Banner KB?

How big is acceptable for banners

[KakenBetaal]

I've just started creating a few banners for myself, and don't really have a problem with the static banner sizes.

When it comes to animated banners, however, my jungle hat! I'm having a lot of trouble doing nice animations that don't take a lot of KB. I know that part of my problem is not making the animations too long, but I really like the smooth transitions you can do in ImageReady.

What do you consider acceptable sizes for static and animated banners? Let's narrow this down to 468x60 standard banners only.

[Brett_Tabke]

under 15k. Anything more than that, I often hit the back button.

[edit_g]

Large portals here in the uk usually have a 468x60 ad spec of between 10k and 13k.

[ritch_b]

We limit to 14kb wherever possible - surprising what you can acheive in that available space.

R.

[KakenBetaal]

Yowser, that's certainly reset my expectations! What tricks do you use to keep the banner sizes that small?

I'm finding animations and photos get the best clickthroughs, and it seems really hard to keep it below 30kb with those. I'm just going to have to go back and try harder.

[edit_g]

Since you're using photoshop, Imageready will have options to reduce the number of colours, change the type etc. Mess around with the options and then choose "save optimised as" (probably with a z) ;) and choose one which looks ok and isn't too big.

btw- You won't get smooth animations with lots of frames to go under 13k... I've tried and I soon learnt that smaller and simpler was the way to go. You could try flash banners, because they use vector graphics, they can often be much smaller while carrying off smoother animations.

[mivox]

There are a lot of banner programs I've seen that won't allow you to use a banner over 12-14K. It's a bear designing something eyecatching in that size... but I think the challenge is part of the fun!

[korkus2000]

If you need smooth animation see if you can make a Flash banner. Don't make an obnoxious one that comes out of its area though. You can make very compelling Flash banners under 5K. Remember to have a static one that can be served up if a user doesn't have flash.

If you are stuck using gifs then try to keep it under 6 frames. Also limit your pallet to no more than 64 colors. This will help keep the size down. I think you will find the old slide show banner with 3 - 4 frames will be the best as far as size goes.

[KakenBetaal]

Thanks everybody. Great tips, and I'm glad to know what I should be limiting my banners to. Less frames and less colours have done the trick for me.