In this article we will learn about banner advertising, so first off, what is banner advertising? A web banner, or a banner ad, is a type of advertising on the internet. Basically, your ad will be displayed on a web page in form of a banner, with the main purpose to attract prospects to clicking on that banner. When your banner is clicked, they are automatically brought to your website, to be most effective, banner advertisements are usually placed on web pages that are known for having interesting and unique content.
Alright, getting into it, your ease of set up is going to be around the moderate level, so not to difficult, not to easy. Your looking at about less than three hours for setup time, minimal maintenance, and about a moderate level as far as speed of results. This is a paid form of advertising, your cost will vary between advertisers. There are two factors that generally are going to effect the cost of a banner advertisement, the website’s traffic level, and the placement of the banner within the website. Banner advertisements can be very effective, because you can pretty much pick and chose your targeted audience, and can also provide you with a nice flow of consistent traffic.
Here are some Basic First Action Steps:
1. You must get familiar with the Terminology
Impression- every time that your banner loads on a website, in other words is shown on a website, will be considered a impression.
Click- When someone clicks on your banner ad, it will be counted as a click.
Conversions- A conversion is when someone becomes a lead after going to your site and opting in.
CPM- CPM is Cost Per Thousand, this measures how much you will pay for your banner ad, you will find that sometimes you may be charged on a CPM basic level, all this means is you are being charged for impression, not for the click. You are going to want to chose sites that you pay between $2.00 to $2.50, that will be ideal, stay away from the sites that charge 4 to 5 CPM, some sites are even charging up to $15 CPM, you can see how a snake in the grass can bite you.
CPA- CPA is Cost Per Action, this will measure how much you will pay for your ad by the actions taken. A action will be either considered a click, or a impression, if a site is using a CPA basis, then you will pay for a actual click, that is ideal rather than paying for a impression.
CTR- Your CTR is your Click Through Rate, this is your ratio of impression to clicks, just to give you a example of that ratio, if you had 1000 impressions of your banner ad, and 10 people clicked on it, your ratio would be 1%.
Cost Per Conversion- Cost Per Conversion is going to be how much it cost you to get a lead, for a example, if you spent 30 dollars right, and you got 8 leads, than that would make your cost per conversion $3.75.
Publisher- Publishers are going to be the websites that allow your banner advertising.
Advertiser- You are the advertiser, just have to make sure you know.
2. You are going to want to Research Websites
Its is very important for you to know how websites are making their money so you can realize your opportunity through them. Most sites are out to either make a profit, or cover their websites hosting and maintenance fee. You need to examine these sites to see if they are either selling advertising space, selling their product or service, or a combination of both. You need to track your website research with a list to make it easier for you. To get a idea of websites you want to look at, start by looking at websites and blogs that you look at a lot, and see if they have any banner advertisements on them. If they do, you are going to want to add them to your research list, if they are not, you can scan over the website and see exactly how they are making money, if they are making another form of profit, you can add them to your list as well, or just move on.
Now you must choose your target market, this can be anything, whatever group and audience you are targeting will be the sites you will want to be advertising on. You can Google keywords of your target market and go to sites, not the sponsored websites, but the organic results, and see if they are offering banner advertising.
You can use a website called Alexa to find out a whole bunch about a website you are researching to help you with your website research, you must do your research like anything else, you do not want to just go out there and post a banner ad on the first site you land on with out making sure the site is legit, the cost is ideal, etc, do not always worry about being the fast fox, the slow turtle usually always wins in most cases, so compile your research, and then take action. Remember to, you are looking for sites with quality content, unique, does it provide value to readers. Also you want to make sure that the site you chose will attract viewers you want, and that your ad is similar to their reason for being on the site, this way your results will be maximized.
3. Now lets talk about placing your Banner Advertisement
Ok, this is a valuable key to remember, when your looking at advertising rates, or what the publisher is charging for advertising space, do not be quick to pay the published rate like most people will do. You can actually call the website owner, webmaster, or the advertising manager, and negotiate the price, most websites will reduce their price by 40 to 50% of the published rate, that is most significant, why pay more if you do not have to?
You must understand placement of your ad, very important, always be above the fold. What that means is, the top portion of the website that you see in your browser, always do this for optimal performance, a impression will still be counted even if you advertised below the fold and they never scrolled down and saw it, so choose wisely but I always recommend above the fold.
I also would advise to start small in your budget when doing banner advertising, you know if you do Google pay per click, you should know that your budget needs to be high to get the best results, this is different. You will probably be pressured into some long term deal at a special rate, just tell the website owner that you are testing out this banner, if you start to see good results, than you will consider it further, that will get you out of any selling they will try to do.
You will get all your links, artwork, anything you need from the website, to get your banner setup and running properly.
4. Track your Results
I will not say much about this, tracking your results is always best for determining cost per leads, and really making sure that you are getting the best return on investment.
One more tip before I end this article, if you can get your ad to blend in really well with a site your advertising on, and the site is a high volume traffic site, you feel you are going to get some really good results with it, then try to blend it in as best as possible. This can be really effective, people may even think your banner is part of the site.
Well that is what you need to get out there and start leveraging banner advertising, to bring more traffic to your site, and produce more leads. Do your research, just don’t jump into the race, be positive you have found a good spot, the right targeted traffic, and you are paying a ideal price.
Charles K Walker is currently serving in the United States Co