Banner Advertising - Discovering Banner Ad Marketing!
For many small website owners, the costs associated with large-scale banner advertising puts effective banner advertising out of their reach. Others on blogs and forums have stated banner advertising is dead because of the low click-through rates they are getting. The fact is, banner advertising can still be a cost effective form of advertising - if done Properly!
Interesting Point!
If banner advertising was really dead, companies who spend hundreds of thousands of dollars per year on banner advertising wouldn't be doing banner advertising - no company spends that kind of money on a dead advertising technique.
For many small website owners, the costs associated with large-scale banner advertising puts effective banner advertising out of their reach. Others on blogs and forums have stated banner advertising is dead because of the low click-through rates they are getting. The fact is, banner advertising can still be a cost effective form of advertising - if done Properly!
Interesting Point!
If banner advertising was really dead, companies who spend hundreds of thousands of dollars per year on banner advertising wouldn't be doing banner advertising - no company spends that kind of money on a dead advertising technique.
The two basic types of banner advertising - free banner exchanges and paid banner advertising.
It should be pointed out that some free banner exchanges can be effective if done correctly. It's true that the click-through rates have decreased for traditional banner methods, however when effective banner advertising techniques are used, you can still enjoy healthy rates of return on your investment.
Like Pay Per Click advertising, the rate of buying or becoming a customer is more important than the click-through rate - but this will be covered in more detail later.
One type of banner advertising that will not be covered is the large-scale banner exchanges that large corporations use. Such advertising is usually such a high financial cost to attempt to use (much more than $2,500 just to effectively start), that this technique is far too expensive for most affiliate marketers.
We are going to look at techniques you can use to achieve a maximum profits.
We are first going to examine what banners are, the most common sizes, and which banners are statistically most effective in your various banner advertising models.
What is a banner ad you ask?
A web banner (or banner ad) is an visual form of advertising that is embedded or placed on a web page. Their intent is to attract web surfers or web users to your website when they click on the banner. The advertisement (or banner) is constructed as an image such as a .GIF, .JPEG or .PNG. They might also be built as .SWF Flash movies. (Although, due to size restraints, flash animations can be restrictive).
Many web pages or exchanges that place banners on their site or network have limits to the size of the image or flash file so that the banner can be served to the web surfer quickly and without using a lot of bandwidth or resources. A common size restraint is 40-50 kilobytes (KB) for a common, traditional 468x60 banner ad. Each web site or exchange has their own requirements, so size restrictions can vary.
Size restrictions mentioned above do not mean height and width restraints, but file size. There is a distinct difference between file size and image size.
What image size can my banner be?
Banners technically can be any size you want to make them, but a uniform set of sizes has been adopted and set forth by the Internet Advertising Board (or IAB).
It should be pointed out that some free banner exchanges can be effective if done correctly. It's true that the click-through rates have decreased for traditional banner methods, however when effective banner advertising techniques are used, you can still enjoy healthy rates of return on your investment.
Like Pay Per Click advertising, the rate of buying or becoming a customer is more important than the click-through rate - but this will be covered in more detail later.
One type of banner advertising that will not be covered is the large-scale banner exchanges that large corporations use. Such advertising is usually such a high financial cost to attempt to use (much more than $2,500 just to effectively start), that this technique is far too expensive for most affiliate marketers.
We are going to look at techniques you can use to achieve a maximum profits.
We are first going to examine what banners are, the most common sizes, and which banners are statistically most effective in your various banner advertising models.
What is a banner ad you ask?
A web banner (or banner ad) is an visual form of advertising that is embedded or placed on a web page. Their intent is to attract web surfers or web users to your website when they click on the banner. The advertisement (or banner) is constructed as an image such as a .GIF, .JPEG or .PNG. They might also be built as .SWF Flash movies. (Although, due to size restraints, flash animations can be restrictive).
Many web pages or exchanges that place banners on their site or network have limits to the size of the image or flash file so that the banner can be served to the web surfer quickly and without using a lot of bandwidth or resources. A common size restraint is 40-50 kilobytes (KB) for a common, traditional 468x60 banner ad. Each web site or exchange has their own requirements, so size restrictions can vary.
Size restrictions mentioned above do not mean height and width restraints, but file size. There is a distinct difference between file size and image size.
What image size can my banner be?
Banners technically can be any size you want to make them, but a uniform set of sizes has been adopted and set forth by the Internet Advertising Board (or IAB).
Here's an image of the most common banner sizes (not to size). Below the image are the actual width and height parameters for these banner images.
Interesting Point!
The most common size for a banner is the Full banner (468X60) - shown here in its actual size:
The most common size for a banner is the Full banner (468X60) - shown here in its actual size:
This size banner is also the worst converting size to use! (It's not due to the design, it's the size! It's just not seen by web surfers anymore, so the ad format just blends into the background and is skipped over .)
A study done in 2007 for banner-advertising click-throughs by banner size is displayed below. Remember these are relative, meaning they are an average, so it covers all types of banner advertising across many niches, web sites, and networks. Your results will be dependent upon the specific techniques used for add placements.
Looking at those figures you might think that less than one percent conversion across the board, doesn't even seem to be worth my time and effort, but stay with me here, because it's not as bleak as these figures look. The point of the above graph does illustrate something that is very important.
Important!
Different sizes of banners can drastically affect your banner advertising success rate.
The sizes that convert the best are 300x250 and 728x90. For Example!
Important!
Different sizes of banners can drastically affect your banner advertising success rate.
The sizes that convert the best are 300x250 and 728x90. For Example!
This means you want to find places (web sites) where you can place these sizes of banner advertisements. These will give you the best return on your investment.
Although, click-through rates have gone downward over the years, so have ad prices. You can still achieve a click-through rate many times the industry average by combining good placement and design to your advertising efforts.
Ok now that we understand what banners are, and have an understanding of the sizes of banners, how do we put an effective banner together?
What is an effective Banner design?
The first thing you will need is a graphic editor program (or you can take these tips and give them to an outsourced graphic artist to design your ads).
If you do not have a graphic editor, you can download Gimp, a free piece of software made specifically for graphic editing.
You can get it here
I'm not going to go into the specifics of how to use a graphic editor, because that within itself could be a long tutorial, but here are some tips to making an effective banner, regardless of the size banner you decide upon using:
Use animation. Animation can greatly increase a banner's CTR. Animation must be crafted carefully since the purpose of the animation is to attract views, not irritate those whom are looking at the web page. You want to draw attention in a positive way.
Some additional points you should remember regarding banner animations include:
1. Be subtle enough to attract attention, but it should not interfere or clash with the design of the web page you are advertising on!
2. Do not have animations that continually loop over and over again, the constant looping animation will irritate most individuals. Have the animation loop 7-10 times at the most and remember to leave the most important message on the last animation frame!
3. Also remember some people stop a page from fully loading so you want your most important message to also be on frame one of the animation. Doing this also lets the most important message display slightly longer than the rest of the animation loop.
Feature a call to action. Placing a "Click Here" or "Submit" graphic or text image will significantly improve your CTR. Always have a call to action.
(In our NPC banner above you can see the call to action is a button that says Click Here.)
Use bright colors. Blue, yellow, and green banners have a higher CTR than black-and-white banners. Use the color red sparingly.
Use the word "Free" in your banner. Depending on what's offered, the word "free" can increase CTRs. For example, offering a free software demo gets a good response. Offering something like free money is ineffective because, people will immediately think, What's the catch? As such, make sure what is free is of value, but not a trick or spammy (as in sleazy) looking message.
Give a benefit for clicking on your banner. Always focus on the benefits for the viewer. The rule of "What's In It For Me?" strongly applies to effective banner creation. For example, "Do you want more traffic?" or, "Would you like to learn everything about Niche building?"
of course the answer will be on your web site or affiliate page the banner is directing people to!Although, click-through rates have gone downward over the years, so have ad prices. You can still achieve a click-through rate many times the industry average by combining good placement and design to your advertising efforts.
Ok now that we understand what banners are, and have an understanding of the sizes of banners, how do we put an effective banner together?
What is an effective Banner design?
The first thing you will need is a graphic editor program (or you can take these tips and give them to an outsourced graphic artist to design your ads).
If you do not have a graphic editor, you can download Gimp, a free piece of software made specifically for graphic editing.
You can get it here
I'm not going to go into the specifics of how to use a graphic editor, because that within itself could be a long tutorial, but here are some tips to making an effective banner, regardless of the size banner you decide upon using:
Use animation. Animation can greatly increase a banner's CTR. Animation must be crafted carefully since the purpose of the animation is to attract views, not irritate those whom are looking at the web page. You want to draw attention in a positive way.
Some additional points you should remember regarding banner animations include:
1. Be subtle enough to attract attention, but it should not interfere or clash with the design of the web page you are advertising on!
2. Do not have animations that continually loop over and over again, the constant looping animation will irritate most individuals. Have the animation loop 7-10 times at the most and remember to leave the most important message on the last animation frame!
3. Also remember some people stop a page from fully loading so you want your most important message to also be on frame one of the animation. Doing this also lets the most important message display slightly longer than the rest of the animation loop.
Feature a call to action. Placing a "Click Here" or "Submit" graphic or text image will significantly improve your CTR. Always have a call to action.
(In our NPC banner above you can see the call to action is a button that says Click Here.)
Use bright colors. Blue, yellow, and green banners have a higher CTR than black-and-white banners. Use the color red sparingly.
Use the word "Free" in your banner. Depending on what's offered, the word "free" can increase CTRs. For example, offering a free software demo gets a good response. Offering something like free money is ineffective because, people will immediately think, What's the catch? As such, make sure what is free is of value, but not a trick or spammy (as in sleazy) looking message.
Give a benefit for clicking on your banner. Always focus on the benefits for the viewer. The rule of "What's In It For Me?" strongly applies to effective banner creation. For example, "Do you want more traffic?" or, "Would you like to learn everything about Niche building?"
Keep the message short! Newbies especially have this notion that fancy designs will catch the visitor's eye faster and create more desire for them to click-through to your page. The truth, however, is fancy does not mean better. The job of any banner is to get someone to take action, to click the banner. Tests have shown that a simple banner usually will have higher CTRs than unfocused, wordy banners.
Link the banner to a specific page! People don't want to have to opt-into your newsletter, or search for what they are looking for. If your banner is advertising a specific product, link the banner directly to that product. Never make the visitor or prospect have to work to find your offer. They have already expressed their interest by clicking on the banner, so give them what they want!
Refresh or change your banners frequently! Studies show that CTRs drop significantly after 2 weeks of a banner being on the same location and web site, but those rates increase when a different banner, even one advertising the same product, is uploaded. So change your banner every few weeks to keep people's interest and eyes watching the ad.
Like building a web site, you will need to test your banner ads to be sure they are effective. Testing means that you run a banner over a period of time and measure the results (click-through and resulting sales). Then you change one thing about the banner design, such as a color or a font, and run that banner over the same period of time and measure the results. The banner designs that result in the most sales should be the types of banners you use for your banner campaigns.
Which brings up an important point! Banners, like any other advertising method, have the ultimate goal of sales. If you're getting great click-through rates but the sales of the product drops in comparison to other advertising mediums, then the banner may need to be changed.
Let me explain this just a bit more.
Track your banner advertising efforts. After your banner is sending you some traffic on a regular basis, calculate what the click -through rate is and what the resulting sales are. It is sales that are most important.
If, for example, your click-through rate is 1% but of those 10% buy, that is a great conversion rate. It is likely higher than the normal conversion rate you may have had so even though the click-through rate is low, the conversion (which is what your ultimate goal always should be) is fantastic! So discover new ways to get more click-throughs and you could have yourself a very profitable campaign.
You've created your ad and you think it's effective, now what?
Let's place your ads where they can earn you some customers and affiliate sales.
The first thing to consider when placing a banner is the type of page it will be on and, more importantly, where on the page the banner is going to be displayed. You always want your ad to be "above the fold".
What does "above the fold" mean? This means when a web page first loads in a browser the visitor can see your advertising banner without scrolling left or right, up or down. It loads into the browser and is fully viewable.
Banners that can be placed in the upper right hand corner of a page get the best click-throughs. This is often where Internet marketers put their opt-inform because it is the prime real estate on a web page. If you can get your ad displayed here, you're in great shape. If not try to get it just under the opt-inform. Or on the top left hand side. Vertical banners in this spot will convert better than the full banner that is generally displayed above the header of a web page. Although either is better than an ad that is placed below the fold.
You could use a banner exchange, and free banner exchanges usually are attractive to newbies, but quite frankly, this, while free, is not going to give you the audience or click-throughs you want.
For those that aren't aware of what banner exchanges are, they are web sites and programs in which you agree to place a banner on your site in exchange that someone else in the exchange network places your banner on their site.
While free to use, they have major drawbacks in terms of effectiveness!
Many people who join such exchanges create a banners page and they join several banner exchanges. As a result, the page will have as many banners as they can get on it in order to get a display credit for each banner on the page every time the page loads.
The bottom line is they aren't displaying your banner in any useful manner; their only purpose is to accrue points in the exchange so that their banner will be placed on more web sites.
Here's a picture of a typical banner exchange page that is doing nothing but displaying banners in return for display credits:
This particular one is a Christian banners page, but it could be any topic, niche or set of banners on a page.
Obviously, this is incredibly ineffective for you!
Another drawback is that often banner exchanges do not differentiate the web sites your banners are being showed on. If your sight is specific to Internet Marketing, your banner may display on a dating site, Christian site, car building site or any other site within the exchange.
Again lots of displays but incredibly ineffective.
Another drawback is the exchange rate. What's an exchange rate? Banner exchanges have what is called an exchange rate, which is this: for every one time you display one of their banners, they will display your banner somewhere in their exchange on some one else's page.
Usually this rate is great for the banner exchange owner, but not so good for you. You will need to display someone else's ad 5 times or 3 times or x number of times in order for your ad to display once.
Since your banner advertising is suppose to drive traffic to you, not away from you, the exchange is really not giving you much for the work you need to do to get your banner displayed.
Ok that pretty much explains why a free banner exchange really isn't effective. There are other reasons but this should be enough to give you a rough idea of how a banner exchange works, and why it's not generally considered ineffective for you to use to advertise your site.
However,people like using them, so if you are going to try one here are some tips to know:
Choose banner exchanges that only allow one banner display per page and does not allow banner pages.
Choose an exchange that requires banners to be displayed "above the fold".
Choose exchanges in which you get an exchange that gives you the most bang for the buck in terms of display rates.
Choose a banner exchange that allows you to have some kind of control over where your banner is being displayed. This means it gives you categories that you can define as desirable for display. (Such as business web sites, or Internet Marketing sites, or entrepreneur sites. etc.)
So if you shouldn't use the big guys exchange companies because it costs too much, and free exchanges aren't all that effective, what can you do?
Find blogs and forums in your field or niche and buy a banner placement on their site.
Find web site competitors in your niche or related niche and make deals to promote each other's products or banners
Use Thank You pages, Subscription pages, Product Download pages, 404 Pages and other Error pages.
IMPORTANT! Ads running on sites with related content were 61% more likely to be recalled than ads running on sites with unrelated content. better recall, better effectiveness. Related banners for the topic of the sites work. Be relevant and focused - your ad placement on relevant sites will improve your campaign performance. The simplest and easiest thing to do right now is to put a banner on your newsletter subscription page, both the thank you and subscribed pages. This space is wide-open Internet real estate. The page is generally just a notice that says "Thank you for joining my newsletter", or "Sorry you have already subscribed to my newsletter". So place your banner there and redirect them to NPC or any other page you want them to go to.
If you sell an Internet related product, such as an ebook on traffic generation, or a how-to report on building niche sites, then you can place a banner on that download page. Place a banner for NPC right under the link to download the product they just bought and test the results.
Error and 404 pages are also excellent locations to place your banners. Since there is nothing but an error message on the page, it's dead real estate that you can change into an effective marketing location.
Now that we have done this for your own site, here's a twist: ask other competitors and Internet marketers if you can put your banner on their pages (as described above) in exchange for you putting their banner on an equal location on your site. It helps if you are getting about the same sale or conversion rate as those you ask.
Be prepared to give your traffic numbers, opt-inrates, conversion numbers etc. as people will want to know if putting their banner on your pages is going to be effective.
This is a great cross-promotion technique. You're both targeting the same market, but now you will be picking up their customers, and they will be picking up yours.
If you don't yet have consistent conversion numbers, then don't suggest an exchange. Instead, ask if you can buy a placement on their pages. Everyone likes money and if they don't have other banners or messages on their pages, earning some extra cash for placing your banners on their thank you page, subscription page, download page, and error pages can be a nice way to drive extra traffic to your site, or to your affiliate offer.
Taking advantage of these prime spots can be very effective.
Lastly, you can discover sites, forums and blogs within your targeted niche and buy advertising space on their site. Here you type into Google -- Blog: "keyword" (such as Blog: "Niche Building") -- this should give you a list of niche building blogs, which can easily be targeted to join NPC with a banner ad placement on them. Do the same for the term "Forums" - instead of "Blogs". Once you have your list, contact the blog or forum owner and ask if they are interested in selling you some banner space on their blog or forum.
In order for this to be effective, the blog and/or forum or web site should have decent traffic, and it should be on the same topic as the product or affiliate program you want to drive traffic to.
Be very sure you have accurate traffic numbers for these sites so you can decide if the advertising dollar spent will bring in enough sales and conversions to make the money spent worth your time.
Remember, don't be afraid to negotiate, or attempt to negotiate a better deal. If the amount being charged isn't worth the conversions you expect, then just walk away. It is better to find other sites that you can work with rather than pay too much and end up losing money!
Or structure the deal so you will try it at their price for a month, and see if the results are worth doing for a second month. If not, walk away or adjust the numbers and make them an offer to buy the space for less.
When going into negotiations here's a couple of pointers!
Negotiating is not screwing people out of money. A lot of people consider negotiations to be a negative experience. It shouldn't be, very often both parties will be happier with the deal than if no negotiation ever occurred.
Never offer the first offer! Usually the person who sets the first price ends up with a less powerful position in the negotiation process. Always ask them first what price they want to get, and then negotiate downward.
Do not meet someone half way! What I mean by this is let's say you are 20 dollars apart, and he comes down five dollars (expecting you to go up five dollars.) Don't go up the same amount... instead go up 3 dollars, he is now forced to come down further
The art of negotiating is a powerful one, if you're not comfortable making a deal, do yourself a favor and read up on how to negotiate - it will save you a ton of money over the long haul.
There's one last tidbit I'd like to share before wrapping up this tutorial.
One type of banner, which is increasingly effective, is an ad that looks like it is part of the site, or it looks like it a newspaper clipping type of advertisement. People trust newspaper looking ads because they trust newspapers!
If your ad mixes in seamlessly into the site it's on, it becomes part of the site, not just an ad, and the result can be a very high click-through rate. So design your ad for the site it's going on, if you know beforehand what site it is.
Ok now go out and create interesting banners, and start driving traffic!
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