How many hours have you lost piss-arsing around in Photoshop and still getting no closer to a banner that is suitable for promoting your product?

How many freelancers have you paid to take away the torment?

Welcome to the world of SnackTools, a cracking suite of automation software that takes the hassle out of creating banners if you’re not already outsourcing the task.

SnackTools has a number of very handy and attractive looking apps, each designed to improve the visual presentation of your website. From professional quality slideshows, to online surveys and polls. There’s a lot to digest, and like sweet music to your ears, most of it is free.

The app most likely to capture your imagination is BannerSnack.

BannerSnack is my new best friend if I ever find myself weighted with the burden of having to produce a banner that isn’t embarrassingly slapped together like something out of MS Paint in the nineties.

The software allows you to create flash and gif banner ads using a very simple interface. It’s all drag and drop.

I consider myself a bumbling dinosaur when it comes to showing that deft touch in Photoshop, or indeed any of Adobe’s industry standard tools. BannerShack is simplified in such a way that even if you’re like me (you poor sod), you’ll be able to produce the eye-catching banners that have alluded you for so long.

Want fancy icons to give your banners that sleek 2.0 look? No problem. Want lots of direct response friendly arrows, buttons, labels and familiar visual cues to drive more clicks to your site? It’s all here.

Besides using BannerSnack to create images, I’ve adapted the software to create entire product landing pages for my affiliate marketing campaigns. Just select a custom banner size, adjust it to the size you want, and lavish the page in direct response love.

I haven't accessed ClipArt since 1997. But these arrows will come in handy for my landing pages.

Many different kinds of buttons, colours and effects available.

BannerSnack lets you save your artwork to the cloud, making it possible to drop back in and edit your creations whenever you feel like it. I have a growing assortment of banners and landing pages, all of which perform very well for me in their given tasks.

No automation suite will ever replace the genious of a super-talented designer. If you’re a designer reading this now, I’m not trying to put you out of a job. I admire you for having all the skills that I was never blessed with.

However, for those occasions where as webmasters we want effective banners ready to roll in 10 minutes, there aren’t many creative suites as fun and simple to use as BannerSnack. Check it out!

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