Many people question whether or not Banner Advertising really works. The answer is a resounding YES! I have been in the business for many years and I have seen some awesome banner campaigns as well as some that were less than ideal. While banner advertising, whether using a Banner Exchange or actual Banner Advertising sites, can be a very inexpensive way to advertise, it still requires a significant amount of thought and preparation prior to beginning your campaign. Are you going to utilize a Pay Per Click ( PPC ) or a Pay Per Impression ( PPI ) method? I personally recommend the Pay Per Impression due to the significant difference in prices. In fact, if you utilize a Banner Exchange, you can even get your impressions for free!
Let me share with you some suggestions as to what will increase your chances of success with your banner campaign.
The first thing you should do is determine the main goal for your banner ad. Are you trying to collect e-mail subscribers or sign-ups, traffic, sales, etc. It is very important for you to determine the purpose of your ad prior to creating it. Once you set your goal, you can now measure the performance of your campaign.
Is your product looking for a Specific Target Market? If your product only appeals to a small quantity of the population, you need to make sure that the sites that will display your banner will be visited by that demographic. If your targets are teenagers, advertising on a retirement site will probably not get you the conversions you are looking for.
Make sure that your banner text is benefit-rich, simple and to the point. No one is going to read four sentences of text crammed into a 468×60 space. The ads that will perform the best are simple and easy to read. Also, do not overdo the Flash. Web surfers have developed banner blindness for these types of ads and will ignore, consciously or unconsciously, any flashing banner information. In this context, what would the purpose of making an ad flicker, blink and flash if your audience will almost certainly ignore it. Instead, make your banner ads look like valuable content.
One of the biggest mistakes a banner advertiser can make is trying to sell directly from their banner ad. It will typically take multiple exposures to convert a sale. Repeated banner impressions can have an impact, even if the web visitor does not click on it right away.
Create a benefit-rich landing page that offers something free related to your product or service or collects e-mail addresses for follow-up.
Make a special tracking URL for your landing page so you know exactly what your Click Thru Rate ( CTR ) is for your banner. If you have several banners or even several banner companies doing your campaigns, having specific landing pages for each will give you a good idea of how each provider is performing. This also allows you to tweak your campaigns or focus your advertising dollars to the provider that is sending you the customers.
So, how long will it take? That really depends on how long it takes someone to buy your product or service. As a rule of thumb, a high value product will take a longer time than a lower value product. One has to be patient with this type of advertising. If you are going to run an online display campaign, you will need to commit to it all the way, otherwise, you will end up wasting your time and money on what could have been a great opportunity to grow your business!
