» By: A.T.Rendon
Contrary to rumors of the death of Banner Ads, the banner ad remains one of the three most popular forms of advertising on the Internet. Actually, banner ads ARE the best form of online ads! Internet advertising expenditures declined overall in 2001, yet this decline was felt in all advertising sectors of the economy and the online decline was actually less that that found in other advertising sectors. According to the Internet Advertising Bureau's (IAB), http://www.iab.net/ the online Ad Formats break down as follows: "Percentage use of various ad formats remained fairly consistent in 2001. Formats tracked and their respective share of 2000 and 2001 full year revenue are: " 2000 2001 Banners 48% 36% Sponsorships 28% 26% Classifieds 7% 16% Ad revenues for 2002 are expected to surpass these figures with the majority of the ad revenues being funneled into Banner Ad campaigns. In a report compiled and released by Engage, Inc. http://www.engage.com/, they announced that their: "Study Reveals That Viewing of Online Ads Alone, Regardless of Click-Through, Leads To Sales". This report has put a new spin on the traditional methods behind banner ads because the lead finding determined that there is a strong pattern emerging of users who recently saw an online ad and converting that ad exposure into a sale. There is now a measurable and concrete value to an ad impression WITHOUT a click-thru. Advertisers will now need to pay attention to the 99% of people that don't click-thru on their ads but do take note of the message for future reference and visits. This fundamentally raises the monetary value of the Internet as an advertising medium, because this analysis demonstrates that just seeing a banner ad alone WILL create sales. With these new findings in mind, for a banner ad to work well , they will need to encompass these three "KEY" elements: 1. Highly Targeted. You must know who is in your market is in order to effectively target your ad campaigns. Your banners should be placed on web sites that will have visitors similar and precisely to what your market needs. 2. Performance Based. Internet advertising allows for interactivity. The consumer can take action, which is why banner ads that include the simple phrase, "Click Here" have a greater ratio of success. Any banner ad that does NOT have a call or request to action will be a waste of good advertising space and money. 3. Branding. The old banner ad model just called for the viewer to take action to click-thru to your web site. Now you need to convey your product "Brand" so that viewers will remember it when they find the need to visit you in the future. Web site domain names which convey this "Branding" can now be more effective than ever. The 468 x 60 banner remains far and away the most popular advertising form on the Internet. Current pricing ranges from $20 to $45 per thousand exposures. Even better are the FREE Banner Ad Exchanges that are available. Yes, believe it or not, there are still many FREE banner ad exchange programs that can bring you a steady flow of targeted traffic to your site. And, do not worry if you do not have a banner ad to use for exchange because there are still many good FREE banner creation sites available online. For a FREE list of "FREE Banner Ad Services!" via auto-responder, send a blank email message to: mailto:banners@emailexchange.org Make sure to take advantage of these FREE banner resources so you can have your ads working for you in this still vital method of ad exposure online. Use the above "KEY" ideas for your banner ad campaign and you will explode your sales online.