How to Create a Stunning Interactive Banner Ad in 5 Minutes

interactive flash banner ad
Interactive banner ad on NYTimes.com
Have you been visited a website and see great Flash SWF banners ads that leave you with no choice but stare at them in awe? I did and I always get fascinated with smart ads that combine animations, smart presentations and interactivity. I wonder, how can I make such banners for my business? Read this article to learn more and how a SWF Decompiler can be a great help.

Whether you are a budding web design firm owner or an online business owner, I am sure you want to get the most of your advertising and marketing budget. There are some research findings that lead to the same conclusion…

Interactive banner ads rock!

Interactive banners – mostly created in Flash – are said to be the best in converting viewers into business leads. It’s common sense, though – people get tired of static and poorly animated banners; this causes severe advertising blindness (and banner blindness) – losing you hard-to-earn advertising money to banners that won’t convert well.

Interactive banners offer something that people feel worth doing – they responds to certain actions. I’ve seen interactive ad banners that function like a mini site, giving interesting piece of information as I click on the attractive menu buttons – all funnel into a “click here” button or a form requesting your first name and email address. Smart ads.

Creating interactive ad banners: How?

Interactive ad banners are typically created using Flash technology (those files with .FLA extension) initially developed by Macromedia and later merged with Adobe Systems (hence the name, Adobe Flash.) The animated and interactive ad banners you see on websites are in SWF file format, created by compiling an FLA file.

Obviously, you need to understand Flash in order to develop Flash ad banner project. You can cut your learning curve by hiring a Flash designer or buy Flash ad banner making software.

However, if you really believe that one particular ad banner can help increasing your ad banner campaign’s conversion rate, you or your designer/developer does need to learn how to mimic the actions.

A powerful solution: SWF Decompiler

However, you need to learn the “tricks” or “secret ingredients” Flash designer use to make such stunning Flash ad banners. In order to do so, you will need SWF or Flash Decompiler.

SWF Decompiler is basically a software that can decompile a SWF file, revealing Flash resources used in creating the interactive banners, such as images, shapes, sounds, texts, ActionScript – everything.

There are some good SWF Decompiler software on the market today, but one of the best is Sothink SWF Decompiler.

Used by BBC, Disney, Google, Amazon and many other big companies, Sothink SWF Decompiler is powerful and easy to use. You can decompile SWF to FLA, extract Flash resources and edit the SWF and FLA files literally in minutes.

All you need to do is to grab the SWF of the Flash banner ads and decompile them – that would be all! Cost effective and quick development.

To see how a SWF Decompiler works, check out this video tutorial on how to extract resources from a Flash banner:

Ready to boost your small business marketing and advertising campaigns’ return on investment? You can try Sothink SWF Decompiler for 30 days free of charge – so I think it doesn’t hurt to give the Flash decompiler a try. It’s a great software and I strongly recommend it to you.

Ivan Widjaya
Interactive Flash banner ads making tips