7 Secrets to Create Affiliate Banners That Drive Conversions

Affiliate marketing is all about placing your brand in front of the right audience to get more conversions. This can only be done with up-to-date promotional methods and the right affiliate program strategies. 

Common techniques, like newsletters and email marketing, often don't end up being very helpful in attracting your audience's attention. So if you’re tired of spending time and money on ineffective campaigns, here’s a helpful marketing tool you may be missing out on – affiliate banners!

Banner ads, or display ads, introduce your brand to the audience with visual aesthetics. Most people ignore walls of text, but they will pay attention to catchy visuals and graphics.

This article breaks down the benefits of using affiliate banners for advertising, including specific affiliate banner examples for reference. Plus, we’ll give you some top tips on how to create the kind of affiliate banners that drive more conversions. 

Let's get started!

What is an affiliate banner?

An affiliate banner is a type of visual ad created by a brand to be used by their affiliates to promote their product, service, or company. Affiliate banners pull in potential customers with eye-catching imagery, concise text, and a clickable link that directs visitors to a product page or special offer. This kind of ad is designed to grab your attention and communicate a clear message within seconds. Affiliate banners can be found on websites, blogs, social media platforms, and email newsletters. When well-designed, they’re often highly effective at boosting clicks and conversions. 

Affiliate banners are a visual call-to-action. Not only do they showcase a product, but their primary objective is to persuade viewers to take the next step, whether by making a purchase, signing up for a free trial, or simply learning more about the brand. Many brands also choose to create animated banners to grab focus and showcase more than one product or special offer at a time. Using a winning combination of strong visuals, relevant copy, and strategic placement, affiliate banners help marketers connect their audience with the right offer at the right moment.

Why are affiliate banners important?

Affiliate banners—also known as influencer banners—are placed at the top, bottom, sides, and even in the middle of your website's content. What gives banner ads their edge is their ability to contain precise information, eye-catching imagery, a clear call to action (CTA), and engaging copy, all within one small block. For example, take a look at this banner ad on the NBA website, which displays each of these features:

Like the banner image above, a well-designed banner ad will persuade a visitor to leave the current website and visit that brand's product page. The main purpose of these ads is to present the brand to their target audience in the hopes of turning them into new customers.

Because the human mind processes visuals more easily than long strings of text, affiliate banners are an especially effective affiliate marketing medium.

And because you can use banner ads on multiple platforms, like your website, social media pages, blogs, and email newsletters, they end up saving a lot of time in the long run. With one ad designed for multiple locations, there’s no need to spend extra time and money designing for each platform. Overall, they’re a strong marketing investment!

What’s the right size for an affiliate banner?

Before you start designing your affiliate banners, it’s helpful to understand the standard banner sizes commonly used across websites, affiliate programs, and advertising networks. Choosing the right dimensions helps guarantee that your affiliate banners will display correctly and look great, no matter the screen size.

Here are some of the most widely supported affiliate banner sizes:

• 728x90 – Leaderboard (best for top-of-page placement)
  
  
• 300x250 – Medium rectangle (ideal for in-content or sidebar use)
  
  
• 160x600 – Wide skyscraper (great for sidebars on desktop)
  
  
• 320x100 – Large mobile banner (optimized for mobile devices)
  
  
• 300x600 – Half-page ad (for more vertical space and visual impact)
  
  
• 468x60 – Classic banner (still used in email newsletters or older layouts)
  
  

Using these popular banner sizes helps maintain compatibility with most affiliate platforms and site templates. You can also create responsive affiliate banners by using HTML/CSS or embedding banner code that adapts to screen size. This is especially important if your audience is browsing from mobile devices, where improperly scaled banners may get cut off or ignored. Choosing the right banner size and format helps you get the most value out of every ad placement.

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7 tips for creating affiliate banners that drive conversions

When it comes to creating banner ads, it’s important to follow best practices, or you won’t be able to make much of a difference in your affiliate marketing performance. Here are seven key affiliate banner tips to help you get started with your campaign:

1. Convey a Clear Message

Companies often want to include every bit of information in their affiliate banners. 

Of course, it makes sense, but you should absolutely avoid overloading your banner ad with text. There are two things that make a banner ad attractive enough to capture attention in seconds: simplicity and a clear message.

An effective banner ad doesn’t contain excessive text or imagery. Instead, it should include only key elements, like:

• A background image or solid color
• An attractive title
• Minimal text
• The call-to-action (CTA) button
• Your logo

Here’s a great affiliate banner example of this in action:

2. Include a Prominent CTA

A clear call-to-action button gives your audience easy access to your website or product. With a quick tap of your CTA, they’re immediately taken right to the purchase point, priming them to buy right then. This is why a well-designed banner ad needs a clear CTA and accurate information. To be effective, the ad must stand out visually on a crowded webpage and convey its purpose clearly enough that viewers immediately understand what will happen when they click. 

3. Know Your Target Audience

Smart audience targeting is one of the best ways to help your display ad convert. For that, you need to segment your audience according to their interests or likes.

Pro Tip: Use a heatmap—like Aurora Heatmap for WordPress—to track visitor behavior on your website.

Once you know your target audience completely, you can then target your banner ads toward users who show interest in your product. This way, you can get more conversions with less effort. 

For example, Target knows that families often choose them to find affordable college decor and household goods but that cheaper online competitors will be a temptation. So, they wisely offer a gift card, knowing that $15 is an enticing enough discount for families looking to stock up for a college semester.

4. Use Strong, High-Quality Images

It’s important that you keep every element of your affiliate banner ad consistent and brand-focused, especially the images. High-quality images are essential to a banner ad, because they capture attention and visually represent your brand.

Look for images that complement your brand’s style — colors, tones, fonts, and image types — and elevate the overall look of your banner, just like the one below that ran on the Forbes website:

5. Place Your Banner Ads Correctly

The placement of a banner ad plays an important role in driving conversions.

Once you’ve created affiliate marketing banners for your brand, the next step is to place them where they will be most prominent. If you place your ad at the wrong spot, it’s likely to get overshadowed by other content on the webpage, leading to fewer clicks.

But which part of the webpage is the prime location for your banner ad? Aim for the top of the webpage or in between blog paragraphs. Ads placed above the fold or at the top generally attract attention as soon as the page loads.

For example, both Lumosity and Pizza Hut's ads are well placed on the NHL.com website:

6. Create a Tracking Campaign for Your Affiliate Banner

How will you evaluate your shortcomings and strong points if you don't monitor your progress? That's why it’s essential to create a tracking campaign to go with each banner ad.

A tracking campaign will help you navigate ad performance, so you can make any necessary changes to your ads and improve your conversion rate over time. 

That's where a good tracking campaign software, like LeadDyno, comes in handy. With this software, you can access detailed reports on the number of banner link clicks, leads, and conversions received.

The LeadDyno Tracking Campaign lets you create a unique link for every site, so you can measure the quality of traffic you receive.

7. Use Free Online Tools

The best part about creating influencer banners is that you can easily customize them to your branding. Thanks to the many free tools available on the internet, you can design a high-converting display ad without investing a single dollar.

Here are our top three picks to help you create affiliate banner ads for free:

Google Web Designer

No need to worry about coding with Google Web Designer. The tool allows you to create affiliate banner ads with HTML and CSS designs, while its visual editor generates code automatically.

From the app's several device-friendly designs and layered animations, you can easily create a banner according to your brand's theme.

Canva

Companies promoting their products through social media marketing simply love Canva. The app is an excellent platform for creating attractive, high-quality social media posts, as well as affiliate banner ads.

With a monthly Canva membership (currently $15/mo for an individual account), you gain access to over 400,000 free stock photos, templates, font combinations, and illustrations, along with advanced features like AI-generated images, background removal, and intuitive drag-and-drop mockup tools.

Fotor

Fotor is a free online application available on desktop. The app provides a variety of banner templates ideal for designing attractive affiliate banners easily. If you want to use more advanced features, the Fotor app also includes a paid premium option, with plans starting at $8.99 per month.

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Conclusion

Affiliate marketing banners are a simple but highly effective way to add value to each affiliate marketing campaign. Once you’ve designed an eye-catching banner using the tips above, make sure to track your results faithfully, so you can continuously adjust your affiliate banner design strategy and grow your conversion rates. 

Remember to keep the message of your banner ad short and clear, use high-quality images, include a prominent CTA, and place the ad in the right spot. And if you need a robust tracking software, give LeadDyno a try. Start your 30-day free trial here!