Understanding Internet Banner Advertising

Banner advertising is an effective way of getting your advertising message seen on the Internet. Banner ads should not be your only online form of advertising, but they are an essential part of your online advertising mix.

This article assumes that the reader knows what a banner ad looks like, but do you know how they work, and how you can derive benefit from them? Let's define a few terms before answering these questions.

1. "Page views" or "page impressions." These terms are interchangeable and they refer to the number of times that a page within a website has been displayed on a website.

2. "Banner view." Like a page view, a banner view is the number of times that a banner has been displayed on website.

3. "Click through." A click through is the number of times a website visitor has "clicked" on a particular banner ad and was transferred to the website of the banner advertiser.

4. "CTR." CTR is the acronym for "click through rate," which is the ratio of the number of banner view versus the number of times visitors have "clicked through" to your website. CTR is expressed as a percentage, so a click through rate of 1% means that for every 1,000 banner views, 10 visitors have clicked through to your site.

5. "CPM." CPM is an acronym for "cost per M," where "M" is the ancient Roman numeral for 1,000. Translation: CPM is the price your business will pay to have its banner advertisement displayed 1,000 times on a website, e.g. the cost of 1,000 banner views. So, for example, if the CPM to advertise on a site is $80.00 your business will pay $80.00 for every 1,000 banner views.

6. "ROS." ROS is the acronym for "run of site," which simply means that a banner ad is displayed on every page in a website, as opposed to being displayed only in a particular category of a website or only when a particular keyword is entered into a search engine.

Everyone who is in charge of a advertising or marketing department (that's you if you're the sole shareholder of the company) knows that advertising is, in large part, a numbers game. The more frequently your message is seen or heard, the more likely the consumer is to purchase your service or product. Take Mattress Mac with Gallery Furniture , for example. If you live in the Houston area, or if your radio can pick up the signal of almost any Houston area radio station, you cannot go a single day without hearing or seeing an advertisement for Gallery Furniture. Peppering your senses with constant reminders that "Gallery Furniture Saves You Money!" has enabled Mr. McIngvale to build his single location furniture store into an empire. (Of course, advertising alone won't do it; you still must have a quality product or service). I have no scientific data to support this assertion, but I'll make it anyway: I'm willing to bet that Gallery Furniture is known to more people in the greater Houston area than any other single business. How did that come to be? Mattress Mac understands the advertising numbers game and plays it better than anybody else.

Banner ads are a numbers game. The industry standard click through rate for online advertising in general is around .5%. Not 5%, but .5%. Doesn't sound very encouraging for your banner ad campaign, eh? Well, there are ways to significantly increase the CTR of any given banner. The best way is by targeting a particular banner ad to a narrow audience, an audience that is looking specific for a product or service just like yours. Highly-targeted can boost your CTR to as much as 2%-3% or higher and significantly increase the traffic to your website.

Another valuable purpose of the banner ad is branding. Intertwined with the messages Gallery Furniture delivers about particular sales events or types of furniture is the company's consistent and recognizable logo, color scheme, and tag lines. Your banner advertisements can, and should, perform the same function; they should be designed using your company's logo and colors, at a minimum. Sometimes incorporating the tag line is the way to go, but other times you may want to advertise a particular special offer, product, etc. The important thing is that you take advantage of the numbers game by continually displaying your name, logo, and colors. The more visitors that see you, the more they will come to associate your name with your type of product or service, and the more likely they will be in the future to buy from you.

Henry J. Fasthoff, IV
Principal & General Counsel
HoustonBusiness.com

Advertising news reports resources updated Thu. May / 17 / 2012

TIME

Will Facebook Adapt to Mobile or Will Mobile Adapt to Facebook? BusinessWeek By Kevin Fitchard on May 17, 2012 We all know Facebook needs to become a force in mobile advertising, but just how much of a force? If Facebook were to replicate the success of its desktop ad business on mobile, it would account for a healthy chunk of ... Facebook Advertising Shows 'A Lot Of Potential But It's Not A Slam-Dunk'Huffington Post Facebook's biggest problem is that it's a media companyWashington Post Is Advertising on Facebook Worth the Expense?TIME Forbes -AdAge.com -Detroit Free Press all 1,009 news articles »

NPR sees sharp downturn in advertising revenue, leading to talk of cuts Washington Post Halfway through its fiscal year — and six months into Gary Knell's tenure as chief executive — Washington-based NPR has seen a sharp downturn in corporate “underwriting,” or advertising revenue. The falloff has led to projections of an annual ... and more »

Sydney Morning Herald

Does advertising on Facebook pay? San Mateo Daily Journal But ahead of the IPO, a debate emerged between two of the nation's largest automakers: Does it pay to advertise on the social network? General Motors, the nation's largest automaker, said it would abandon Facebook ads after concluding they were ... Companies ask: Does advertising on Facebook pay?Seattle Post Intelligencer all 6,544 news articles »

Seattle Post Intelligencer (blog)

Skechers agrees to pay $45 million to settle charges of sketchy advertising of ... Seattle Post Intelligencer (blog) By Rita R. Robison Kim Kardashian, fresh from a sweaty workout and pictured in a variety of steamy, suggestive poses, decides in a TV advertisement to dump her personal trainer. “It's not someone else, it's something else” Kardashian, a reality TV-show ... Sketchy ads? Skechers agrees to pay $50M to settle false-advertising allegationsThe Star-Ledger - NJ.com Skechers settles with WA over false advertisingBusinessWeek Shoe-maker accused of sketchy advertising settles lawsuitAccess Washington KRMG -vtdigger.org -Patch.com all 1,225 news articles »

Sweeney: Facebook Advertising Money Is In the Movies CNBC.com Traditional advertising in that context can be both annoying and ineffective. Imagine someone interrupting your conversation by waving a big billboard between you and your friend. Yuk! Social media advertisers are just realizing how influential the ...

Viewers Want Choice, Control and Relevance from Online Video Advertising ... San Francisco Chronicle (press release) New York, New York (PRWEB) May 17, 2012 Vibrant Media, the global leader in premium contextual advertising, has released key research findings that determine what viewers want in their video advertising: choice, control and relevance. and more »

New Mobile iPhone Application for Location-Based Virtual Advertising Sacramento Bee By They Creative Advertising HOUSTON, May 17, 2012 -- /PRNewswire-iReach/ -- They Creative Advertising introduces Knibbler™ iPhone application, a location-based advertising tool for individuals and small business owners. Using the dynamic Knibbler™ ... and more »

Sydney Morning Herald

Apple Moves to Dismiss Siri False Advertising Suit PC Magazine But Apple's main counter-argument appears to be its contention that the plaintiffs' complaints lack the specificity that would be required to back up their claims of false advertising—failing to provide "a single actionable misstatement" on the part ... Apple Responds to Siri Class Action LawsuitsiPhone FAQ all 278 news articles »

Coca-Cola Dodges Federal False Advertising Claim Courthouse News Service By TIM HULL (CN) -- Pomegranate juice purveyor Pom Wonderful cannot pursue federal false-advertising claims that Coca-Cola's pomegranate blueberry drink contains mostly apple and grape juices, but it may be able to revive its state law challenges, ... and more »

Street Fight

Local Ad Spending Moving More to Mobile and Online; BIA/Kelsey's Media Ad View ... MarketWatch (press release) CHANTILLY, Va., May 17, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- According to BIA/Kelsey's Media Ad View reports, local advertising spending will experience a compound annual growth rate of 2.6 percent between 2011 and 2016, with revenues climbing from around ... BIA/Kelsey: Local Ad Spending Moving More To Mobile And Online, Radio 'Holds ...All Access Music Group Mobile, Online Local Ad Spending Will Double in the Next 5 YearsTechzone360 Forecast: Locals Ads Hit $150 Mil By 2016, Trad Media HoldsMediaPost Communications Bloomberg all 37 news articles »

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