Planning a Banner Advertising Campaign

Managing the Banner Advertising Campaign

Correctly managed banner ad campaigns will result in a sales, traffic and a positive return on your banner ad investment. Managing your banner ad campaign successfully will take a bit of time for research, patience and the following steps should be considered during the planning phases of your banner ad campaign:

Do Your Research On Where To Advertising Your Banner Ad

What type of customer is perfect for your sites service or product? Look for web sites that are currently advertising banner space. Research different directories, portals and industry themed sites to see which ones will appeal to your target audience. Start by entering industry related keywords related to your sites theme on your favorite portal or search engine that will compliment a banner advertising campaign. While visiting these type of sites, investigate and see where they are placing banners on their site.

Specifically Themed Sites or General

What you'll need to do is decide if a specific portal site or directory will drive appropriate traffic to your site or if a site specifically themed to your industry will better target your audience. Large portal sites usually will have more traffic to their site, but the traffic they obtain may not be industry qualified and thus result in lower conversions to sales. Industry specific sites on the other hand can have lower costs for purchasing banner space on their sites, and will target your audience more directly.

Contact the Sites Marketing Representative

Locate contact advertising information on the web sites you have targeted for banner ad space, and request any information they may have related to the costs and requirements for placing an ad for advertising. If the site has a specific advertising and marketing page they will most likely have a banner rate sheet, with a list of costs and placement locations within the site. Costs for home page advertising obviously will incur a higher cost. Keep good records and make note of all the contact and pricing information.

Check the costs

Find out their current advertising costs and any specific contractual terms. Are you paying for Impressions or Clicks?. See if you can place an ad as part of a search function, which will target your audience closer and may save you money too. What about bulk discounts or duration discounts for placing an ad? Can you work out a rate for purchasing a percentage of CPM's (impressions-page views) on a page, as opposed to an exclusive impressions contract?

Banner Submission Guidelines

Large portal sites should have very specific banner submission guidelines on what they will allow to be featured on their site. Some important things to inquire about are:

• Banner file size restrictions for loading
• Dimensions in pixels
• Accepted file formats (JPG, Flash, animated GIF, GIF, etc.)
• Any design restrictions
• Time deadlines to submit
• Total number of submissions
• Number of banner rotations
• Time frame to get your banner up on their site

Advertising Statistics

If you do not have access to statistics software on your server to measure click through referrals to your site, then inquire if the site that is featuring your banner ad will give you access to their statistics software or a personal login. See if the site will provide you with server statistics of the number of impressions (how many people view the page) and click rates. Ask to set-up a delivery schedule - either daily, weekly, or on a monthly basis. Most advertising sites should have the capability to offer these type of statistics for you with a respectable turnaround time. If a secure login area on their site where you may access your statistics is unable to be provided then request that the statistics be emailed to you on a regular basis.

Get It Documented in writing

The advertising site should have a contract stating:

• When your banner will start and end its advertising run
• Will your banner have an exclusive run or a shared rotating run with other banners.
• Will your ad be the only one on a the page or will it be sharing space with other ads.