Advertising on the web
Advertisers generally hope a banner ad will do one of two things. Ideally, a site visitor will click through to another site. In this case the banner ad has brought the advertiser a visitor they would not have had otherwise. The banner ad is a real success if the visitor not only comes to the site but also buys something. Failing a click through, advertisers hope that a web site visitor will see the banner ad and will somehow register it in their heads. This could mean that the visitor consciously notes the content of the web banner ad and may decide to visit the advertiser's site at some time in the future, or it might mean that the visitor only peripherally picks up on the ad but is made aware of the advertiser's product or service.
This second effect of advertising is known as branding. We've all experienced the effects of branding before. Say you see ads on television for Brand X glue all the time. The ads don't seem to particularly affect you -- you don't leap from your sofa to go and Brand X buy glue -- but some time later, when you're at the store shopping for glue, they may affect the decision you make. If you don't have any other reason to choose one type of glue over the others, you'll probably choose the one you're most familiar with, Brand X, even if you're only familiar with it because of the advertising you have seen.
So there are a number of ways a banner ad can be successful. Consequently, there are several ways advertisers measure internet banner ad success. Advertisers look at:
- Clickthroughs: The number of visitors who click on the banner ad linking to the advertiser's Web site. Publisher sites often sell banner ad space on a cost per click (CPC) basis.
- Page views: Also called page impressions, this is the number of times a particular Web page has been requested from the server. Advertisers are interested in page views because they indicate the number of visitors who could have seen the banner ad. Although they don't measure the effectiveness of a branding campaign, they do measure how many visitors were exposed to it. The most common way to sell banner ad space is cost per thousand impressions, or CPM (In roman numerals, M equals a thousand).
- Click through rate (CTR): This describes the ratio of page views to clicks. It is expressed as the percentage of total visitors to a particular page who actually clicked on the banner ad. The typical clickthrough rate is something under 1 per cent, and click through rates higher than that are very rare.
- Cost per sale: This is the measure of how much advertising money is spent on making one sale. Advertisers use different means to calculate this, depending on the ad and the product or service.
Different measures are more important to different advertisers, but most advertisers consider all of these elements when judging the effectiveness of a banner ad.
Like most forms of advertising, banner ads vary considerably in quality because their creators vary a great deal in ability and experience. The range is even greater with banner ads than with most other forms, however, because it is so easy and inexpensive to create and post banners
An advertiser that is interested in posting banner ads on other sites has three basic options. The advertiser can:
- Arrange to display other Web sites' banner ads in exchange for them displaying its ad.
- Pay publisher sites to post its banner.
- Pay an organization, usually a banner network like DoubleClick, to post the banner on a number of publisher sites.
These three arrangements take many forms and advertisers and publishers must choose the specific arrangement that best suits them. If you want to post banner ads on other sites but don't have the capital to mount a traditional advertising campaign, you may choose to exchange banner ads with other sites. There are a couple of ways you can go about this. The first is to individually develop relationships with other Web sites and trade specific banners. This is a very natural process and allows you to place your banner ads conscientiously and post other Web site banner ads that fit your site well. Your banner ad doesn't end up on very many sites, however, unless you invest a whole lot of your time in seeking out interested webmasters.
If you want to get your banner ad on a lot of sites in a short amount of time (and don't want to pay for it) then your best bet is to join a banner exchange program.