We here at Canned Banners take our coding very seriously. So seriously, in fact, that we write whole books about software development.
Chris, co-founder and lead developer, is the proud author of “TextMate How-to,” a practical guide to the code and text editor TextMate. Chris shows readers how to configure the application, then covers navigation and editing of files, and finishes with bundles and advanced features.
Check it out at the Packt Publishing website.
We’ve added a new feature to our Ad Builder that compresses PNGs to smaller file sizes while at the same time maintaining transparency. This will give our customers a great deal more flexibility when using images in their display ads.
The post below gives a bit of detail on images compression and helps explain why this feature is so important.
Image compression optimization might seem esoteric and unimportant, but in the world of online display ads, it’s a huge deal. Why? Because of all the different ingredients of a Flash (SWF) ad (images, text, fonts, Actionscript code, etc), images are by far the biggest contributor to file size.
And given that most Flash ads need to be 45K or less, it’s extremely important to minimize the size (in kilobytes) of all the different parts of an ad. An extra 1 or 2 KB can render an ad unacceptable, sending the designer back to the drawing board.
Canned Banners has always been able to adjust the compression of JPEG images. However, many of our customers also use PNG images in their ads, especially for their logos. PNGs have a huge advantage over JPEGs, in that PNGs can have partially or fully transparent areas. This makes PNGs great for when a logo or a cutout photo needs to appear on top of different background colors, patterns, or photos.
The PNG image format comes with a significant cost, though: PNGs have large file sizes. See below. Even though the JPEG and the PNG look nearly identical, the PNG is double the file size (16K versus 32K):
 JPEG, 70% quality: 16KB |
 24-bit PNG with transparency: 32KB |
You might be thinking: “If the JPEG looks great and has such a small file size, why don’t you just use the JPEG?” Well, if we put these logos on top of a background image, you’ll see the downside of using JPEGs:
 JPEG logo, no transparency. Combined size of logo + photo: 28.4KB |
 24-bit PNG logo with transparency. Combined size of logo + photo: 44.4KB |
Above, the logo on the left (the JPEG) looks crappy because of the opaque white background, while the logo on the right (the PNG) looks much more professional because the area behind the logo is transparent, allowing the background photo to show through.
As the above examples illustrate, there used to be an annoying trade-off that had to take place: if we wanted display ads to meet ad networks’ file size requirements (usually a measly 45K or less), we could probably get away with a small PNG logo, and that was it. This placed a great deal of limitation on the kinds of ad designs we could use.
Not any more! With our new PNG optimizer, we can reduce the file size of PNGs down to JPEG-like file sizes, all while maintaining the transparency. This means we can use multiple PNGs in a single design, or use larger PNGs (width x height).
We did a first-ever public demo of the Canned Banners API at SF New Tech last week. This particular SF New Tech event was centered around e-commerce, and it was a pleasure sharing the stage with e-commerce innovators like Shopify (with whom we partner), Lexity (with whom we hope to partner), and Stripe (which we use to process credit card payments).
Watch the demo and see how we grab raw product XML (product names, images, prices, etc) using Best Buy’s BBYOpen API, and then use the Canned Banners API to turn that XML into display ads.
You bet! The Canned Banners API can work with virtually any data or content source within any industry. The demo video above just happens to focus on e-commerce using the BBYOpen API as a sample data source. Other data sources could include:
And as far as data format is concerned, we’re flexible there, too. Take your pick:
Want to talk about using the Canned Banners API for your own display ad campaigns? Just drop us a line.
On top of the weeks and hours that the Canned Banners ad builder already saves you when creating ads, we’ve just shaved several more seconds off the process!
We streamlined our sign-up and login forms and got rid of usernames. From now on, you can just log in with your email address and password. No more having to remember whether your username is ChunkyLover53, ChunkyLov3r53, or Chunky_Lover53.
Our old demo was getting to be quite a relic, so here’s a long-overdue update. In under 5 minutes, learn how to:
Watch the demo to learn the basics, then make your own display ad »
We’ve launched a new kind of partnership! The team at Chix Creative designed a new banner ad template for us.
Given that Canned Banners is still an all-male team, all our ad templates look like something that guys would design. This has definitely narrowed the variation in our template gallery: nothing but sharp corners and bold colors as far as the eye can see (we often find ourselves wanting to add spikes, flames, and gun turrets to the banners, but we’ve somehow maintained the self-control to avoid this).
But now the tyranny of our in-house template designs is over! The ladies at Chix Creative designed a very nice new template for us, and best of all, it looks nothing like anything we’ve created ourselves. So the old saying goes: “variety is the spice of online display advertising”…or something like that.
Feast your eyes, and then customize these banners for your own campaign.
We’ve added new pricing options to our Basic Ad Builder. You can now buy credits (1 credit = 1 banner) at a discount from our standard price of $25 per banner:
1 credit = 1 banner
| Pay-as-you-go | $25 | |
| 6 credits | $90 | $15.00 per banner |
| 12 credits | $150 | $12.50 per banner |
| 24 credits | $240 | $10.00 per banner |
Buying banners at a discount makes it easier for our customers to make more banner ads. This, in turn, helps our customers’ campaigns be more successful because they can create more versions of their ads to see what works and what doesn’t. It also allows our customers to more easily create different ads for different campaign segments (e.g., one ad targeted at men and one at women). We’re also hoping that our new pricing makes it easier for search and performance marketers to do A/B testing of many different ad versions.
Canned Banners recently had the privilege of lending our expertise to this new online course from Knowledge.ly: Media Buying Academy
It’s a pretty comprehensive course, with enough material to get any noob affiliate or direct-response marketer off the ground and on their way to running profitable display ad campaigns.
These are the course modules:
Full course details »
The course is full of these kinds of nuggets.
Buy the whole thing, and you’ll have a roadmap that takes you through the entire process of planning, launching, and optimizing a performance-based display campaign.
Canned Banners wasn’t the only company to contribute expertise to this course. You get to learn from other awesome online marketing companies like MixRank, Unbounce, and BuyAds.com.
And if you buy the course and have any follow-up questions about how to create effective banner ads, just drop us a line.
Myles interviewed on the future of display ad creative
Very cool to be featured on The Makegood today. Our esteemed colleague Tim Nichols from Exact Drive interviewed me and we got to talking about:
Read the interview on The Makegood