Display Advertisement
Guidelines and Best Practices

As an advertiser with a limited budget, it is very important that you maximize the exposure gained through your advertisement. Your ad should speak, or even shout out loud, on your behalf. Therefore, it is important that you have your goals clearly in mind, so that anyone viewing the advertisement will be able get the message easily.

Some common goals are:

a. Brand awareness

As an advertiser, you want your brand to be remembered and recalled by viewers more than your competitor(s).

b. Promotion

Promotion means focusing the message on a specific campaign or upcoming events or new products instead of just on your brand in general.

c. Redirecting Traffic

As an online advertiser, you would prefer to bring some of the traffic from the publisher's website to your own. It is important to note that with the existence of pop-up blockers in most browsers nowadays, advertisers may want to take a different approach when it comes to online display advertisements than pop-ups.

d. Proof of existence

Some advertisers may have just started up their businesses. Some may have slowed down or reduced their advertising budgets during the economic downturn. Whatever the reason an advertiser may have had for a diminished presence or lower profile in the recent past, it is important to inform their customers/consumers that they are still in business once things start to pick up.

e. Test Platform

Advertisers may want to put together a few online display advertisements in order to determine which of their creative designs attracts the most attention before finalizing the design into other marketing materials such as billboards or print advertisements. In another words, they are using online advertisements as a platform to test the effectiveness of a campaign or message.

f. Invoke Need

This means that the advertiser wants to indirectly appeal to viewers to have a need for their products. This can be done through inserting appealing pictures or memory-invoking questions or suggestive (leading) sentences.

g. Create Curiosity

Creating curiosity could be achieved through a series of advertisements that will keep viewers wondering what is coming up next. Usually this is done in order to keep the viewers guessing about upcoming products or campaigns.

h. Note of Appreciation

This is one of the most common reasons for advertising: to appreciate customers' support/loyalty.

The Star Online Self-Serve Advertising offers two ad types:

• Tile Ad (120 pixels x 60 pixels)
• Rectangle Ad (240 pixels x 120 pixels)

Tile Ad(120 x 60)
• 50,000 impressions/views for RM500 only

Rectangle Ad (240 X 120)
• 31,250 impressions/views for RM500 only

One of the most important factors of effective advertising is for the message to be clear and straight to the point. Make sure viewers get the essence of your message at first glance. There are a few ways of achieving this. You could use keywords or self-explanatory pictures or present effective solutions to a consumer's problem. Be sure to highlight any advantages or special offers or unique features that will attract the viewer's attention. Avoid long sentences or unfamiliar language or words. For example:

Incorrect:

Your special day won't be special unless you make it be. Hire the right, detail-oriented and attentive planner on your wedding day. We are right in the neighborhood. Call 1-800-MARRY-ME.

Correct:

The best wedding planner in KL is at your service! We'll make your special day special. Call us @ 1-800-MARRY-ME.

Your ad should convey a call-to-action and this should come together with the benefits of your product(s) or service(s). The ads should be appetising enough for targeted viewers to walk to your store, or click to your webpage, or email you for details.

Whatever it is, your ad's message should be powerful enough to convince them to take the next step.

Put an attractive, relevant image in your ad that is appropriate for the product or service being advertised. The MAXIMUM image size for upload is 20KB and it should not be more than that. Images that are colourful, interesting, unique, mouth-watering, etc are among the types of images that are good for display purposes.

Your ad should direct users to the most relevant landing page. When a viewer clicks on your ad, they should be taken immediately to a page that is specific to the information or product in your ad.

Your ads that lead to the respective landing page should be as attractive, user-friendly, and informative as possible. Don't let viewers have trouble clicking around in order to find the relevant information.

Do one last check on and evaluation of your ad. Check on simple things such as grammar, spelling, sentence structure, capitalization, the use of symbols, punctuations or numbers, appropriateness of content and language, and the image(s) used, etc. Get back to the main reason you created the ad (see #1: Identifying your advertising goals) and ask yourself whether or not the ad conveys the right message. Also, consider adjusting your ads to make them less restrictive or aggressive/hard-sell.

When it comes to ads, please keep in mind that the following types of ads are most likely to be rejected by the moderator:

• Liquor or any kind of alcoholic beverages
• Cigarettes or tobacco related products
• Moneylending services
• Network marketing / Multi Level Marketing (MLM) / Get rich quick scheme
• Massage parlour or doubtful massage services
• Sex related merchandise (i.e. condoms, sex toys, lubricants, etc)
• Pornography or advertisements that contain obscene image(s)
• Social escort ads or the offer of related services
• Personal friendship / Friendship network ads
• Illegal drugs banned by the authorities / Government
• Ads that provoke racism or touch on community sensitivities
• Ads that display acts of violence or suggestions of it
• Ads that clearly discriminate against a particular gender, race or age group.

For RM500, the ad will run for 3 days.

RM1,000 and the ad runs for 6 days.

And RM1,500 and the ad runs for 14 days.

This means, if you place RM500 for the Tile Ad (120 x 60), your ad will run 50,000 times for 3 days.

Similarly, if you have RM1,000 for the Tile Ad (120 x 60), your ad will run 100,000 times for 6 days.