Marketing with Banner Ads

 

Your Banner Ads can be effective

Banner advertising began in 1994 when the first banner advertising appeared. At that time there were so few banners that click rates were as high as 25%. Today they are a less than 1%.

Banner advertising campaigns must be focused on what you are trying to accomplish. Do you want a direct response or to build a brand?

For a direct response priority, it should create an immediate call to action. One of the ways to measure this model is to look at the number of unique visitors before and after the campaign.

If you want to build brand awareness you need to take a different approach. Consider using traditional and online advertising methods in conjunction, so that you can build brand through repetition. Your banners need to be creative, as a result, they may not boost your click rate quickly. That is not an unforeseeable problem because building a brand takes a long time and it is harder to measure than a direct response campaign.

Banner Formats

There are two types of banner ads. The most popular form is the horizontal banner which is placed along the top or bottom of a web page. According to the Internet Advertising Bureau (www.iab.net) the standard banner size is 468 pixels wide and 60 pixels high. This takes up approximately 10% of a normal sized web page. There is enough room for text, graphics or animation, and some advertisers experiment with rich media banners.

Banner Creation

You must develop an advertising message and graphics compelling enough to get individuals to click on your banner and thereby visit your Website.The value of your banner can be improved by a number of factors, such as the use of color, animation, call to action (e.g. "click here") and perhaps most importantly, the "hook" -- that is what your banner tells viewers about your site. Given the attention span of most internet surfers, all of these factors must be considered to create a successful banner advertising campaign. The same rules apply when creating a free banner advertising program.

Targeting

Targeting where your banner is displayed is a very important decision. Not all services provide this option (about 1/3 of all banner exchanges). Targeting simply means choosing a category or "type" of web site to display your banner ad. If your site is about food, then you'll want to display your ad on related categories, like cooking, nutrition, restaurants, etc. You can experiment to see what works best. You'll have an interesting combination of banner design and targeting to consider when you stand back and say "What's in this for me?"

Free Banner Networks

These are entirely automated services that require only that you have 3 things:

1. A Website
2. Your banner.
3. An e-mail account.

 

Let's discuss how your banner ads campaign can produce results.