This last week, a lot of banner ads have caught my eye.  That is saying something. We naturally ignore them as we spend time online, but a few of them stood out to me, and I want to take a minute and give credit where credit is due for some top notch display ad campaigns in this Miscellaneous Monday post.

Zappos.com

Below you will see 3 screenshots from ONE Zappos ad.  Why does this banner ad rock?

1. The ad is interactive. You can click the arrows and see other products without clicking through to the site.
2. Depending on what image you are on when you click elsewhere on the ad, the landing page automatically correlates with the product in the ad when you click.
3. Really it is 3 ads in one.

Below are 3 examples of the Zappo ad(s) that rock and landing pages that roll. Why do I say the landing pages roll? Rock and roll go together and so should your landing pages and banner ads. When someone clicks on your banner ads, they should roll along seamlessly on to a correlating landing page and keep rolling through to a conversion.

AdRoll.com

As a rule of thumb, you don’t come right out and tell people that you are retargeting them in your banner ads. It  basically says, “hey, I am following you, and I know you were on my site.” I mean, think about it. What if you owned a grocery store and you paid employees to follow people after they left your store to go up to people in the street and say,  “hey, I saw you in our store the other day, when are you going to come back?” You don’t want to creep people out.

There is one vertical in which creepy, funny retargeting will be okay. If you are a retargeting company, you are the exception to the rule. Show people how good you are at retargeting and come right out and tell them that is what you are doing. It will work!

Just ask AdRoll. Their retargeting banner ads on Facebook rock:

And, you know what? AdRoll’s landing pages roll! Why do they roll? Take a look at this landing page, then let me give you a few reasons why:

1. Immediate trust and credibility in the black bar across the top.
2. Call to action in the ad and landing page match.
3. Content in the ad and landing page match.
4. The button to get started, while small, stands out.

If I were to change one thing, I would include another image of whichever person is pointing at me in the ad I click on.

iStockPhoto.com

I saved the best for last here. If you are still hanging with me on this long, image heavy post, I think you will be glad you did.

iStock‘s ads are award-winning. Why, because I am officially giving them an award by talking about them in my post! Seriously though, if they haven’t won an award, they should. I have never seen a better interactive banner ad campaign that does such an outstanding job of giving the user EXACTLY what they want when they click through to the landing page.

The drop down for the categories can be clicked and selected without clicking through.

You can type in a search of your choice if you want to do a search more specific than just by the drop down categories.

When you search for photos of abs as a search in the ad, the landing page rolls you along to image of abs. Exactly what you looked for. Why did I choose to search for abs? It was a random search that came to mind….I swear!

This next banner ad rocks!

5 reasons why the above banner ad rocks:

1. Calls me to action right away to browse millions of photos.
2. It is one of a variety of ads that I see as I browse the web after visiting their site so I don’t feel fatigue as I notice their ad starting to follow me.
3. It uses images of women. Images of people in banner ads catch the eye.
4. I can click different tabs of the ad and go to different, correlating landing pages.
5. I can type in searches and click through to a search result of exactly what I want to see.

This next ad is better when seen live, but I had to share it. Again, I can search, but also it gives me examples of what I can get when I click through. The images magnify as I mouse over them. Interactivity in banner ads rock.

Oh, and if seeing iStock’s banner ads elsewhere online didn’t catch my attention, I can see them on Facebook too. The interactivity is gone thanks to FB’s young, but maturing banner ad platform. Note that they use an image of a woman here as well.

And if photos aren’t getting me to convert, why not try converting me with one of their other offers?

Online advertising with banner ads is about doing your best to give people what they want. iStockPhoto has figured that out with their interactive ads that give people options and selection before they even click through.   Here are 3 more that do such a good job of that:

How are your banner ads? Do they rock and roll? Are you innovating with your banner ads? Some say they don’t work. I totally disagree. A well-planned banner ad campaign that rocks and retargets and landing pages that roll people along the online conversion process  do work.