Valery Geldash / 10 Mins Read
Updated: June 29, 2023
Have you ever thought about creating powerful ads as a non-designer? If not, here’s your chance; as in this write-up, we have discussed different ad design tips for non-designers.
Are you intimidated by design? If yes, you’re not alone. Creating powerful ads in the form of visual content can feel like new and overwhelming territory. But, there’s nothing to fear!
You do not need a degree or thousands of hours logged into Adobe suite to make an ad design.
With the right resources and a clear plan, you can put together a compelling website design advertisement.
That means instead of asking help from your designer or hiring a freelancer to develop basic skills, you can make it yourself.
Read on: How to Boost your Engagement with Visual Content
With so much media attention going around, even a layman wants to learn how to make advertisements? To answer this question, you need to, first of all, understand the purpose of advertisement.
Here is a powerful ad that will compel you to ask the question, “How to make an advertisement that you can replicate without professional design skills?”
Image Source: https://static-cse.canva.com/blob/141741/01.-Adidas_-Forever-Sport.c259ae09.jpg
Here’s an example of Adidas that would shed some light on the query of how to make advertisements: Forever Sport that utilizes the fold as a part of its design. You can effortlessly open and close the pages, and the athlete crunches, lifts weights and stretches. This goes to show that print media adverts can also be very creative in nature.
Image Source: https://static-cse.canva.com/blob/141755/11.-Sharpie.b7d20932.jpg
Suppose you want to understand how to make a commercial ad; check out the above image. These Sharpie print ads have light-hearted fun with reputed brands’ logo designs.
With the tagline “it all started with a Sharpie,” the ad playfully showcases the way logos for the Rolling Stones, Apple, and even Playbook may have been created.
After understanding how to make advertisements, we need to understand more about a good ad design. So, how exactly would you define a good ad design?
A good ad design is the perfect intersection of marketing and design. It refers to the visual artwork created especially for advertisements.
However, ad design, which is used synonymously with graphic design advertising, differs because its sole purpose is to sell products and services. Therefore, placing an advertisement plays an important role in it.
Fact files: With a combined total ad spending of 34 billion dollars in the United States alone, newspaper and magazines are two of the most effective advertising tools companies use to promote their marketing plan.
Human beings are essentially emotional beings; hence appealing to them only at the intellectual level typically does not prove to be most effective. That is where good advertisement design comes into play. It adds more value to the underlying message, and that is how making an advertisement pays in the long run.
Advertisement designs help more in persuasion than a thousand words can. We can all testify the website design ad and magazine advertisement templates that we see in the digital media help improve a company’s sales.
However, when analyzing advertisements, you would realize that it is not only the message itself that makes us responsive to the positive manner in which we did.
It is a humor and visual appeal which leaves an incredible mark in our minds of whatever is being advertised. This is what effective advertising campaigns do.
For example, check out how Coca-Cola over the years has used billboards and other outdoor campaigns to promote its brands. It is one of the most unique advertisement analysis examples representing social proof marketing and will help in understanding how to make a commercial advertisement.
Advertising or graphic design companies that produce convincing ad graphic designs know the psychology behind a successful advertising campaign. Therefore, they spend quality time investigating and researching the best ways to appeal to their target audience.
Analyzing advertisements and understanding the demographics of their target audience determines the colors, concepts, techniques, and other content to utilize.
A good ad design serves the following purposes:
The purpose of advertisement and advertising campaigns is to increase the profile of brands or encourage customers to purchase a company’s products or services. Trust is one of the most critical elements that entice people to purchase a company’s products or services.
Brands are essentially the way the customers code a specific offering in their minds. It can be quality and luxury or comfort and value.
Regardless of what your target audience perceives, a brand is shorthand of that. Therefore, every advertisement design or printing ads template that you create says something about your brand.
In case the ad graphic designs are less than professional and aligned with the brand’s core messaging, it can ruin the impressions that you have created in the minds of your target audience. Be very careful about this when creating a website design advertisement.
On the other hand, a good design aids you in representing professionalism, quality, and positioning in the market, which is the purpose of advertisement.
Always keep in mind: Even the best of the campaign will get traction only if it is outstanding. First, it has to rise above the competition. Then it catches the eye of the right prospect. This is where you need to ensure that their attention does not get diverted.
To ensure that, you need to make changes in your ad campaign (after analyzing advertisement aspects) depending on the goals of your campaign and your target audience. For example, you can choose radio advertising or caffeine marketing instead of visual media advertisement.
Ask yourself: Does a minimalistic, stark approach resonate with your audience, or do you want a flashy, borderline tacky look and feel? Whatever you decide, great ad graphic designs will help you speak to your prospective buyers in the most memorable ways. This is the best chance for you to get your ad campaign noticed.
If your clients have their eyes set on conversion, they have more than likely thought in terms of sales figures or copywriting with a call to action. However, several people fail to notice how psychologically compelling the design is and how it serves the purpose of advertisement.
Where do the viewers fall on the page? What emotions do the colors, photographs, and layouts that you select evoke? Does any single area stand out above everything else? Good design helps add an impetus to its ability to drive conversions, and placing an advertisement is also an important component to its success.
If you have understood how to make an advertisement, you would probably agree that a good ad design will underscore the messaging you wish to convey. This way, the power of design can drive home the message and evoke a response.
For example, if you are a nonprofit, that is fundraising or simply putting the words out for the cause. With the help of carefully selected images in your website design advertisement, you can say way more to a potential sponsor than hundreds of words of copy on the same issue.
For example, check out Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Event, where shopping and festivities come together.
Understanding how to make an advertisement is only the first step which must be complemented with the creation of powerful ads. It is every creative person’s dream to make persuasive ads that help showcase them as special people.
However, if you want to take the other route, here are some tips that will help you create powerful ads that you can replicate without professional design skills.
Understanding how to make an ad is not just sufficient, and one should present a clear message via this mode. There are times when marketers perceive that the more benefits and features they integrate into their ads, the higher will be the conversion rate.
But reading a jumbled-up ad requires a lot of thought and energy. If you cram an ad with too many things, it will not grab their attention; instead, it will repel it! This is especially true in the case of any website design ad.
To hook the people and persuade them to rest your ad, you need to convey a single message per ad. By highlighting the main features or benefits of your products or services while making an advertisement, you stand a chance of convincing your target audience to understand its value and increase their likelihood of doing business with you.
The reason being, it leaves your ad being remembered with a single message that will benefit them someway or the other.
One of the prime advertisement analysis examples is the Citizen’s ad for their Eco-Drive watch. The company uses a single line of copy and a single image in their website design advertisement to convey the value of their product to their audience, i.e., a watch that will never need a battery.
Image Source: https://blog.hubspot.com/hs-fs/hubfs/design-tips-simple-copy.jpg?width=900&name=design-tips-simple-copy.jpg
Before commencing an ad campaign to take your design to the next level, ensure that you take stock of what you already have. Learn how to make an ad powerful with a color palette that would lure the audience. This is especially crucial when it comes to your brand’s existing visual identity.
By subtle shifting in the arrangement of primary colors, you can keep brand consistency while also providing some variation to the audience.
Here is an excellent example of a style guide for making an advertisement using a color palette provided by Broadcast Management Group.
Image Source: https://visme.co/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/2-4.jpg
The attention span of people is relatively less. People come into contact with lots of advertisements daily, but they hardly remember any! This is where you need to draft a headline that catches the eye of your audience and keeps their attention for a long time.
While drafting a headline, you need to ask yourself, “Who are you trying to attract? How placing an advertisement would help? What would attract their attention?” Once you answer these questions honestly, you will craft a powerful headline that ultimately helps create powerful ads.
By making the target audience feel important, you can ensure that they watch your ads quite attentively. To do that, talk about the benefits that your product or service will bring to the table for them.
Remember, people are always looking for things of their relevance. Make them feel special and important by listing out all your services. For each service, enlist everything that the specific service offers (even in your website design ad). Then list out all the benefits that each feature provides.
AI used in advertising has played a vital role in making your ad seem essential. Therefore, it would be worth learning more about Artificial Intelligence trends to help you make your advertisements seem important.
A prime example of that is, say, you are a tax accountant whose work resembles the accounting marketing agency, Epic Firms. A primary feature of your service is that you have a website where clients can log in 24x7 and access their tax documents. The huge benefit is that it helps in saving time and inconvenience for your client.
Humor is a vital tool in advertising as it helps in evoking positive emotions. The one thing that advertisements can do is make your solutions feel memorable. The second best thing is it associates that memory with positive emotions.
This fun series of print ads for StaSoft by Ogilvy & Mather Johannesburg showcases Chuck Norris, Sylvester Stallone, and Hulk Hogan as cloth caricatures. With the tagline “Softens even the toughest,” the fabric portraits are humorous, engaging, and memorable.
Image Source: https://static-cse.canva.com/blob/143696/18.-StaSoft.42d642d2.jpg
Encourage your audience to take action instead of telling them about your products or services. Inform them to click on your ad directly, order your product, pay for your service, etc. For example, your “call to action” can encourage people to email you for more information or to fill out a form to find more about your products and services.
It could even direct users to click on your ad to take them to your website instead of just looking at the advertisement. Use exciting words and persuasive language to get that extra push.
One of the most powerful solutions to the query, how to create an ad that appeals to the audience is to pin-point and appeal to their emotions. By using emotions, you can persuade your potential audience to take action.
Depending on your selling proposition, it may be appropriate to utilize sentimental images, invite readers to reflect on nostalgic memories, help them laugh, create a connection through empathy, or help them feel passionate about a cause.
Color can help you create emotional undertones for your ad. Here are some of the emotions evoked by different colors in a printing ads template.
Consider duplicating your ads so that you can make minor changes and test your designs. This way, you can figure out what works best for your brand. Maybe it is a photo of you or your team, or perhaps a punchline. Simply change the ad format and then take a final call.
Learning how to make a commercial ad can be easier with the help of several tools.
Besides using Facebook Ad campaigns, here are some top tools to create powerful ads without needing any professional design skills.
Hubspot’s Ad Management & Tracking software assists you with your inbound marketing strategy and campaigns. It enables you to run all your campaigns out of this powerful tool from start to finish. In layman’s terms, it means you can use Hubspot to support ad creation, management, and reporting using different networks.
Crello is a user-friendly tool that enables you to create different types of visual content with the help of 50,000+ professionally designed templates and an unlimited library of 1Million+ royalty-free assets like images, videos, and vectors.
Bannerwise is a creative management platform that allows advertisers and agencies to develop, publish, and optimize digital ads at a larger scale.
Viewst is the design tool that assists in automating ads production, collaborate and keep expenses under check. It aids businesses, agencies, and designers in creating thousands of ads with the help of a single click.
PosterMyWall is a quick and user-friendly tool that helps you create your own marketing graphics and videos without prior design experience. It is one of the best photoshop tools for web designers, consisting of 170,000+ ready-made templates, effortless team collaboration, and handy tools like one-click resize and remove background features.
This guide that we have refurbished contains all the details to create powerful ads without professional design skills. We have tried to give wings to your dream.
Now is your chance to showcase your creativity and replicate the powerful ads with the help of the free tools mentioned. We hope you enjoy creating the ads as much as we had while bringing this informative piece of information to you!
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Marketing, Design, and Tech passionate with over six years of experience. Digital Marketing is a passion for me rather than a profession. Also learning smart tips of the Photoshop to use it in SMM. He is currently working with styleactions.
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