Banner Advertising: Great Online Marketing Strategy

Have you ever wondered, what is banner advertising? Most of you would have noticed these ads in many website without realizing that these are banner advertisements themselves. The shopping trends today are very different from those of a decade ago. People are heavily dependent on online services to find suitable products for their needs. While websites are struggling with the heavy competition, the smarter business owners would implement excellent promotional tactics to achieve the desired sales and income. Banner ads are one such online marketing strategy which promise quality leads for better sales generation.

If you are still wondering what is banner advertising, then they can be described as the small rectangular ads which pop up on the web pages. Most of the high traffic websites rely on these for promotion. Clicking on these graphic images will take you directly to the advertiser's site. Many wonder why these ads are considered to be among the best marketing techniques used by companies today. Seeing that thousands of websites are making use of these, it is undeniable that they are highly beneficial. With its appearance resembling the traditional banners, they have the ability to grab the attention of customers online. If you have products and services to offer, place the banner advertisements on websites which are potential sources of leads. Analyze the demographics of your prospective customers and find the websites which provide products and services to the people whom you are targeting. Place ads on such website to provide maximum visibility to your advertisements.

Most of the promotional tactics in your marketing campaigns would be time consuming and expensive. People turning to the internet to find answers for the questions such as what is banner advertising and its benefits would benefit from its economy as well. This includes a simple HTML code which provides backlinks to your website. The most common banners are the ones placed right at the top of the webpage. If you own a high traffic website, you can earn considerable income by placing banner ads of other service providers. One of the popular practices is to place smaller banners in multiple columns on the side of your webpage. As it consumes more space, this is restricted to only certain types of websites.

The online resources provide apt answers to these questions such as what is banner advertising and how is it beneficial to the advertisers and publishers. Unlike other promotional methods, wherein the financial benefits are limited to the publishers, this allows advertisers certain advantages. There are no CPM or CFC charges on these, so that you can save great deal of money. Custom made banner advertisements can help you with ample revenue generation. Creating such banners is not a steep task as you can obtain online tools to aid you in the process. The static banners are still just as popular as the impressive dynamic rotating banner ads. Both, advertisers and publishers, would witness an increase in the revenue with the help of these ads. It is an inevitable component of your marketing campaign.

Food Marketing: How to Make the Most of It   General Points of Banner Advertising   

Why All of the Top Gurus Have Banner Advertisements

Looking for traffic?

Great! Banners are a great place to start. The reason the top gurus have Banner Advertisement, is because they understand how beneficial it can be to their campaign. When placing banners, you don't have to worry about getting top rankings with your own websites on search engines. Leverage other websites that already have top spots on search engines to place your ads and take advantage of their traffic.

Make sure you are only placing banners on relative websites that match the keywords that you are advertising for. Driving traffic with banners can be very expensive, if done incorrectly. For example: Let's say you place a banner for a specific exercise program on a website about hot wheels. Not only are you targeting the wrong audience, but if you are paying per click and people are randomly click on you banner, this will cost you a lot of money.

Put yourself in the searchers shoes, when looking for keywords. If you were looking for the product being advertised, what would you type in to reach that product? Do some searches and find the websites that are popping up on the top of the search engines for those particular keywords. Click on those websites and find a way to contact the owner or representative to see what options they have for advertisement. Since you have located a high ranked website with a keyword relative to your advertisement, you can now generate high quality traffic to your website for just the cost that the site owner charges for your banner.

Also make sure your banner ad is directly related to your website. Once the traffic reaches your website, they are going to expect to see information based on what you previously advertised. If you break their trust right off the bat, by not having relative information to your ad then they will leave immediately and yet again, you wasted money on clicks that did not convert!

Banner advertisement can be cheap or expensive. Generally the more traffic a website gets, the more it will cost to place your advertisement on that website. You get what is pay for most of the time. Don't forget the idea here is to make a profit. If there is no profit to be made at the cost of the banner, then don't place the ad.

Overall the reason why the top gurus are placing banner ads, is they are a very successful way of advertising, given you know what you are doing. If you aren't familiar with keywords, search queries and banner ads, then you shouldn't start with banner advertising in internet marketing. You will want to start with something like writing small ads, or practicing with SEO so you can figure out what keywords work better before blowing money.

Food Marketing: How to Make the Most of It   General Points of Banner Advertising   

Banner Ads Are a Profitable Venture

Online marketing is inescapable on the internet. Every site you visit has one advert or two displayed. And why not? Digital marketing is the cheapest and most useful tool of assuring a business receives customers and visibility on the internet.

You can make money featuring banner ads but first you must have a certain number of visitors. One way of achieving a high visitor count is by ensuring your web content is search engine optimized (SEO). An effective SEO raises the placement of the site on the search engine results page, allowing visitors to find it easily and view the banner ads.

Banner advertisements are of different shapes, sizes and colors; they have been carefully designed with the intention to attract potential customers. The different types of banner ads are pop-ups, pop under windows and text ads. The text ads are key-word related and only show up when someone types the requisite keyword into the search engine. These ads function on Pay Per Click (PPC) which means that the advertiser has to pay the host website whenever someone clicks on the link. The paid for text links are sometimes highlighted as "sponsored links" and are placed in strategic places on the web page. Advertisers have to bid or pay heavily for these kind of positions, but they say it is worth for the traffic it brings. As you can see, exhibiting banner ads on your website is very profitable.

If you decided to enter banner advertising, the following are a few tips to help you get started: 

Banners typically works well if they are displayed on a website with similar and relevant content to the service or product being advertised. The subject of your content should be the deciding factor in choosing the banner advertiser. It is good to create a business plan wherein you state the focus of your website, its objective and the industry your website is about. Determine the best position for the banner advert. You don't want to clutter your website or place too many ads in one section. Banner ads generally get more clicks if they are placed in the area the visitor perceives first without scrolling, called the fold. Other spots include within the header, left side, right side and between content paragraphs. It is not advisable to exhibit multiple banners on your site. It will overwhelm the viewer and detract from the actual content. Visitors will be turned off by the excessive advertisements and so leave without clicking on any one. Another factor is the page loading. Visitors are especially annoyed if the page takes a long time loading because of the number of advertisements that have to be loaded onto the page. Therefore, if you decide to have many advertisements on your landing page, then select static banners. Visitors will not wait for advertisements to load; they will simply read the content and leave.

As a resourceful web owner, the successful utilization of banners lies in your hands.

Food Marketing: How to Make the Most of It   General Points of Banner Advertising   

4 Proven Tips for Doubling Your Banner Click-Thru Rates

There are a few hurdles to hop over before you get successful click through ratios from banner advertising. This article has provided 4 tips and techniques which it applied should be able to increase your banner click through rate substantially.

Tip 1:

Host your banners on high traffic sites. Think of it as choosing a place to put your shop front. Depending on the niche you are in, the high street or a shopping centre would be most ideal for locating your shop. In the same way, placing your banners on high traffic sites will ensure more people see them, and ultimately increasing the chances of a click-through.

First off, ensure you use proper copy. Considering that you don't have much space in a banner, each word you use is critically important. Use words like Free, Win, and Money, to get people's attention.

Tip 2

Make sure your banners attract attention. If your banner is generic, looking just like any other banner, chances are nobody will recognize it. Your need to make your banner standout well enough to grab the attention of your audience.

This can be achieved by using quality graphics. Use graphics that instantly attract your prospect's attention. Graphics like fifty or hundred dollar bills, coins, stop signs, and error messages all attract people's attention.

Depending on your target market, you can attract different prospects with different graphics. If you're targeting men, use photos of sexy women, cars, aircraft, motorcycles, or sports photos.

Women are attracted to sexy, muscular men, cosmetics, beauty products, and romance.

Tip 3

Now that you've got your prospect's attention, you have to make them so excited about what your banner is offering that they just can't help themselves, they have to click. One way to increase chances of getting the banner clicked is by using animated banners. A simple ways to get people to click on a banner is to challenge them to click on a moving object. As soon as they click on the banner, even if they miss the moving object completely, they are whisked to your site.

Tip 4

Every banner you create should have your URL (website address) clearly displayed on the banner. If, for some reason, the banner doesn't work, your prospect still has a way to find you. It's not often someone will take the time to copy a URL off a banner and enter it into their browser, but there's no point in losing a sale because you didn't do it.

And remember, size matters; odd sizes and shapes get more click through than the regular 480 X 60. If you can use vertical banners instead of horizontal, you'll see an increase in your click through ratios.

With these tips and techniques, you should be able to increase your banner click through substantially. It goes without saying that will need a way to harness all the traffic you get from your banner advertising, capturing the leads to market to at a later date.

Food Marketing: How to Make the Most of It   General Points of Banner Advertising   

The Importance of Logo Design Services

Logo design plays a vital role in branding and creating an visual identity for your company. Having a logo for your business is an effective and fast way to reach your potential customers. Perhaps logo design is the best way to create a brand image for your business. Logo design gives an idea about the vision of your company as well as the products and services offered by you. It can also help in getting new opportunities in the business field. In today's competitive era, where every company wants to stay ahead of others, you must have a visually appealing and engaging logo, to make sure that your business flourishes. Logo design services can help in creating the right logo for your company after knowing the nature of your business and analyzing your customers and competitors.

Owing to its flexible nature, it is easy to place a logo on several mediums like website, envelopes, business cards, banners and brochures. A logo is much more than just a symbol as it represents your company and helps in establishing its presence in the competitive market. A logo must accurately represent your company. To enhance your business branding, you need have a unique logo design. A logo plays an important role in marketing and branding the first impression of your businesses in the consumer's mind.

Designers in a logo making service can help you in creating an appropriate logo based on your business. Their logo developers will create a logo based on your company's vision, objectives and target customers. A logo should be unique and simple, should not be similar to the logo of any other company. In case your logo reminds customers of any other established company, then they will get confused and lose interest in your company.

Most of the logo designing services are professional in their approach. They offer custom designed as per the client's specific requirements. It is necessary to discuss your requirements in detail with them. Once their designers get an idea about your business requirements and what you are really looking for they will try their best to create the right logo for you.

Even low budget logo design services are available in the market. By doing some research you can get the one that suits you. Don't forget to check their website and gallery. An effective logo will help in making your services and products popular among the potential customers.

Food Marketing: How to Make the Most of It   General Points of Banner Advertising   

Using Online Banner Ads to Market Your Business

Banner marketing is designing and placing ads on different websites that are selling products complementary to your own, which the ads are then embedded into your desired site. These ads were one of the first types of advertising used on the web; these ads were traditionally 468x60 pixels. This size made the ad easy to place on the majority of websites at the time. However, today's banner ads have many more sizes than in the past; much of this is due to technology allowing more sophisticated ads to be developed.

Banner ads are not a favorite of anyone in general and thus they have lost much of their gusto at the opening of the 21st century; in which PPC ads took over. Advertisers did not like banner ads because they are viewed as annoying by consumers and because they have a very low click-through-rate. Consumers do not like them because they can be annoying and poorly designed. Web hosts do not like them because they earn them very little economical reward for hosting. At one time, these ads were king, but today, they are seen as leftovers from a bygone era.

It should be noted that everyone's "favorite" pop-up ads are considered banner ads. As you know, everyone hates pop-ups and it would seem that at least half the planet spent millions on pop-up blockers. Surely, you have noticed that today they are rarely if ever seen.

When you are just starting out with a new website or new to the paid traffic marketing model, banner ads are not a bad way to go. The rates for these have continuously gone down over the years and thus, a great opportunity for a website owner with a limited budget and wanting to attempt several avenues of potential revenue.

Now banner ads may not make you rich but the truth is much of the success associate with banner ads have to do with design. In the past, these ads have been clunky, unattractive, and overwhelming to the eye of the viewer. Nevertheless, today, after tons of research has been done; one can design ads that are much more complementary to the host's site, easier on the eyes of the viewer, and a better representation of your company and offerings.

Of course, design is not the only aspect to be concerned about, it is equally important to be concerned with ad placement. You do not want to have your ads in front of an audience that is not looking for products not related to yours. This would be a wasted audience that is not targeted at all, let alone a waste of funds. Trust combining great design, great placement, and low costs can lead your company into an excellent return rate on investment.

Your goal should always be to spend less and less on advertising efforts over time. Note, once you have gained a good footing on the search engine result page, along with several free ways to advertise, your advertisement spending will become less and less while or organic search engine result page placement increases.

Once you have placed your banners in different websites, it is important that you also keep track of their performance. Check which of the banners are performing well and learn from the ones that are not doing so well.

Banner Ad Design

As stated earlier, banner ads need to be designed in a manner that is appealing and non-intrusive. That said; they need to be creative but not gaudy and attention grabbing but not overly flashy to make potential customers curious enough to click it. This is not the only aspect in design to be concerned about; it is equally important to give attention to fonts and message. If the font is difficult to read or overwhelming people will not want to bother with reading your ads. Keep your message short and simple so the effort spent by potential purchasers is understood quickly and thoroughly.

Remember, to gain a high click through rate that leads to higher conversions through the use of banner ads remember the success of your ad relies on the following four factors: relevance, size, design, and positioning. Relevance as discussed above simply means that your ad appears on a page that has something in common what you are offering. Size, avoid making your ad as large as you can; keep the ad reasonable to the size of a computer screen. Do not make it two small either; you do want people to notice it, use common sense and attractiveness as a guide. Keep your design elements clean and simple; do not design the ads to be flashy. Position the ad to where it will be most attractive on the page according to its size. If your ad is on the larger size, aim for the ad to be displayed across the top of the page or down the right side. If it is a smaller ad, aim for the right-hand side on the upper half of the page.

Food Marketing: How to Make the Most of It   General Points of Banner Advertising   

Digital Menu Boards - Offers of a Reliable Company

If you are going to search the Internet, you'll find a lot of companies that are claiming to provide you with the service that you need for digital menu boards. But just like other industries, there are those that are claiming something that they cannot provide. I have written this article in order to help you choose the best digital menu boards for your business. Below are some of the offers that a reliable company should have:

Hassle Free Management

Most companies today would require you to have your own server, software, and licenses just to be able to use their system. However, if you are looking for something that will really be beneficial for your business, you need to look for something that can help you manage your digital menu boards online. You are going to use an advanced form of advertising, so you need to make sure that you are going with a top-notch company that will allow you to manage your content online. All you have to do is to login to your account, and you will be able to configure your digital menu boards without having problems.

Versatile Board Performance

There are different types of digital menu boards that can be used for your business, but there are companies that will "force" you to use the one that they have. If you want to get the most out of dynamic advertising, you need to make sure that the company can provide you with whatever your business needs. Choose the one that will adjust to your needs, and not the one who will require you to adjust to what they have.

Monthly Service Fee

Another reason why you are going to use digital menu boards is because you want to save more in the long run. The problem with most companies is that they will be requiring you to pay at least a year in advance before you can use their system. Some would require you to pay 6 months in advantage, which is also not good. If you want to get the most out of your digital menu boards, it would be better if you are going to look for a company that can provide you with monthly service fees. This will allow you to be more flexible with your budget.

These are three of the most important things that you need to check when looking for a company that will help you with your digital menu boards. Keep in mind that you will be using this system for your business, so you always need to make sure that you will only be looking for the best company. Always consider these options, and I can assure you that you will never go wrong with your choice.

Food Marketing: How to Make the Most of It   General Points of Banner Advertising   

Travel Banner Ads Tips

There is power in travel banner ads and the following tips will help you to harness that power and catapult your business to new heights. There are a lot of methods of developing buzz and hype online especially when you are encouraging customers to try new travel packages. Exploring banner ads and adding them to your internet marketing campaign is a fantastic way to spread details about your hotel, restaurant, and other travel products and services. Posting banner advertising is amid the most distinctive and is believed to be one of the most effective methods in marketing on the web. You see, banner advertising makes your offer highly visible especially when your ads are placed on high traffic web sites that are related to your niche.

Banner ads heighten the interest in your travel package or your website. This is one of the many reasons why those in the travel industry are very conscious about creating targeted campaigns for their travel products. The more targeted traffic your travel site receives, the better your conversion rate. And the good news is that the average cost of travel banner ads is not as expensive when compared to other traditional paid marketing methods like pay per click. One of the most effective ways to capitalize on travel banner ads is to exchange banners between one or more websites. With a banner exchange you are not spending any money on advertising. However, be mindful of the quality and volume of traffic the site you are exchanging banners with receives.

An important travel banner ad tip is to place the banner on a web page where there is relevant content. For example, placing your travel banner ad on a site about dog training may not be the most effective use of your advertising dollars. Do whatever it takes to send your visitors to a well laid out landing page. Make sure that once visitors click your banner, they are redirected to a page specific to their needs. Put your banner in a strategic location to encourage more clicks. This may require some testing on your part to see what your target audience is more attracted to. Your travel banner should refer to one offer and be focused on one particular area.

Coordinate your travel banner ad with the color of the website. If you are exchanging banners, take a closer look at the site you are going to exchange with in order to create a banner that will easily integrate with their color scheme. Selecting the right colors can make all the difference in the world, so spend some time creating a dynamic banner for each web page it will be displayed on. With all this mind, understand that the travel industry is a trillion dollar industry. The competition is strong and your travel banner ads must set you apart from your competition. Calculate how much you want to spend on your travel banner and then have one designed that fits your offer perfectly. Go to an expert who sets the standard and will work as hard as you do to attract clicks to your travel banner ad.

Food Marketing: How to Make the Most of It   General Points of Banner Advertising   

AdSense Optimization for Online Classifieds

We've all read the generic Google AdSense optimization articles. They claim you can double or triple your eCPM's (aka. RPM's or revenue per thousand impressions) if you follow their special tricks. Problem is, these "special tricks" are basic changes that are more relevant to people with tiny blogs. AdSense optimization is a different beast depending on the type of site and how large it is. Things are a lot different when you're looking at an online classified with millions of unique users per month rather than a few thousand. These dramatic RPM increases are a lot harder to come by and if actualized, result in increases of millions rather than dollars. This article will focus on how to optimize Google AdSense on a high traffic online classified site.

Below is a step-by-step process of how to maximize your AdSense revenues on your free classified:

1. Implement DoubleClick for Publishers

We'll start off with the first and most fundamental step. Serve Google AdSense with DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP). If you decide to go for DoubleClick for Publishers Small Business (DFP SB), you can use it for free. You can use DFP SB if you have less than 90 MM non-AdSense impressions. If this is the case for you, you're golden. DFP SB doesn't have all the fancy features as DFP Premium, but it works as a great ad serving solution that continues to improve. You can't really go wrong when you invest in Google technology.

After implementing DFP for our clients, we have seen immediate increases in AdSense RPM's. DFP simply serves AdSense in a much more optimal fashion. This alone makes it worth implementing DFP. DFP also allows publishers to splice in direct sales ads and other ad networks. You'll have many more features available to you to optimize AdSense further and easier. Bottom line, DFP allows you to complete the next five steps of AdSense optimization for online classifieds.

You're thinking, "DFP may be free for me but it's going to cost time and programmer resources to implement it." True! However, there are simple options to implement DFP. If you decide to not segregate your ad inventory and start with a run of network setup, you could implement DFP in hours. We recommend this from the start and then phasing into a more sophisticated setup as you gain RPM traction. Therefore, you don't commit to many resources off the top and you can invest more once you see the results.

2. Find the Optimal Text Ad Creative Combination

The second step is to find the best text ad creative combination that fits your site. These ad creatives include text size, text font, border colour, background colour and title, description & URL colour. You can find the optimal text ad creative combination the simple way or the more sophisticated way.

The simple way involves changing the creatives and recording the RPM changes in a procedural fashion. You would essentially try a new combination every 24 hours. When recording the results you'll record the exact combination as well as the day of the week and the day of the month. Keep in mind what days of the week tend to perform best and be mindful that RPM's tend to be stronger at the end of months and end of quarters. There's no way you'll be able to try every single combination possible with this process. However, you can make educated guesses by only choosing colours that are on your webpage. The goal is always to integrate the ads into your classified as much as possible.

You can do this the more sophisticated way using multivariate testing with your AdSense creatives. We would recommend using Google Website Optimizer in this case. You would essentially setup up multiple variations of your website with the different combination's and let Google Website Optimizer find the best performing AdSense creative according to CTR.

Whichever one you choose, we highly recommend you take this second step. By finding the most integrated creative combination, you could see quick boosts of up to 50%.

3. Place Ads in Optimal Spots

Similar to the first step, you have a choice of doing this the simple way or the sophisticated way. However, it is very important that you do not combine the testing of step 2 and 3. Otherwise, you'll get mixed results that won't be genuine.

You can move the ads around using educated guesses every month to test different ad spots and sizes. The sophisticated way involves using multivariate testing for your ad placement. This would test for the optimal combination of ad size, and ad placement. The implementation of this sophisticated test isn't easy and would require a decent amount of programmer resources. Again, we would recommend Google Website Optimizer for such a test. Although, this method does suck up the most resources, the ROI would be higher for this method of testing.

4. Optimize the Browsing Pages with Google Custom Ads

If you are a Google Preferred Publisher you are able to use the customizable Google javascript ads. This allows publishers to customize the ads to a higher degree. The benefit of this is you are able to integrate your ads even more, which is very useful for online classifieds.

Best practices have online classifieds implementing the Google Custom Ads in the internal search and the browsing pages of the classified. These ads are integrated into the top and bottom of the ad lists. It is recommended to implement the ads using the "AdSense for Search" code rather than "AdSense for Content". We recommend to place 3 ads at the top of the ads and 3 ads at the bottom just above the 'previous' and 'next' buttons. To further integrate the ads, you should add a default no image attached photo with the ads. Remember, the main goal is to make the Google AdSense ads look like the organic ads.

Kijiji just nails it with these Google Custom Ads. They are as integrated as they can get. The ads are the same size, colour, font style & size with the no image attached photo beside each one. This is the level of integration you should strive for your online classified.

5. Open Google Ads up to All Potential Ad Types

You should always opt into all different ad types. This opens you up to much more advertisers which will boost your RPM. The reason why Google AdSense performs so well is its optimization engine. It chooses the highest paying ad type and advertiser possible. Google AdSense's predictive algorithms are the tightest in the industry. If you opt out of certain ad types then you're missing out on advertisers that could outbid your current inventory. It's important you give access to Google to do what they do best: optimize.

In addition to opting into all ad types, you must detail and structure your ad "placement" structure. Placement ad types are the advertisers on Google AdWords that pick your site out specifically out of a huge list of websites to advertise on.

It's the closest to direct advertising as AdSense gets. These ads generally pay more than contextual ads. Therefore, you'll want to open your entire ad inventory to these types of ads. You'll also want to put the important details for each ad spot and segregate your inventory according to category. The more you segregate, the more advertisers can target within your site. You really have to put yourself in their shoes and ask, "What would they want?" We recommend getting an AdWords account and checking the placement section to see what your inventory looks like from the AdWords advertiser perspective. Does it make sense? How does it compare to the other placement sites? How can you make it stick out?

Detailing your ad inventory on Google Ad Planner is important too. Many large ad agencies use Google Ad Planner for media buying. You could get some very large placement buys just from being transparent on Google Ad Planner. In fact, after detailing ad inventories on Google Ad Planner we have seen consistent growth in placement ad impressions and RPM. Make sure to be as detailed as possible about your site description and ad descriptions. Make sure to opt into the traffic stats pulled from Google Analytics. Google Ad Planner generally under predicts traffic without the Google Analytics opt-in. Remember, advertisers are more interested in publishers with more traffic. Finally, make sure to choose relevant categories that yield high CPC's. Don't choose pharmaceuticals when you run a puppy website. Choose the most relevant category that yields the highest average CPC's.

6. Optimize Google Ads by Serving Other Ad Networks

Like we said from the start, the best way to optimize AdSense is with DFP. DFP was made for ad management with the competitive advantage of AdSense optimization. You are able to optimize AdSense much easier through DFP to a point that no ad management tool could even come close to matching.

In addition to internal AdSense optimization, DFP allows online classifieds to splice in other ad networks. This will show the single largest increase of AdSense RPM's. Every time you add a new ad network you are squeezing the AdSense impressions. This is the same effect as opting into every ad type that AdSense has to offer. You are opening your online classified up to more advertisers. The more advertisers you have competing for the same impressions, the higher your RPM's will be. It is important to drive the internal competition of your ad inventory as high as possible.

As you can see the traffic is the supply. Let's assume traffic stays the same so we can isolate the increase in advertisers. When you add new ad networks to your inventory, you increase the amount of advertisers competing for your ad space.

This represents an increase in demand for you ad space. When demand increases and supply is restricted (Therefore and upwards shift for supply), the revenue grows. Since revenue is your X axis and unsold ad impressions are your Y axis, the equilibrium is the RPM. Therefore, the more you grow demand the higher the RPM goes up. This is why opening your ad inventory to so many more ad networks yields such higher RPM's. This means dramatic increases in ad revenue at the same traffic level.

In fact, you will see higher AdSense revenues with less ad impressions. Whaaat!? You bet, the RPM's will grow so much from all the above six steps, the increased variety and the growth in internal competition that you'll actually earn more from less. Check out a detailed explanation of this phenomenon here.

It would be a mistake to miss out on the opportunity to dramatically boost your ad revenues without traffic increases and only serve AdSense instead. There is a lot more money to be made for you AdSense buffs.

Food Marketing: How to Make the Most of It   General Points of Banner Advertising   

CPM Advertising - Advice for the Savvy Business Owner When Purchasing

When purchasing online advertising, one of the terms you will hear most frequently in the industry is CPM, also known as "Cost Per Mil" or "Cost per Thousand" advertising. What does this mean? It means that you are paying a certain rate for a 1000 impressions, or the number of times an internet user (in the case of online advertising) sees your ad.

Example -- A publisher (the site you are going to advertise on) might ask that you pay an $8 CPM, meaning that you are going to pay $8 for every 1000 times your ad is served to a user. So if you buy 1,000,000 impressions at an $8 CPM, you are paying $8,000. The easy way to calculate this is to cut the last 3 zeroes, assuming the impression number is 1,000 or more impressions, and multiply that times the price. So, 1,000,000/1000 = 1,000 X $8 = $8,000.

You could also do this in reverse -- $8,000 worth of inventory at a $2 CPM is 8,000/2 = 4,000 X 1,000 = 4,000,000 impressions. This calculation is helpful in the case where you are not getting a fixed rate per thousand impressions, in the case where you are figuring out an effective CPM, or effective Cost-per-thousand. Sometimes you might pay a flat rate for an entire day's worth of impressions on a site, and the terms are that you are going to get impressions in an expected range, for example, 1,000,000 to 2,000,000 impressions, but nothing exact. So if you pay $4000 for 1,500,000 impressions, your effective CPM is $4,000/(1,500,000 X 0.001), or a $2.67 CPM.

Lots of factors determine price in the case of CPM -- the site audience or traffic to your ad, for instance, can determine whether the ad is even applicable to them, or is misplaced (e.g. a tampon ad on a Men's Issues site). Additionally, there is a term from the print advertising industry that crossed over to online advertising called "Above the fold," -- in the newspaper industry, it referred to the ads that would be visible when a newspaper was folded horizontally, and these ads were worth more. In online advertising, this refers to the part of the screen that is immediately visible on most standard screen resolutions when the page immediately loads. The higher the ad, the more valuable it is, and more clicks can be expected.

And that brings us to the final goal of your ad -- what are you expecting? Some ads are placed for branding, meaning that you don't care as much about someone clicking on the ad vs. just seeing your brand name constantly to the point that you cannot forget it. On the other hand, some ads are expected to drive ROI (return on investment), and the goal is ultimately to drive users to a landing page, the page that they would click through to and make a purchase or other action, like a sign-up.

What works is highly variable, but you need to have your expectations set ahead of time, and make your ad purchases accordingly. Know now that in most cases, online ads are far more effective for branding than ROI (though text ads are a different story, and can be much more effective for ROI), so be prepared to monitor your ad buys and optimize as needed for profit.

Food Marketing: How to Make the Most of It   General Points of Banner Advertising   

Have Banner Ads Had Their Day Or Are They Still Good Traffic Drivers?

Advertising through banner ads used to be the hot new thing. Many people think it had gone away, but it is still one of the most potent methods of driving traffic on the internet. Banner ads are featured on many websites for one simple reason. People respond to them!

Again, many people think that banner advertising is expensive and there are alternatives that provide better value for money. However, some diligent searching on sites that do not necessarily come to mind as the best places to advertise can yield very good results.

We recently set up a campaign for a client in the pet business. We found that pet charity sites can draw very high numbers of traffic, but the rates are very reasonable compared to better known organisations. But at the end of the day, traffic is traffic wherever it comes from and there are many people who support worthy causes who have a high level of disposable income. Once people visit your website they can either be directed to your main website or alternatively be directed to a separate squeeze page where they are asked to leave their name and email address in exchange for a free e-book or training course.

A very good way to use banner ads to their best effect is to use animation. Just as with videos, animation attracts people and sells. If you are in any doubt, notice how many companies use animation in Television advertisements nowadays. Again, people think that animation can be expensive, but take a look at companies like goanimate where you can create your own cartoon to sell your product or service. If you are unsure about your creative ability and don't see yourself as another TV animated movie creator, just go to Fiverr. You will find plenty of people who can produce a very commercial piece of work for $5.

Just as with the other advertising media, positioning is of vital importance and some attention needs to be paid to this area. Another excellent reason for using banner ads is that by incorporating a marker into the advert, you can ascertain that the lead came from that source and so measure its effectiveness much better than social media. The watchword is If you can measure it, (in terms of both money and time) then go ahead and use it. But don't forget to split test by varying the wording, the placement and above all the layout.

Food Marketing: How to Make the Most of It   General Points of Banner Advertising   

Ad Server - Most Important Online Marketing Mechanism

With the advent of internet, many big companies as well as small and medium businesses have started to use internet as a tool to market their business online and to reach a wider range of audience within the shortest possible time. The marketing of a product or a service is very important in order to succeed in a business and online marketing is the in thing that will help in increasing the profits of a business. Moreover, advertising the products and services is very important in order to generate good income online and advertising online will be the cheapest as well as the best option of marketing your products or services. One of the biggest mechanism through which many online businesses are thriving is due to the employment of ad server companies to help in advertising their products or services online in a proper manner.

The advertisement server is basically a computer wherein a lot of information is stored and it is mainly used for storage purposes. All the different advertisements of various products or services are stored in the advertisement servers inside the computer in the form of texts, graphics, videos, animations, images and so on. Whenever the customer or the client clicks on the advertisement link in any website, the ad server will immediately load the chosen advertisements on the desired page that the customer clicks and the process of displaying the advertisement tin the web page will be presented by the ad servers both automatically or semi-automatically.

The most important function of the ad servers is to present the advertisements whenever desired by the internet user. Nowadays, the ad servers will carry out multi tasking operations and will not stick to just helping the client to see the advertisement that he or she has clicked. The ad servers these days will help in maintaining a record of the progress shown by the advertisements and the results that are achieved by virtue of this online advertisement campaign. Another important function that the modern day ad rotator does is that it will keep on uploading the media graphics or animations or videos in the advertisements and will also keep on regularly changing the images or videos so that a user will see different versions of the advertisement every time he clicks on the web page. The number of clicks that a particular advertisement gets is counted by the ad server and a report is generated by the ad servers which will help the business know the outcome of the online marketing campaign.

The most advanced functions that are carried out by good advertisement servers are the post and pre impression behavioral pattern analysis. The result of the advertisement on the user will be clearly known with the help of post impression analysis. This will help in knowing the type of future ads that the client will be interested in viewing.

Food Marketing: How to Make the Most of It   General Points of Banner Advertising   

Best Banner Advertising Tips

Online banners,they're the billboards of the Internet - a platform for you to market your products and services to the internet world. You see them everwhere.

When you are deciding how to spend your online advertising budget, one of the most important questions you need to consider is what type of online advertising you want to buy. Banner advertising is one of the oldest method of advertising however, out of the numerous methods used for internet based marketing, banner advertising is a leading one with PPC.. Why? Well simple its because of the changes in the Google Algorithm.

The size and placement of banner ads varies according to the website on which it is advertising.

Iam going to share with you tips and strategies that must be kept in mind while working on online banner advertisements, so that maximum benefit can obtained through them.

Find a way to keep your business open 24 hours a day so you can be generating sales and leads into your business even while you are sleeping. By placing ads in the right places your business will be running on autopilot 7 days a week 24 hours a day.

Here are some great tips for choosing the best size, placement, and more for your banner ads.

1. Target Market

To start out banner advertising, the first thing you must do is choose your target audience, the people you want to market to. When you are developing your marketing campaign, it is necessary to take into consideration who will be viewing your banner advertisement. If you are selling Womans Clothes, then you surely will not want your banner advertisement to be viewed on the websites promoting various vehicle parts.

2. Designs

An effective Banner design always gets more clicks. The effectiveness of your banner is based on its layout, colors and animation. Before selecting your banner size, find out what size is acceptable on the site where you want to display your Web Banner Ad.

You can either design your own Banner or outsource it. Start making those adorable little animated gif files. Find your image, size it, and go at it, it's that simple and if you mess up, it's easy to go back and correct, nothing is saved until you want to. You can find design service from as low as $20, depending on the size of the banners that is...

3.Size Matters:

From my experience a wider sized banner ad is often most effective. The recommended Banner that I would use is 480x60. There's a reason that this has remained the most widely used banner ad size. But you will find that the standard 336x280 works very well on most sites, but it may not fit the layout of the site you choose. Other wide sizes like 300x250 or 160x600 (wide skyscraper) work very well in some layouts.

4. Purchase System

So You know have your banner ready for advertising..but there just so many placement & position options..which one is the best one, and the best price?

Banner advertising is usually sold on CPM basis or CPA. CPM is COST PER impression, that means every time your banner ad appears within the page you pay per impression, I wouldn't recommend this one, because this can be really expensive. CPA is Cost per acquisition, this is not much available now days, but it is the preferred choice of advertisers because the publisher only gets paid when a lead or sale is produced from a click-through.

Finally there is also a Monthly Rate. Which I highly recommend, that in the beginning you stick with CPA or Montly Rate. Why? Well this will help you to do some testing, and you get to control it whereas with CPM you literally will be buying however many impressions the ad can be delivered to that website and as I said, this can get really be very expensive. But If you want results to drive traffic for your website, opt for CPC or a CPA system.

5. Best Position and Placement

The placement of your banner ads on a website is a very crucial factor to engagement and click-throughs. So..Where is the best placement for a banner ad on a web page? While you might have to test out a few best spots for your banner ads, but there are few place that I think would do well. Placing your ads in the centre of the page and those that are above the fold do better than those below. Anywhere at the top of the web page can work best. But that in general above the fold and to the left seem to be the hotter areas. Anywhere below the fold, I wouldn't recommend, is less desirable because the page will load your banner ad costing you an impression, but it may never be seen.

Food Marketing: How to Make the Most of It   General Points of Banner Advertising   

Flash Banner for Your Online Advertising Campaign

Advertising online has changed a lot in the last couple of years. What used to be considered a great advertisement way back can no longer produce the same results now. For instance, the pop-up advertisement, which used to be employed on a large scale, is today almost obsolete due to the high level of blocking that it received. Online advertising had to learn its lessons in order to stay relevant and it sure did. Today, the most efficient way to advertise online is to use ad banners, and this is the best method to do it.

Banner advertisements need careful planning, when designing, deploying and setting up. There are ways to insure that your flash banner or static banner is interesting, eye catching and invites people to read and click. But it has to do all that with simplicity and elegance. The best way to achieve this is to use a powerful headline, something that will entice the audience to want to know more about it. If you also include some form of graphics, you furthermore are heading towards success, as your banner ad will catch the attention of viewers much faster.

But attracting the attention is but one step of the deal. Once you have been able to interest your audience your next step is to make sure you hook them. There are a couple of techniques that can be employed in order to achieve this. One of them employs a rotator, which, in short is a way to change the graphics from time to time, to avoid boring your audience. Otherwise you can always be more creative and go for something more complex. Flash banner can very easily be used to create games or to render videos. These types of advertisements will engage your audience much faster and for longer time, giving you an opportunity to make the act.

But, certainly, the most important aspect remains to hook the audience to make them want to learn more. Another big decision is the site where the advertisement will be displayed. The decision involves a couple of very important factors. On one hand you will have the financial bit to take care of. You should have a discussion with the webmaster and see how much money you will need to spend to have your advertisement hosted. Some give up if they can't afford the sums of money that certain sites will ask for advertisement placement, but you should also remember that there are less costly ways to win exposure.

Search for the sites that you can afford, and also don't forget about social network sites and the article submission sites. Some exposure is always better than no exposure so don't skip this option either and cover all bases.

Overall, flash banner ads can give you the edge you need in order to make your online business more successful and attract more customers. Always try to be aware of the newest trends, the best practices and learn as much as possible about it, to stay relevant in your market.

Food Marketing: How to Make the Most of It   General Points of Banner Advertising   

How Banner Avertising Could Be The Missing Link You Need To Add To Your Lead Generation Strategy

Banners are the "virtual billboards" you see on many websites. They are one of the oldest forms of advertising on the internet today and will probably be around for many years to come. If you are looking for an easy and simple solution to generating high quality traffic to your website than banner advertising is an excellent choice.. When it comes to generating traffic to your website you need to use strategies that you can control, are stable and affordable if done right.

Successful banners have three points in common:

The message on your banner ad matches the content on your website, they are congruent to your target niche. Your banner design, people want to click on it. Your banners are on websites with more than 10,000 visitors a month.

There are two options in designing a banner:

design a banner that is colorful, ugly and sticks out like sore thumb. The idea is to draw attention to your banner. Depending on where your banner is located on the page. If banner is one of six small banners all crowded together on the side of a page you want your banner to be noticed first. design a banner that blends into the website, so that it doesn't even look like an advertisement. It has the same theme and content, it's not obnoxious or distracting like the first option.The reason for this type of banner is to make it appealing to the person who hates being sold to. This design only works well if your banner stands alone either at the top or middle of the page.

The most popular sizes of banners are 125x125, 300x250, 728x90, 160x600 and that is in pixels. Static banners are in (.jpg), animated are in (.gif)

The message on banner say depends on your niche the people you are looking for, your perfect customer. This is when your copy writing skills are most important. Are you offering a solution to a problem or creating curiosity. You could also offer a free report or e book. The last thing you need on your banner is a strong call to action like 'click here now.' Finding the websites to place your banners depends on the amount of work you want to do. You can do your own research by typing in your keywords related to your target niche and compiling a list of websites that offer banner advertising and have a high volume of traffic or you can save yourself some time and use the display networks. Using the display networks creates leverage, more exposure and can be cheaper in the long run if done right. Examples are Clicksor and Adclickmedia. You must do your home work first though and decide which would be the best option for you.

Payment options, there are many but I will only mention three:

monthly is a fixed rate you pay even if no one clicks on your banner cost per 1,000 impressions, you pay a fixed amount for every time the page loads. If the rate is $10 CPM/1000 impressions you are paying $.01 per impression pay per click, you decide on what you are willing to pay the website owner when someone clicks on your banner.

Do you want to build your own banners or outsource them? You can build your own with photo shop or paint or can use such resources as 99 Designs, Elance or Odesk.

Different traffic generation strategies are essential to a successful online business. Why banner advertising? It is relatively easy to do and if done right can generate the quantity and quality of traffic you need to your website.

Food Marketing: How to Make the Most of It   General Points of Banner Advertising