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Find a Business or PersonBanner Ads
-How Banner Ads WorkIf you've spent any time surfing the Internet, you've seen more than your fair share of banner ads. These small rectangular advertisements appear on all sorts of Web pages and vary considerably in appearance and subject matter, but they all share a basic function: if you click on them, your Internet browser will take you to the advertiser's Web site. But how do they work and why are they there? |
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Advertising with BannersAn advertiser that is interested in posting banner ads on other sites has three basic options. The advertiser can: * Arrange to display other Web sites' banner ads in exchange for them displaying its ad. * Pay publisher sites to post its banner. * |
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Banner Ad ObjectivesAdvertisers generally hope a banner ad will do one of two things. Ideally, a visitor to the publisher site, the Web site that posts the banner ad, will click on the banner ad and go to the advertiser's Web site. In this case the banner ad has brought the advertiser a visitor they would not have had otherwise. The banner ad is a real success if the visitor not only comes to the site but also buys something. Failing a click-through, advertisers hope that a publisher site visitor will see the banner ad and will somehow register it in their heads. This could mean the visitor consciously notes the content of a banner ad and decides to visit the advertiser's site at |
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Banner Exchange ProgramsBanner exchange programs offer a simple service. If you post a certain number of banner ads on your site, they will post your banner ad on another site. Usually, this isn't an even exchange; you have to post more than one banner ad for every one of your banner ads they post. This is how the exchange program makes a profit. Their arrangement yields them more banner ad spaces than actual banner ads they need to place for their members, so they can sell the extra banner ad spaces to paying advertisers. The exact ratio varies, but 2:1, posting two banner ads on your site for every one of yours posted on another site, is a typical arrangement. |
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Buying AdvertisingApproach Web Sites Yourself This is an involved, time-consuming way to place your banner ads, but it does offer some significant advantages. Mainly, placing all your banner ads yourself gives you a lot of control over how you advertise. You can fully investigate potential publisher sites to decide if their content matches yours and you can often work with the site to find the best location for your ad. This can be a relatively inexpensive way of advertising, if you target small Web sites that don't attract a lot of other advertisers. If you choose such sites carefully, your banner ad can be fairly effective. A small Web site that caters to a particular niche may not have very high traffic, but the people who do visit are all interested in some of the same things. If you sell rare PEZ machines, for example, a well-placed ad on a small toy collector site could bring you significant traffic. |
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Selling Advertising SpaceSelling banner advertising space is a great way to use your site's traffic to generate revenue, but it can be a bit tricky. The easiest option is to join a banner ad network, which will recruit advertisers, keep track of your earnings, and control banner ad placement on your site. In exchange for these services, the network will take a hefty percentage of the advertising money generated by your ad space. |
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The Future of Internet AdvertisingWeb experts have been predicting the end of traditional banner advertising for years, noting dwindling click-through rates. They have several different ideas of what will replace it as the dominant means of advertising. Pop-up ads, advertisements that appear in their own, small browser window, have been growing in popularity. Many Web users find them extremely annoying because you have to close each browser window, and if there are enough of them, they can overload some browsers' capacity. Some Internet research shows that text links are more effective than banner ads. This is probably because so many Web users are automatically aware of banner ads and so can easily ignore them while text links are less obvious -- they appear to be part of the site's content. |
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Types of Banner AdsLike print ads, banner ads come in a variety of shapes and sizes. The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) specifies eight different banner sizes, according to pixel dimensions. A pixel is the smallest unit of color used to make up images on a computer or television screen. The IAB's standard banner sizes are: |
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What is a Banner Ad?Over the past few years, most of us have heard about all the money being made on the Internet. This new medium of education and entertainment has revolutionized the economy and brought many people and many companies a great deal of success. But where is all this money coming from? There are a lot of ways Web sites make money, but one of the main sources of revenue is advertising. And one of the most popular forms of Internet advertising is the banner ad. |
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What Makes a Banner Ad Effective?There are no concrete rules about what makes a good banner ad. As in all advertising, an effective banner ad is the product of a number of different factors, and there is no sure way to predict how well any banner ad will do. A lot of successful banner ads are the result of extensive trial and error experimentation: A Web site puts a banner ad up and monitors the response it gets. If that doesn't work, the site tries something else. What makes a good advertisement is largely a mystery. |
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