Banner and Link Exchanges

Banner & Link Exchanges

Banner Ad Pros & Cons

While the banner is traditionally the most frequently used advertising method on the Web, it's popularity has decreased considerably. A typical banner ad is placed at the top or bottom of a Web page, to catch the viewer's eye and possibly prompt them to click on it. In contrast to other forms of online promotion, banners publicize in a one-to-many rather than a one-to-one fashion. They broadcast the name of a Website indiscriminately, without requiring the viewer to click onto the site.

Although banner advertising is no longer as popular or effective as it once was, it can still be helpful and successful if done right. While e-mail marketing and search engines are limited in how many ads you can buy and positions you can create, banner advertising space is virtually unlimited. There are thousands of targeted places to advertise in every conceivable market. However, your ads will only be successful if you pay enough money to keep them visible in high traffic areas of cyberspace for a long period of time.

How Much Do You Have to Pay?

The "good news" answer nowadays is much less than you used to have to pay when banner advertising was in it's heyday. Still, unless you understand the basics of banner advertising, you'll likely wind up wasting either your time or your money.

The success of banner ad campaigns depends upon the click through rate. In general, websites have two methods of charging for banner ads:

CPM or Cost Per Thousand: A charge based on the number of people who visit the Web page on which your ad appears. The more visits the Website gets, the higher the ad rates that site can charge.
CTR or Clickthrough Rate: A clickthrough occurs when someone clicks a banner ad that links to your (the advertizer's) Website. In this case, you are billed after the ad has run for awhile and the clicks have been tallied.

Banner/Link Exchanges

One way to reduce the cost of banner advertising is by joining a banner network program; a group of businesses that join together to exchange ads. You can think of a banner exchange as a cooperative advertising program in which participants work together to advertise each other's Websites, products or services using a credit system. By publishing banner ads for other companies on your site, you accumulate credits or points, which then enable you to get your own ad posted around the Internet with other banner network members - for free.

In other words, the amount of free advertising you receive is directly proportional to the amount of advertising you give to other participants.

No two banner exchanges are alike. When it comes to selecting a banner exchange program you have to look past the bells and whistles that say you can promote your Website for free. Banner exchanges use what is called an exchange ratio to indicate the display-to-credit ratio offered by the exchange. The most common exchange ratio is 2 to l. This means that for every two times that someone views a banner on your Website, your banner will be displayed at a member site one time. (Half the impressions you rack up go to a sponsor, as a means of paying for the free service you get.)

Some exchanges offer additional features, such as targeting. With targeting, you can select the specific categories of Websites that will display your banner and the categories of banners displayed at your own Website. In this way, your banner is seen only by audiences that you select, which includes audiences that are interested in products, services or information similar to what you offer at your Website.

An added benefit of banner exchanging is the ability to track and view the performance statistics for you banner. Depending on the banner exchange system, your performance statistics can range from up-to-the-minute accounting to weekly account summaries. Either way, the stats usually tell you how many times your banner was displayed, as well as how many times someone clicked on your banner.

I am by no means an authority on banner advertising programs, but there are two programs that I highly recommend looking into:

1. BannersGoMLM.com. This is really an exceptional service. Don't be frightened off by the MLM aspect - it's not what you think (you don't pay a cent.) Not only do you get a full ONE to ONE exchange on visitors to your own site, you also get 10% of all impressions generated by anyone who joins the BannersGoMLM.com banner exchange "through" you... and anyone who joins through them and so on... 5 full levels deep! Plus you can target your ad only to sites that make sense and exclude your competitors' ads from appearing on your site.

YOU decide where to place the banners on your pages! And, since a new window pops up when someone clicks a banner hosted on your site, you never lose a single visitor! Your account is automatically credited whenever your banners are clicked, there are NO fees ever, and you get a $15 "signing bonus" absolutely FREE just for signing up! Bottom line, this is the most sophisticated yet simple to use FREE-for-life advertising system on the Net. Click here to find out more.

2. Mass Marketing Program I like this one because it combines two different approaches to allow you to reach a total of 100,000 people every month! You get a guaranteed 37,500 visitors to your site plus a guaranteed 75,000 targeted banner ads on top sites like Microsoft's MSN for a modest monthly fee! These are 37,500 actual prospects interested in what you have to offer that you can convert to paying customers. There is no other marketing program in existence that comes close to reaching so many people for so little cost.

But that is not the best part. They've also come up with an innovative twist. How many products do you think you could you sell if you threw in 2 round-trip plane tickets worth $1600 with every sale? That's what the Mass Marketing Program offers. With their travel program you can get you all the plane tickets you want so that you can give them away as an an incentive for people to buy products from you. And the plane tickets won't cost you or the person you give them to a dime! Click here to learn more info about this innovative program.

Creating Banner Ads

The most important component of a banner advertising campaign is, of course, the banner itself. Your banner doesn't have to be designed by a professional, but it should be enticing enough to capture a viewer's attention. Although you'll see plenty of banners with high powered graphics, it's the information not the artwork that is going to compel viewers to click.

Information is the key to a successful banner, especially when the file size of your banner is specifically limited by the banner exchange. Most banner exchanges restrict your banner to a file size of less than 8K. They also specify the exact dimensions of your banner. A typical banner size is 468 pixels wide by 60 pixels high. Many also stipulate that your banner not be a non-interlaced GIF image, so you should simply save your banner as a standard GIF.

TIP: If you want to work with multiple banner exchanges, you should note the limits on file and images sizes for each and design your banner with these limits in mind. By resizing your banner to fit the requirements of the exchange, you can use the same banner repeatedly.

If you need some help in creating your banners, check out our Banner Advertising Resources. If you have only a simple, text-only ad in mind and you don't have a lot of money to spend on design, try one of the online create-your-own-banner-ad services, such as The Banner Generator.

Some things to keep in mind when designing you banners:

Try to keep them between 5K and 10K in size. The faster your banners load, the more likely they are to be seen.
Use short action phrases on your banners. You'll see a lot of banners with "Click Here" labels these days and there is a reason for it. It works!
Animated banners are generally more effective than static banners.
Always utilize the ALT attribute in your banner image tags. It will describe the content of your graphics to all browsers and make navigation quicker and easier. (It's simply a matter of adding: alt="Your Description" to your meta information.)

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