner Visibility (without being annoying)

The principle is simple – make your banner visible on the host site.  One thing I like about Science Magazine’s choice to place large-sized banners at the top is the opportunity to create a clear image to push your brand to readers.

Of course, there’s a downside too. Once visitors scroll down to see the page content, it’s gone! To address that issue, they offer ad space in the side panel (topic for another day, told you its a book).

Let’s compare some of the current banners running on the same page on Sciencemag.org…

First, notice that Sciencemag.org’s color scheme is red, white, and blue, with red being the dominant color.

Here’s the Thermo Scientific banner from the previous post

Positives – Black Thermo Scientific brand and blue font “Real Time” really stand out and are eye-catching–perfect branding. The benefits are clear – accurate results, easy, etc. They are easy to scan on the white background.

Negatives – What is the product? Solaris Gene Expression Arrays font is very small. Who is the message targeted towards? Am I supposed to click to learn more or just see the ad?  What does 40% off mean?  Real-Time is 40% off?

Let’s refresh the page…..

Here’s one with Flash animation from Beckman Coulter.

Positives – The Beckman Coulter Brand stands out when contrasted with the red in the Flash.  The message is for a grant = good branding and good PR.

Negative – Red color of the Flash however blends in too much with the header. Most people ignore headers so having something that is not distinct is not helpful.  It also took quite a while to cycle through the message.

With scientists landing here to read a scientific article, most will scroll down the page faster than the ad can deliver the whole message?  Chances are, they will miss the most eye-catching message which is the last one – GET MONEY!

Let’s refresh the page…..

Another Example from Thermo Scientific

Positives – Like the Beckman banner, the Thermo Scientific brand contrasts nicely with the green and shows up.  I totally get that I should ask big questions. I like the green font it really caught my eye.

Negatives – Whats the ad for? Again, what do you want me to do? I clicked on it anyway and it took me to the Thermo home page? WTF? I wanted to ask big questions!

Conclusions

Of course I could beat up on banner ads all day, but in reality they are great branding tools. The point is to get you to consider the visual design context within which your banner will be placed before designing it.

In the above examples, each banner ad did a nice job of branding their company name.  Two them did a good job of using contrasting colors to draw my eyes. On the downside, all three did a relatively poor job in directing my next action once they got my attention. That’s the topic of my next post.

Bonus

If you made it this far, I have a reward for you.  Did you happen to notice the topic of the Science article these banners are displayed upon?

Yep – Fiddles!  I’ll hazard a guess that scientists interested in fiddles aren’t buying Real Time PCR Assays or Centrifuges.  However they might be asking big questions!

As always feel free to comment or suggest banners for us to review.

A Great Branding Opportunity with Science Mag!

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Science branding through careful banner design

by Rusty Bishop

This morning I was reading an article on Science Magazine’s website.  A friend sent the article to me by email, but when I clicked through I thought I was on ThermoFisher’s website.

Take a look at the screen shot.

This is a great banner ad from Thermo!

They placed the large Thermo Title exactly above the Science Header. Thermo catches the eye not Science. The black background of Thermo’s title really jumps out compared to the subtle colors of Science’s site.

If you’re designing a banner ad for Science Magazine’s website, you couldn’t find a better template. You don’t need a crazy flash banner to get the attention of websurfers on journal sites, just thoughtful design!

Our next few articles will focus on banner ads on scientific journal websites. If you’d like our scientists to have a look at your banner please enter the URL in the comments below or drop us a line.