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*How banner ads are designed and where
they are placed will more often than not determine the
success or failure of a banner ad campaign. If “Location,
location, location” is true of real estate, it is
equally true of banner advertising. Combining these
qualities is a simple notion, but effectively accomplishing
this is an art known as “targeting.”
Banner ads that are targeted appear
based on the Internet user's activity. For example,
advertisers can buy keyword advertising on a search
engine, such as Alta Vista or Yahoo,
so that their ads are displayed when someone performs a
particular search. If an advertiser buys up keywords
related to its product or service, it can probably
increase click-through rates, because the visitor has
already demonstrated an interest in finding sites on that
particular subject.
The Internet is an attractive medium to
advertisers, because cookies allow sites to gather
information about each visitor. It's a good bet that the
future of Internet advertising will
involve extensive use of this technology to target
individual Internet users. Many Web sites are already
experimenting with presenting each visitor with specific
banner ads that would be likely to interest them, based on
information gathered from surveys and the visitor's
Web-surfing activity.
There are several ways advertisers
measure and charge for success of a banner ad:
- Clicks/Click-throughs: 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 click-through-rate
is something under 1 percent, and click-through rates
significantly 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. Many
advertisers keep track of visitor activity using
Internet cookies. This technology allows the site to
combine shopping history with information about how the
visitor originally came to the site.
- LMG will lend its expertise in designing and placing
banner ads for your business. It will seek out suitable
sites, negotiate the price of banner ad space, and help
you make the best use of your advertising budget.
Additionally, it will work with you to conceive
advertising campaigns. LMG receives a better price on
advertising space because it has many clients and can
buy impressions in bulk.
Below are the steps LMG will take to
implement a banner campaign on behalf of your company:
- LMG will custom layout and design up to 20 banners
for advertising
- LMG will host your banners on our servers or on the
server of your choosing
- LMG will work with you to layout targeted messages in
multiple formats (static and animated)
- LMG will research and recommend targeted placements
for your banners
- LMG will negotiate rates on your behalf
- LMG will work with selected sites to ensure your ads
are designed and placed correctly
- LMG will monitor and report the results of the
campaign, acting accordingly for up to 60 days.
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