This is the second series in a miniseries called “Become a Banner Ad Expert Starting Today”. In the first series I covered What Is a Banner Ad, The Different Kinds of Banner Ads, What Are They Meant to do and How can You Be Sure It’s Working. If you are finding this part of the series and have not read series I, don’t blame me if you become lost.
So Let’s Get this Series started already, ready set go!
Who really makes a Banner Ad
If you have been using computers for even just a small amount of time and have even the slightest knowledge you could make one. If you wanted to make a banner ad and all you really need to do is simply combine a HTML tag for a link with a HTML tag for an image. Concerned about graphics? Don’t be. One simple program like Paint Shop Pro allows you to easily generate these banners. If you are thinking you would like to make a few basic banner ads for your website, this could be easily done in one afternoon. If you wanted to make one or two GIF banner ads, it would take about the same amount of time. If you really wanted to become a real fancy pants and build a rich media ad, I really would recommend you outsourcing this unless you have a great deal of programming experience.
With millions of them all over the internet and as we discussed in the previous series; they come in many different shapes and sizes. Many websites still use the basic banners because the really do work just fine. Unfortunately with so much competition for real estate and customers, many advertisers are hiring the big guns to build these banner ads. They are hiring high tech ad designers that can combine their programming skills and marketing experience to build beautiful ads. While there are many free lance designers, you can easily find designers that charge up to eight or nine hundred dollars per ad.
You can find some sites and web designers that offer building them for free. You may wonder why they would do this, for a few reasons actually. Some make money as you advertise on their site or they will trade you a banner to allow them to advertise on your site. Another reason is that they are soon getting ready to start a business and just want to get their work out on the market and what is better than good word of mouth. The following list below is a few free banner ad design sites:
• Atomic Arts
• Make Your Banner
• ABC Banners
What on one hand is a blessing; it could also be a nightmare. Based on the experience of the developer will have a huge impact on the quality of the ad, and developers vary greatly in their ability.
Wondering How You Can Advertise?
While there are really only three basic options, nothing could be much simpler, you could:
The Big Swap – You could make a deal with another website owner that you could put each others banners on the other person’s site.
Pay to Post – You could pay the website owner to advertise your banner ad for a fee
Outsource Once Again – There are a few companies that you could hire to post your banner ad on a few different sites like Double Click or FlyCast
While all three of these options have their own pros and con’s, you have to choose the one that best suits your own needs and desires. Some new marketers reading this may not have the extra funds to pay a bunch of fees to put their banner ads all over the internet. If this is the case I would suggest to start networking with other marketers and see if you both could come to a agreement that benefits both of you, to where you may exchange banners.
Is there Such an Animal
There is such an animal as a Banner Ad exchange program, and they are actually quite simple. You are normally asked to put a certain amount of banner ads on your site in exchange for them putting your ads on their site. Many times though, you have to put few more of their ads on your site then they put on theirs. This is just how it is and this is how they are able to run their business, remember you are normally the one approaching them for advertising options. A few advantages in getting involved in a banner ad exchange program would be it’s FREE, you get more links back to your site and the sites are normally ones you would not find on your own. A major disadvantage though is that you normally cannot dictate where on the site your banner ad(s) go on their site. The owner on the site wants the people landing on their site to also have a great experience so they make the decisions on what goes where based on their visitors. You have also got to take into consideration what product or service and banner ad that they are asking you to advertise on your site. Remember that whatever is on your site, visitors automatically believe you endorse it, how will it affect your business or your brand?
A few sites are:
• Link Buddies
• Smart Clicks
• Link Exchange
• Banner Swap
So if you are interested in banner ad exchange programs check out the above sites. Most are pretty easy to join and navigate but I would compare a few different ones and join the one that makes you feel good about the program and the ease of use and any support they may provide.
Well this concludes Series II of “Become a Banner Ad Expert Starting Today”. I hope you have obtained some more useful information and knowledge about banner ads and be watching for Series III that will be coming out soon.
