Suze Bragg

Using Online Display Ads to Boost Your Name Recognition

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Banner ads, now known as online display ads, are commonly used to boost your brand.   They were once the popular advertising means in the 1990's, but fell along the wayside when search marketing came into the mix.  Their once high prices forced small businesses to limit their use, but today's rates mean you can use them to maximize your brand exposure.  They're best used for getting your name in front of people's eyes, but not great for driving traffic to your web site.  On average, they receive 0.1% to 0.3% clickthrough rate, much lower than search marketing currently gets.  As a small business, online display ads are a good vehicle because you want as many people to see your branding as possible.  Based on numerous reports, its been proven that it takes seven times for someone to see an ad before they commit it to memory.  

The skinny on online display advertising:

Pricing is determined three ways:
o Cost-per-thousand impressions - CPM
o Cost-per-click - CPC
o Cost-per-action - CPA

With CPM, you pay for the number of times your ad is seen.  If you want 30,000 people to see it, you'll pay X amount for each 1000 times it runs.  For example, if you pay $3 per 1000, your ad will cost you $90.  

With CPC, you pay for the number of times someone clicks on your ad.  If your goal is to get 100 people to click on your ad, it'll cost you approximately $200 (if the cost is $2 per click).

With CPA, you pay for the number of times someone fills out a form, registers for a contest, etc.  These prices are generally more expensive because you have to reach many more people to hit your goal.

There are different sizes of display ads, the most common being the ones recommended in the Universal Ad Package [ Starting in August 2002, the Ad Sizes Task Force, created by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, began a process to reduce the number of ad sizes for the purposes of reducing the costs and inefficiences associated wtih the planning, buying and creating online media. The result is 4 sizes] 

1. 728 x 90 pixels - leaderboard 
2. 300 x 250 - rectangle 
3. 160 x 600 - skyscraper 
4. 180 x 150 - square

Different ad types you can utilize:

• Static:  ads that remain still and are either a jpeg or gif.  These are the easiest to produce.
• Animated:  created as a gif or Flash file, these ads rotate or move, as the viewer watches them. 
• Rich media / interactive ads
  • video and audio
  • expanding ads (when clicked on or moused over, the ad expands to a larger size)

Simple tips for places to advertise:

• Contact the sites and newsletters your target audience reads/visits
• Reciprocal ads with partner sites
• Local organizations and societies
• Higher a small ad agency to place your ads for you - they are experienced in casting a wider reach

Posted by Suze Bragg on November 29, 2007 | Comments (2)