Planning
your banner ad campaign
To keep you ahead of the competition!
Planning a successful banner advertising campaign takes a little chunk of work and more than a little time and effort. It can't be just thrown together. However if done correctly a banner campaign can deliver a good return-on-investment (ROI) in regards to branding and sales.
What you see below are some steps I suggest you consider when planning your next banner campaign:
Research where to purchase advertising space
Who's your prospect for product or service? I suggest you browse the major search engines, and any industry specific Web sites to see which are current and targeting your target audience. Use keyword tools such as overture.com (Keyword Selector Tool) to help identify the most popular keywords and their frequencies. After you've identified the key words or phrases find out which sites cater to your target audience.
Test, Enter keywords on major portals that match or compliment your banner campaign.
Evaluate, carefully looked to see if they appear to generate much traffic to their web site and if the banner fits well into the overall appearance of the web site.
General or specific sites
You need to figure out where its best to advertise, so ask yourself does a large portal site suture needs best or will a smaller industry specific site provide the best exposure to your particular Target Market. Keep in mind, portal sites have more people visiting their site, but industry-specific sites can have lower rates for purchasing banner space and may better reach your target audience. ( find out more about where to purchase banner ad space).
Contact your banner representative
Most, will have someone on staff who specializes in handling banner advertisements. so check and request a banner rate card from the Banner ad rep (list of prices and placement options). It's always best to have if possible a local rep but at the very least be sure you have a name and contact phone number and email address of someone you can reach during normal business hours.
Find out the banner submission guidelines
Almost all portals have very specific banner submission guidelines on what they will allow you to feature (in an attempt to protect a family friendly environment). So to cut down in confusion and mistakes ask these important questions:
- maximum file size (in K)
- allowable file formats (GIF, animated GIF, HTML form banners, javascript, Flash, Shockwave, applets, etc.)
- design restrictions
- banner dimensions (in pixels)
- deadlines for submission
- how many banners you may submit at one time for rotation
- how often banners are rotated
- what lead time they need before making your banner appear on their sites
- where will your banner be featured - on what page and where on the page
Check for special rates
Do they offer, CPM (cost per thousand impressions) or CTR (cost per click-through)?
Be sure to find out which one their offering and the rates and terms. Find out if you can get a better rate if you purchase banner space as part of a search function on the site (which can get you a closer targeted result), as compared to a general page? Cost savings is always on my mind, so see if you can buy banner space in bulk and what would be the terms and conditions? (closely compare) You might want to try to work out a better rate for purchasing a percentage of available impressions on a page, as opposed to an exclusive impression contract?
Get it in writing
Who every you decided to advertise with should provide you with a banner contract expressly stating:
-
when your banner will begin and end its run,
-
if it has an exclusive run (meaning that your banner will always be the sole one that appears on a page or part of the page) or a rotating run with other banners, and
- if your banner will be the only one on a page or sharing space with other banners.
It's your money, so make them accountable, make sure they will either provide a password-protected area on their site where you may access your statistics, or request that statistics be emailed to you regularly
Retrieve banner statistics
All sites that feature banners today have site statistics software to allow you to test your banner's effectiveness (and if they don't don't do business with them). Make sure in advance that the site will provide you with statistics of impression rates (how many people check out the page) and click-through rates on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.
If you have any specific questions about our banner design tips, or if you would like permission to republish this banner design tip on your web site or newsletter, please use our contact form or email us at Fgalusha@msn.com.
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