The banner on the right was made in about 5-10 minutes using BannerSnack, an easy to use online software for creating high quality flash banner ads at an affordable price. Today we’re sharing our thoughts of the service, and explaining who it benefits.

What is Banner Snack?

BannerSnack is a powerful, easy-to-use banner maker that allows nearly anyone to make flash banner ads in no time at all. Unlike similar tools, BannerSnack offers a wide degree of customization and creative freedom rather than overused cookie-cutter templates. Sure, you can start from pre-defined templates, but even they feel like highly customizable creatives instead of bland animations (ie: Google Adwords).

Aside from the quality of the banners you can create with BannerSnack, there are two other things that really set it apart from other software and services.

Affordable

BannerSnack is very affordable. Similar services charge as much as $30 for a single banner, whereas you can create an ad for as low as $9/mo on BannerSnack. That means unlimited creatives in a month for only $9 (though there is a 100MB size limit), for any dimensions you need. It probably goes without saying that it’s cheaper than buying Flash to create your own banners.

You can even use BannerSnack for free, you’ll just see a watermark over your ads.

Quick & Easy

Maybe you already have flash, or you’re concerned about learning how to use new software. BannerSnack is easy to use and there are plenty of tutorials to help you get started. Personally, I didn’t have to use any of the tutorials and I imagine most designers like myself will have no trouble at all picking it up and putting together a banner in a few minutes.

For the non-creative, BannerSnack does offer templates that are easy to work with. You can see some of those templates in action on the Examples page.

Who Should Use It?

If you’re in need of a creative flash banner, and hiring a flash professional to design a banner is out of the question, BannerSnack is probably a good fit for your needs. You may benefit from using it if:

  • You’re a website owner who advertises on other websites. You want to ditch the typical bland ads that networks like Google AdWords offer, and start using a unique banner to draw in more conversions.
  • You’re a designer with a heavy workload. You don’t have the time to manually create unique banners from scratch in Flash for all of your clients. Instead, you could be using BannerSnack to create very professional banners in no time at all.
  • You’re a business owner who is ready to start advertising online. Rather than hiring a design agency and marketing company, cut the costs in half by making the creatives yourself, and sending them directly to marketing with BannerSnack’s .swf output feature.

What We Would Like to See

BannerSnack has some great features that you might not expect from online software: .swf output, advanced effects, plenty of premium fonts, very intuitive interface… but there are a few things that we’d like to see in the future from them:

  • Layer Support: Right now, the layers in BannerSnack feel a lot like layers in Powerpoint (Move up, Move down, etc). This may be ideal for the laymen, but for the experienced designer it’s not the best way of getting around.
  • Custom Fonts: It would be really fantastic if users could upload their own font to be used in BannerSnack in the future. At this point, custom font needs to be uploaded as an image.
  • Undo & Redo: Easy access to an undo and redo button would be a great addition to BannerSnack in the future.

Sign Up For BannerSnack

Interested in BannerSnack? Sign up for one of the following plans below:

  • Free Plan (Sign Up): Give BannerSnack a try before committing to it. Banners will have a watermark, and you won’t have access to exclusive premium features.
  • Premium Package ( $8.49/mo Sign Up): Watermark free, more storage space, and .swf exports available.
  • Premium Plus Package ($12.99/mo Sign Up): Even more storage space, and additional .swf exports available. Comes with advanced effects and fonts to really make this a killer package.

Have you had the chance to give BannerSnack a try yet? What were your thoughts?


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