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Use Banner Advertising
A Banner is the best way to advertise your services
on the Internet. Banners are graphic billboards that are highly visible
to all visitors to a page. If the viewer clicks on your Banner, they will
go directly to your web site or web page.
Banner advertising is used to promote sites, offers
and products available on the Internet. If you have been using the Internet
for more than 5 minutes, then there's a very good chance that you have
seen a banner. Some people refer to their advertisers as sponsors. Basically,
many online companies want to promote themselves and are willing to pay
you for it. The more places their name is seen, the better their chances
of making a sale and getting their name known to the millions of online
users.
As a site owner or potential site
owner, you have space which they would be interested in purchasing. They
do this by providing you with a line of HTML code to paste into your page.
From this code, a banner is displayed on your page when people visit it
online. In many cases you can choose from a range of banners and sizes.
It is from this that you get paid in a number of different ways depending
of the company involved.
Here are some Banner Advertising terms:
Banner:
The number one form of display
advertising on the Internet, it is an image displayed on the web page
being viewed and can be directly compared to display advertising in any
print medium. Banners come in various sizes but the standard is the 468
x 60 pixel. A full list of the industry standards can be found at the
Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB).
Impression:
One (1) impression occurs each time a banner is
displayed on a screen. Also known as a "View".
CPM:
Cost Per Thousand impressions:
This is the unit of measure by which most banners are sold, the important
distinction here is to understand that you are buying in bundles of 1000
impressions and not by the number of times the banner is clicked on.
Click (or Click through):
All banners act as a link (or "Hot
Link") to the web site of the advertisers product or service. This
means that anyone viewing the banner may choose to click the banner and
be taken to that web site. A "Click" occurs when a person does
indeed click a banner and visit the advertisers web site. This is usually
the primary objective of a banner and can be compared directly to a print,
radio or TV ad motivating someone enough to pick up the phone.
CTR:
Click Through Rate. The ratio of
"Impressions" to "Clicks" usually expressed as a percentage.
eg. 1% This means that for every 100 times a banner is displayed - one
person clicks on it. The industry average is under 1% and is approaching
0.5%. However, quality art with a good message on your banner, combined
with relevant context with the page that the banner is displayed on, can
raise this to 4% or greater. Exceptional results of over 10% can be achieved
with highly targeted campaigns. As with everything, doing it smarter gets
better results. The click through rate can be compared directly to the
amount of phone calls a print ad may generate vs. the distribution of
that print ad - the sale still needs to be closed in both cases.
CPC:
Cost Per Click. Some web sites
will sell banner space based on a payment method measured by the amount
of Clicks the banner receives. eg. A CPC of $0.50 means that every time
the banner is clicked the advertiser pays the web site fifty cents. Some
advertisers prefer to buy this way as they are only interested in achieving
click throughs - the web site prepared to sell banners in this way may
reserve the right to reject your product or the actual banner art - as
poor product or art means that neither party will get results but the
web site incurs the most risk (opportunity cost) compared to a CPM transaction,
where as the advertiser risks little.
General Rotation:
Banners on General Rotation are displayed at random
across any part of a web site to any site visitor. Also know as "run
of site"
Keyword Targeted:
Search Engines and other very high
traffic web sites usually offer Keyword targeting. This means that your
banner only appears when someone searches for a specific keyword or visits
a niche category of that site. There are other targeting methods besides
keyword such as browser platform, country of origin, ISP etc. Targeting
improves results but costs more.
Remember these points when choosing a banner program:
- Sign up, try the company for a month and see
if you like the results. You can quit at any time.
- Don't rely on payment arriving on the exact
date you expect it. It takes time for the checks to travel around the
globe.
- Read the information and query anything you
don't understand.
- Only do business with companies that will give
you their address, phone, email, fax, etc.
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