Some Basics About Online Banner Ads by Herb Wetenkamp 

Banner ads, the dominant Web advertising units, now account for nearly 60 percent of the advertising done online, and despite the recent gloom-and-doom predictions by some industry gurus that banners are declining in use, they remain one of the best ways to market online -- if you keep in mind a few basic factors.   

Click-through is not the only benefit Industry statistics optimistically estimate that an average 5 percent of online users actually click through from banners to an advertiser's Web site, and an even lower percentage actually buy something online when they do click. These seemingly low click-through rates, and even lower click-and-buy rates, are actually pretty good, when you consider the numbers.

For example, using the industry average statistics, if 5 percent of 1,000 visitors actually click through from your banner ad, in theory you'd be capturing 50 interested potential customers. Fifty customers can buy a lot of products, sign several big service contracts or keep a consultant busy for a long time. It really depends; after all, on the design and salesmanship of your site as to how many you can convert into sales and how much data you can collect to drive future sales.

By focusing too much on click-throughs, though, you can easily miss one of the real opportunities of a banner ad: using it in a more traditional way as a mini display ad. With or without a click-through, you can use your banner to get exposure, help brand your product, build your company name identification and associate your name and logo with a specific product or service that can be recalled later when there is a compelling need to purchase. Don't ignore the click-through goal, but not all banner ads need to be designed to drive traffic to the site or encourage an immediate sale. Think of click-throughs as a bonus to the branding a banner can successfully do for you. Effective branding can translate to a lot of sales down the line.

And take heart. You can actually defy the industry's 5 percent click-through norm -- which includes in its tabulation large, general sites -- by placing your banners on sites that are more targeted to your potential demographic customer base, focusing your message on a particular product or service and, of course, coming up with a killer banner ad and Web site design. With a little effort, design talent and Web site research, your clickthroughs can increase dramatically.

Successful banners have quality of design It may seem like common sense, but it's worth stating again: Put as much effort as you can into the quality of your banner design. If you're artistically inclined and a talented sales copywriter, great. You can do it yourself. If not, you can hire someone to fill in the vacuum. It's worth the small investment to work with a dynamic and creative free agent artist or copywriter. (Check the online classifieds on the Home Business Magazine Web site for Internet graphics experts and copywriters.)

There are really no limits as to how the ad should look or what will work graphically. General goals should include being provocative, eye-catching, unique, unusual or even evoking a positive emotion such as trust, reliability, professionalism or comfort -- whatever grabs someone, causes them to remember you and maybe even encourages them to click-through. Try not to be annoying or too tricky, you don't want to offend anyone. Cool cleverness is OK -- even encouraged -- but you don't want to push it too far.

Unless your goal is stability and the confidence familiarity brings for your type of product or service, change the design as often as practical, depending on the exposure a particular banner is getting. Or rotate banners from site to site, which can also help you gauge effectiveness. The quality of the design can make all the difference in how effective a banner is, whatever your goals for your banner ad.

Be brief! And most importantly, be brief! You don't have a lot of space on the banner anyway, so whatever your message is, keep it simple and keep it brief. (A bonus of brevity is you can use larger fonts in the small space allotted.) The message needs to be one that can be grasped quickly. Quickly answer the question: Why are you there? Typical answers: You have a solution. Something valuable is free (a free report?). There's a special offer. You're running a contest. There's something new. You can save time. You can save money.

If you're going for click-throughs, assume that you can give your complete message, product/service overview, company facts, ordering information and all the details when they reach your Web site. It can't all be on the banner. But the message can and probably should stand alone, using your logo, to also build the brand awareness you're after. Quite a trick, to do both. The best minds in the business have been trying to perfect it. Another reason why you can often really use the help of a Web-savvy creative person.

Don't forget to consider the age-old but still highly current need for a call to action in your banner, whether you use specific words or the overall design of the banner to accomplish it.

Target your banners Target your banners and custom design them according to the specific user audiences and customer bases served by the Web sites you've identified. Work with Webmasters or online sales reps to get as complete a picture as possible of the user base for your targeted sites. Look at the user profiles online. Read and interact with the site yourself to get a feel for the users' areas of interest. Doing as thorough a research job as possible ahead of time can help you select sites and eliminate others that don't closely fit your targeted market. It would also help to record the profile of the customer you're after. With this statement you can compare it to the Web site's user profile and e-mail it out to the site's staff for comment, and use it in your correspondence and marketing.

Visitors at smaller Web sites with more demographically tight, and identified user audiences will be more inclined to notice and clickthrough on a banner ad that has a clear, focused message for that user audience. A banner ad targeted with the right message to the right audience is the perfect combination, even if that audience is small. While you don't want to ignore larger, more general sites, especially if your product or serve has a general market appeal, the response rate from a focused, clearly identified audience will be greater. And the more the banner is focused on the needs, motives and emotions of that targeted audience, the more you can increase its effectiveness.

Banner ads now account for nearly 60 percent of advertising done online and remain one of the best ways to market online. Key elements of an effective banner are quality of design; provocative, eye-catching, unique or unusual presentation; a simple and brief message; a call to action; and a design that's targeted with the right message to the right audience.

Other important elements to consider in a banner ad campaign are size and location on the Web page.

Size Some experts recommend that you shouldn't create a banner ad larger than 468 x 60 pixels. This is the standard size for most banner exchange programs in which you might want to participate. However, there are a variety of banner sizes in use; two of the other popular sizes are 125 x 125 pixels and 234 x 60 pixels.

Of course, standing out from the crowd is a desirable goal, so you can consider running an unusual size banner ad if it's available on a site. A jumbo banner, larger than the standard size, could work very effectively, if the graphics are hot and the message is clear and enticing. Home Business Magazine offers large banners on a limited basis.

Generally, the larger the size, the higher the click-through rate. However, an effectively designed smaller banner with a clever message, arresting graphics and call to action can compensate for its smaller size.

Some banner designers like Doug McDonald of babblebot.com suggest that smaller banners are more effective overall.

Make the banners small and fast-loading," says McDonald. "Statistics show higher click-throughs on smaller, faster banners, rather than larger ones with fancy rich media. It's critical to grab the eye as the page loads."

If you have an opportunity to run a banner on a targeted site, focusing on your prime demographic customer profile -- and you don't mind the one-time additional design expense and perhaps higher rate -- you might explore a larger banner, especially if you can dominate the site (or seem to).

The point is: if your banner is clever and effective, size doesn't matter too much. Make a size decision based on the look and demographics of the particular site. If you're trying to hit as many sites as possible, settle on two or three sizes that you can plug in anywhere, even though they might not be as effective as a specific banner customized for a particular site.

Location Location is also a factor that can enhance a banner's effectiveness in branding your company, product or service and achieving maximum click-throughs.

One study found that ads placed one-third of the way down on a page, as opposed to the top, generated higher click-through rates. Other studies have found that top-of-page banner ads are more effective than banners placed on the bottom. Two banners on a page can also increase click-throughs, another study found.

A general rule is that the home page is more effective than other pages -- unless the content is highly related or a deeper page features a section that is popular with users, like a directory, tool, classified section or e-mail.

This divergence of opinion further points out the need to carefully research the sites you're thinking about using; their graphic design, demographics, user habits, most popular sections and pages, and interactive features. These are all factors you need to look into to make a placement decision. And obviously, visitor statistics -- and which pages they visit -- are numbers that can really help you make placement decisions.

What seems to be one of the most sensible determinants of banner ad location is the editorial environment. An ad message or call to action close to related content on the page can significantly lead to greater click-through. Ideally, banners should be integrated into the site design and tone, so work as much as you can on placement, even customized design options that will be best received by that particular audience. A banner ad seriously out of context or not at all related to the content on the page can even be regarded as annoying and have a negative impact.

If a smaller banner ad is incorporated into an area of the site or page with obviously related content, it can more than compensate for its smaller size in the click-through rate. Small ads in less-than-ideal locations can be effective if their "creative" grabs attention and works toward brand building.

Testing Once you've designed your banner ad and determined its format and placement, you might want to consider testing it if you really want to gauge the effectiveness of the presentation, size and location.

"You can then make important marketing decisions based on facts, instead of theory and guesswork," says Marty Foley an Internet marketing expert from ProfitInfo.com. (See Foley.s article at Home Business in the Marketing & Sales channel.)

Testing a variety of banner designs in very small runs on different sites can give you a good indication of what sizes and placements are most effective. Narrow it down before testing your banners to designs created from researching sites: their layout, overall "attitude" and stats you can get from the Webmaster.

Measurement Once you've decided on which Web sites to place your banner ads, make sure they also offer a software program that measures the banner's effectiveness and allows you to track banner views and click-through rates (CTRs). Banner views are the number of times a banner is viewed; the CTR is the percentage of people that click-through to your Web page. A CTR of 5 percent indicates that, out of 1,000 views, 50 people have clicked on the ad.

You should be able to get daily, weekly and monthly CTRs from the Web sites your banner is running on. Most sites now offer these reports; otherwise, you'll have to invest in your own measurement software. You can use the CTRs to decide whether your banner design and message is working or needs to be improved and also to determine whether the Web site is delivering enough click-throughs to justify the cost.

Another helpful and necessary measurement you'll need to know is your cost per thousand (CPM), the dollar amount it costs you for each 1,000 banner views that are displayed. A $10 CPM means that it cost you $10 for every 1,000 times a banner is displayed. This number is helpful in deciding which Web sites are offering you the best value for your advertising dollar.

As you get more involved in using banner ads to promote your business, you'll probably want to look into several software programs that measure Conversion Rate, the number of sales resulting from click-throughs, to really measure the value of the sites on which you're advertising. When you get to this level of sophistication, you can search online for companies that offer conversion rate tracking software programs for a more detailed discussion.

Banner Exchanges One way to expose your banner ad on a large number of sites in an economical way is through banner exchanges, which are now plentiful on the Web. Banner exchanges allow you to display your banner on a rotating basis on other Web sites, in exchange for posting that Web site's rotating banner on your site.

Usually, you join the banner exchange online, get a password, and then post the banner exchange's HTML code on your Web pages where you want the banners to appear on your site. A typical formula is that for every two banners you display on your site, the banner exchange will display one of your banners on someone else's site. You usually don't receive monetary compensation, but you get exposure on the Internet based on the number of total banner views you contribute to the exchange. Check out the search engines for banner exchanges you can contact, or find them at AdResource.com in the Banner Exchange section.