Best practices for optimizing in-app banner ads

In-app banner ads are horizontal banners that appear within an app environment, typically at the top or bottom of the screen. They don’t obscure the app’s own content and aren’t obtrusive. Usually, banner ads are made up of three components: an image, text, and a call-to-action (CTA) button, prompting the user to take action, for example visit a product page or install an app. Banner ads remain static when a user scrolls through the app’s screen.

Note: In-app banner ads are not to be confused with smart banners (banners displayed on mobile sites that prompt users to move from sites to corresponding apps).

In addition to improved design options, like the ability to harness rich media banner ads as an alternative to static banner ads, AI is leading the charge when it comes to changing perceptions and reinvigorating this style of advertising.

AI offers opportunities to improve user experience while simultaneously taking pressure off a marketing team. It can make implementing banner ads a largely hands-off process by automatically generating designs for these ads based on user interests and past interactions.

With years of data on banner ads’ performance, marketers have come to the realization that they serve a distinct purpose. They are not the ad of choice if you’re seeking a high conversion rate, but they’re a strong choice if your aim is reaching a wide target audience to raise awareness of a product, service, app, etc. Stats show that in-app banner ads perform 11.4 times better than other banner ads (on mobile web or desktop), so they’re well worth a marketer’s time and budget.

Successfully adding in-app banner ads to your marketing mix involves delicately balancing value add without compromising user experience. Check out our best practices to ensure you’re optimizing this impactful form of advertising.

• Less is more: The very small amount of real estate taken up by an in-app banner ad forces you to be concise, direct, and clear in your messaging, which is generally appreciated by users. Focus on perfecting your ad’s three components—image, text, and CTA button—without trying to fit too much in and crowd the small space, making it less visually appealing.

• Carefully consider your audience: Maybe it doesn’t make sense to display a certain banner ad to all users. Think about segmenting your audience to target the users most likely to interact with your ad.

• Spend time crafting your CTA: What do you want users to do? Visit a product page? Install an app? What is the aim of this campaign, and what outcome are you seeking?

• Get creative: Use a rich media ad to bring life to your message. Engage the user without interrupting or distracting with an unnecessarily busy or fast-moving ad.

• Partner with a mobile measurement partner (MMP): Take control of your ads’ success. Using an MMP to measure metrics like impressions, cost per mille (CPM), lifetime value (LTV), etc., will not only help you assess the success of your ads, but also enable data-driven audience segmentation for current and future ads.

• Testing, testing, testing: Use A/B testing to identify the most successful versions of your ads and thereby improve your click-through rate (CTR).

  Ready to add in-app banner ads to your marketing strategy? Request a demo to learn more about how Adjust helps savvy marketers to implement (and measure!) winning marketing campaigns.