It’s no secret that people often find ads to be annoying—if they even notice them.

But what if the reason why people either hate or ignore ads has more to do with how advertisers design and use them rather than the fact that they are ads?

Interactive ads.

Advances in technology, such as the ability to create interactive ads, can enable companies to be far more successful in engaging their user bases than they have been in the past.

Customers.

If you can figure out where your audience members are, what they want, and how to provide that to them in an interesting way, your ads can be incredibly effective. Here’s how to use interactive ads to make your business more successful.

How Interactive Ads Foster Engagement

Businesses are seeing marked improvements from rethinking what ads are. Instead of interruptions, ads can actually be “‘a way to spend more valuable time with consumers.’”

Animate ads.

The ability to animate ads and make them interactive allows you to make ones that enhance the user experience and are more enjoyable than ads have traditionally been. For example, Timberland partnered with another company and ran a successful display ad that invited users to color it by tapping on different sections of the image. DSW created an ad that viewers could flip through simply by tilting their phones.

Interactive ads allow brands to be more personal and meet their consumers’ needs more easily. As brands pursue interactive advertising, they are seeing the time people spend on ads increase significantly, in some cases by 47 percent.

How to Create Interactive Ads.

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If you are so inclined, you can always take a shot at creating interactive ads by writing the code yourself. This article from Webdesigner Depot gives instructions for how to do so.

Because of the importance of ads being visually appealing as well as fun, it’s a good idea to have a designer help you create the ad. If you have some understanding of coding, following the above steps makes creating an interactive ad fast and easy.

Even more simple.

But for those of us who prefer something simpler and don’t want to mess around with coding, there are alternatives. For example, you can use a tool like the one provided by Bannersnack to create animated banner ads that work with HTML5.

You don’t have to write any of the code yourself.

You don’t have to write any of the code yourself. You simply create your design, animate the ad, and then either download it for use in your campaigns or embed it on your website. It’s up to you to know your audience and how to find them, of course, but a resource such as this one can help you create an eye-catching and engaging ad.

Don’t Neglect the Why.

Yes, it’s important to know how to create interactive ads, but they won’t be effective at all if you don’t make them with a clear idea of the purpose behind them.

In this post on some of the most effective advertising and marketing campaigns that brands have run, HubSpot notes that the companies were successful because they focused on:

• Solving a problem
• Telling the bigger stories behind their products and making the stories interesting
• Creating their own product categories where they could dominate
• Being honest
• Making their products seem cool
• Encouraging consumers already using the products to use them more often
• Being creative and entertaining
• Being relatable
• Showing just how effective their products were
• Making their products seem critical to have
• Engaging with their followers while keeping their branding consistent
• Trying something new, even if what they were already doing was working

Getting Your Interactive Ads Out There.

Interactive advertising is all about getting your customers…well to buy your product, obviously. But it’s about getting them to buy your product by persuading them to interact with your brand. And social media has democratized society to the extreme, giving people direct access to each other and thereby giving brands direct access to their customers.

Social media.

Social media is a great resource for targeting purposes. You can discover who your audience members are and what they like so that you can show your ads to people who want to see them.

Plus, social media is all about people sharing information they find interesting and entertaining. If you create an ad that is interesting in and of itself, the people who do see it will want to share it with even more people.

While this sounds simple, figuring out how to get your ads in front of your audience is a fairly involved process. You’ll need to study your market and do keyword research on your audience, as well as on your competitors. There is a lot more to say on this topic, but doing so is beyond the scope of this article. To learn more, you can check out this in-depth guide on SEO & PPC keyword targeting.

Bringing Advertising Up to Speed

Don’t let your thinking be limited by how businesses have used ads in the past. It’s not necessarily an easy process, but if you recognize what people are looking for online and deliver it to them in an innovative way, your ads can be something they want to see instead of avoid.

Photo Credit: Adobe Stock​