How to Make Effective Ads That Readers Actually Respond To

Introduction to Creating Effective Ads for Your Website and Newsletter

Whether you are looking to convert your current readers to paid subscribers or reach new readers, an effective ads strategy should form the foundation of your business planning. This includes creating campaigns that are relevant to your target audience and implementing those campaigns in a way that positively impacts your reader’s overall experience.

Understanding Audience  Preferences for Better Engagement

Before planning your advertising strategy, it’s crucial to get to know your audience. A good practice is to create detailed profiles of your target user segments. With these profiles, you can begin crafting your ad design, powerful messaging and placement specifically to target these segments.

To keep track of this work, consider developing a style guide for your advertising content, similar to an editorial style guide. This guide should outline the criteria for your publication’s ads and evolve as you learn what works best for your target audience.

You can utilize tools like Pew Research Centre, Statista, or Nielsen to conduct research into your targeted audience to inform your targeted ad design strategy. Each organization conducts and publicly shares research that will help you understand the current trends, messaging, and content your audience profiles are resonating with. 

Collecting first-party data directly from your readers through audience surveys is also a great way to learn more about your audience and align your marketing efforts with their needs. 

How to Write Ad Copy that Converts

Effective ads not only capture attention but also compel readers to take action. By taking into consideration your readers’ preferences and demographics, you can craft thoughtful, engaging messages that resonate with your audience, ultimately driving both engagement and revenue growth.

Crafting a Compelling Call-to-Action

A strong call-to-action (CTA) is the foundation of an effective ad strategy. Like a compelling headline, a well-written ad encourages readers to engage and click through to learn more. Here are some tips for crafting effective CTAs:

1. Be clear and concise: Ensure your ad’s message is easily understood at a glance. The CTA should also only ever have a single ask in it. Keep it simple — your readers should know exactly what you’re asking them to do and they should feel compelled to do it.
2. Create urgency:  Ads with time constraints, like offering a December discount on annual subscriptions, are more effective. 
3. Use active voice: Words like “join,” “discover,” and “unlock” empower users to take action.
4. Be personal: Use language such as “you” or “your” for natural engagement. For personalized ads, where technology allows, using the reader’s name can be highly effective.
5. Leverage the scarcity principle: Offer a limited quantity of your product or service to increase customer demand.  

Designing Eye-Catching Ads For Different Platforms

When designing ads for website or email newsletters across tablet, desktop, and mobile, consider these ad best practices:

• Simple, clean layout: Avoid clutter. A clean design ensures CTAs and buttons remain accessible and visible as the ad scales down.
• Scalable text: Keep headlines or taglines concise. Longer text is harder to read on smaller devices.
• Optimize images: Use the highest efficiency image formats to ensure ads load quickly. Also be thoughtful about how they’re being used. Some common issues are adding too many images and using too many icons, including multiple logos. This can all make a display ad very busy and confusing.
• Test, test, test: Be sure to test your ads across all devices to catch any issues before launching. 

In particular, publishers should be aware of how much of their traffic is coming from mobile devices. Many of us do our work on desktops and so we unintentionally design for desktop-first. However, most publishers receive the majority of their traffic from mobile users. It’s more important to optimize for a mobile experience than a desktop one.

Optimizing Ad Formats and Placements 

Deploying ads that make it difficult for users to access the content they’re visiting your site for will alienate your readership and can lead to diminished engagement.

A fundamental approach to avoiding this is to ensure you are selecting the correct size for your ad placements. The specific size will depend on the site or platform, but you should keep these best practices in mind:

1. Stay above the fold: Stay above the fold, but don’t place your ad at the very top of the website. Many times, users will scroll past the top ad placement before it loads. Having it below the main menu (still above the fold) is likely the best position.
2. Ads should complement the content: Advertising should exist separate from content directly (such as in a sidebar), and their scale should not interfere with reader engagement.
3. Ensure natural breaks: If an ad placement is in the middle of a piece of content, ensure this is done at a natural break, such as at the end of a paragraph or section.

Choosing the Right Ad Formats and Ad Placements for Different Goals

When choosing advertising formats, you should consider when to use popular formats, as well as the pros and cons of each.

Banner Ads

Banner ad design involves rectangular or square ads displayed at the top, bottom, or sides of a page.

• Use on high-traffic pages (e.g. home pages)
• Pros: Highly visible, effective at converting traffic
• Cons: Can overwhelm a page if overused

Pop-Up Ads

Windows or overlays that interrupt the reader.

• Use when promoting newsletter subscriptions or special offers
• Pros: Creates urgency, good for immediate conversions
• Cons: Can irritate users if overused or irrelevant

Native Ads

Also known as sponsored content. Ads that blend in or appear alongside content offerings.

• Use on platforms with high content interaction (e.g. social media)
• Pros: Builds trust and increases click-through rates if done well
• Cons: Can be mistaken as editorial content if not clearly marked

Video Ads

Full or interspersed video segments

• Use in campaigns focused on storytelling or demonstration
• Pros: Highly engaging, builds emotional attachment
• Cons: Can be resource-heavy and result in slower page loading

Interstitial Ads

Ads that break up content and take up a portion of the whole page.

• Use in longer pieces with natural breaks
• Pros: Great at capturing attention
• Cons: Must be carefully placed to avoid disrupting user experience

Read more:  “Navigating sponsored content. A guide for newsrooms and publishers”

Using A/B Testing to Create Effective Ads

Creative ad design best practices will always include regular A/B testing. In the simplest terms, A/B testing will compare one iteration or option for an advertising campaign against another over a period of time to compare which performed better.

For example,  you can compare two versions of your CTA to see which is driving more engagement. Or, if you are introducing a new ad placement or format, you may want to compare user response to that change.

Aligning Ad Content with Reader Expectations

It’s important to build an effective ads strategy that acknowledges the core values of your publication and readership and responds to them much the same as your editorial content does. To do this, it’s key to tap into the core value proposition of your publication and ensure that it’s informing the type of ads you’re displaying.

For example, suppose your publication is focused on investigative journalism. In that case, it’s safe to assume visitors to your site have the intention of understanding or following along with strong, mission-driven journalism. Your advertising campaigns should also align with this tone.

📌 Strong ad copy boosts results, but it’s just one piece of the puzzle—see the full picture in our website and newsletter ads guide.

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