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