Promise Media

Effective banner advertising has two main functions — branding and response — but ads don’t always do both jobs equally well. We take a look at which purpose makes the most sense for a client.

The early days of online advertising based its reputation on clicks, which is the response function of the ads.

During that time, a typical Web page had few ads, and those ads were much smaller than today. The small ad sizes limited the use of graphics and emphasized text because it was space efficient.

As an example, one of the first standard ad sizes was the strong horizontal size — the 468 by 60. That size has been replaced by the 728 x 90. (more…)

The fact that banner ad size has an impact on performance may seem intuitive and obvious to some people, but it is not to others.

To be truly effective, advertising has to deliver results for both the publisher and the advertiser.

The results for the publisher come in the form of revenue, client retention,   revenue growth and higher ad rates. Results for the advertiser come in the form of clicks, leads and transactions.

Following a commonly accepted banner ad size standard will result in more revenue and happier clients. Ad networks will deliver higher quality and better paying clients as well. (more…)

Online advertising rates are set through a combination of ad size, ad location, ad performance and market demand.

This key online marketing strategy results in ad performance and market demand, which in turn influence the price on the online rate card.
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Online content development often becomes focused on what drives the most clicks to an article, but too much of a focus on clicks becomes pandering.

Pandering undermines the credibility of a Web site. Visitors start to lose confidence in the quality of the site as a result.

Traditional media newsrooms at newspapers and TV stations debate every day what stories should appear on page one or at the top of the news program.

A common strategy has developed for many of them that combines interesting stories with important ones. (more…)

Online advertising models show up on Web sites in several forms — cost per click (CPC), cost per thousand (CPM) and cost per acquisition (CPA). Publishers and advertisers should know and use all three depending on the situation.

Cost Per Click (CPC)

ost per click is popular with publishers who use services such as Google AdSense, AdBrite, etc. It is especially popular with advertisers because of the ability to track return on investment.

The CPC advertising model splits the risk between the publisher and the advertiser. A campaign with low clicks is bad for the publisher because it receives less revenue, while the advertiser minimizes costs.

A high click campaign with poor conversion is great for the publisher, who maximizes revenue, but bad for the advertiser because of high costs and low returns.

The goal, of course, is to split risk and reward as evenly as possible between the two parties.

Contextual ads such as Google AdSense can produce the equivalent of $2-10 CPMs per ad unit based on the clickthrough rate — especially if the content is properly optimized.

The advertiser places ads on Web sites via Google AdWords, which allows them to track the clickthrough rates, cost per click and conversion rate. (more…)