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Chapter 1:
An Introduction to Banner Ads
Banner advertising has come a long way since its humble beginnings centuries ago. Yes, that’s right… centuries ;)
Flip through any old newspaper or publication from the American colonial era and you’ll find rectangular banner ads pitching everything from beer to stockings, complete with a main image, carefully chosen brand colors, a motto or unique selling proposition, and even a call-to-action!
Of course, we’re not here to discuss old print banner ads for stylish powdered wigs or state-of-the-art wooden dentures (although it is useful to remember how long the ancestors of today’s digital banners have been around). In this guide we’re going to discuss modern digital banner ads in all their glory. So, for starters, what are they?
What are banner Ads?
Basically, banner advertisements are actionable, clickable, tappable images that invite web visitors to buy, learn about, or receive something in exchange for a click-through. These ads can appear anywhere and are typically seen within and around the content of various websites such as the header area on a forum page, the sidebar of a blog or news site, or even squeezed in among the paragraphs of a news article.
These banner ads come in all shapes and sizes (typically variations of the trusty old rectangle) and will either be static (.jpg, .png, or .gif) images or animated (.gif or Flash) banners. In more recent years, some businesses have been leveraging “Rich Media” banner ads that do all sorts of whacky stuff like send a car zooming across your screen in front of the article you were reading. And these ads aren’t going anywhere soon. Banner ads still make up around 34% of all online ad spending, second only to Search Engine Marketing (SEM).
So, since they’ve been around for hundreds of years and businesses are spending a ton on them every year, clearly they work. The question is, should you be using them in your business?
Chapter 2:
Why You Should Be Using Them
There are a host of reasons you would/should use banner ads in your business. We’ll cover several of them here:
What Are Your Goals?
The general goal of banner ads is to take a visitor, who clicks on one of them, through to one of your web properties. But beyond this you may have more specific goals. This could include bringing them directly to a sales or product page in hopes of them making a purchase. Or perhaps you’re simply doing a list building campaign and trying to gain leads or contact info by forwarding them to a landing page with a free offer or gift. Maybe your goal is to learn more about your market, in which case you might be sending them to a survey or questionnaire.
The final goal for click-throughs that we’ll mention is simply content marketing. Perhaps you’re simply trying to get your blog posts and articles in front of a lot of visitors in order to build a following, provide useful information, and perhaps even make a “soft pitch” within this content. Another sub-goal of content marketing worth mentioning is building a retargeting audience. There’s plenty of data justifying this approach. People who are retargeted via banner ads are 70% more likely to convert! So the idea here is to simply stick a retargeting pixel on your site when you send visitors to your content (check out our retargeting guide for more detailed info on this). You can then retarget them wherever they are on the web with more relevant banner ads now that they are familiar with you and this time you can aim for something more desirable like a sale or an opt-in.
Other Benefits
One very useful but less talked about benefit of banner advertising is brand awareness. You’ve seen this work a thousand times. Year ‘round you might see tv commercials for “Smiley Taxi Cabs”. It’s not like you’re sitting in your living room and suddenly bolt upright and call a cab at that moment. You don’t need one. But weeks or maybe months later when you’re leaving a birthday party after having a bit to drink and you need a cab, who are you going to google on your smartphone? Yup. Smiley Cab. The same goes for banner ads. Even when people don’t click on them, you’ll be subtly building top-of-mind awareness for your business and expanding the visual familiarity of your brand.
Another benefit of banner advertising is the ability to track, assess, and test effectiveness. There are several metrics that can be used to measure various levels of effectiveness. The most basic level of assessment is your Click-through Rate or CTR. You can gauge the financial success of your ads by comparing your CTR against your advertising expenses which gives you your cost per click or CPC. Beyond this you can actually track the results of click-throughs (sales or opt-ins) versus your ad expenses. This can give you your cost per lead and cost per sale. Using conversion pixels you can test for even more complex results such as how far visitors get into your funnel or which blog posts they read after landing on your site.
So that’s the “why” of banner advertising. Let’s talk about the “where”...
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- Category:Ebooks
- Tags:2018 Ebooks With Audio & Video Private Label Rights