With little space – and even less time – the key to successful online advertising is to keep your message as simple as possible.

As customers start to find more and more of their news online, some printed trade publications – that were once the cornerstone of a potent B2B marketing mix – are being ignored.

As a result, a number of media outlets are taking the decision to move to website-only offerings.

Consequently, B2B marketers have to make the decision about how to maximise their print advertising budget.

The digital decision

Often the answer lies in following the publication online and investing in an online advertising package – with a mix of different ad sizes including leaderboards, skyscrapers, MPUs, ribbons, half pages and full takeovers.

Just like print advertising, budgets will dictate the space that you can secure and prominence within the chosen media.

And – just like print advertising – the key to making the best impact is to make sure your message and visuals are crystal clear.

With a perceived reduction in advertising space (compared to an A4 publication) the temptation can be to try and cram as many messages as possible into a digital ad.

“Just increase the number of transitions.”

“Make the font smaller and we’ll get more text in.”

“Make sure our logos really big.”

“Can you make that button flash a bit more?”

It’s very easy to become distracted from what you were trying to achieve in the first place and end up with an all singing, all dancing rotating box of confusion.

So, our advice is to keep it simple.

Think about the one message you want customers to take away.

Craft your headline – one to four words if possible.

Follow up with a compelling offer or proposition.

Hit them with your call to action.

Keep images to a minimum and make sure your fonts are legible.

And if you stick to those principles you should find that more of your customers and prospects are clicking through to your website rather than clicking off the page.