Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising only charges you when someone clicks on your banner and comes to your site. However, this approach is subject to fraud by unscrupulous siteowners. One reliable PPC network is ValueClick, which has found ways to prevent fraud. They charge advertisers 55 cents to 65 cents per click-through, and screen their network sites carefully to limit fraud. A minimum advertising buy is $5,000. The advantage of PPC is that you can better control advertising costs. If you know it costs 65 cents to get a visitor to your site, you can more easily predict the cost per sale.
A banner ad, also known as a display ad, is similar to a digital billboard in that it uses imagery (hence the term "banner") to attract attention with the goal of driving traffic to the advertiser's site.
Banner ads are placed in high-traffic locations on web pages, creating brand awareness and generating click-throughs, purchases, and leads. These high-visibility locations include the front, bottom, or the side of a webpage; places where the eyes of browsers usually wander.
A great banner ad grabs the reader's attention and invites them to learn more about what's being advertised. They're bright, welcoming, and don't have much text, instead using images or multimedia to convey a message. Check out this banner ad as an example:
Now let's look at it from the other side of the coin. Let's say you're an advertiser. You want to increase more visibility for your brand, so you want your ads to show up on high-trafficked websites that your target buyers visit. You pay the display network directly (rather than the publishing outlet) for ad placements, and you get to choose the types of websites your banner ads will display on. If effective, you get low costs per click, and this turns into real ROI for your business.
Because it's an auction-style system, the cost of a banner ads campaign will vary according to the display network you choose, the ad's size, how competitive your vertical is, the popularity and the nature of the website placements you earn, and more. However, according to WordStream, the cost per click for a banner ad on the Google Display Network averages around $0.58.
Pricing structures vary between each display network, but they typically use an "auction" style system where you bid for your ad placements. In many cases, you can choose whether you bid based on a CPC or CPM model. The former is better for conversions while the latter is better for brand awareness and visibility.
Now that you have an idea of average banner ad price tags, you can imagine that ad placement and banner size have a big impact on how often your ads are seen and clicked on. Let's take a closer look at these two variables below:
While advertisers get a lot of latitude on which sites they appear on, they may not have a lot of control over where they appear on that site. On-page ad placement is in the hands of the publishing outlet. However, they do have a financial incentive to place ads in high-value locations. Remember, they get a "commission" from the display network. With that banner ads perform best when they're:
Let's say you have all the tools for creating your banner ad in place. While the actual execution of the design is up to you, it's important to incorporate these elements in your ad to make sure it's effective, and not just something that crowds up a webpage.
Some banner ads don't even have text or images at all, just a logo and a CTA. Though your ad doesn't need to be that minimalist, it doesn't need to have as much information as you may think. If your ad has more than one short sentence, it may be too much.
With the logo, an engaging call to action, and a simple design, all five points of an incredible banner ad are covered, and it's effective. For students browsing Amazon or professionals building their home office, this ad would be an excellent cater to them.
Providing all the specs of a car on a banner ad isn't possible without the ad looking too busy. Chevy chose to play with text in order to keep the information there without being overwhelming. Moreover, they chose essential information and wording to make sure the impact would be as great as it can be.
Best Buy does this exceptionally well in this banner ad. They likely knew that one barrier to buying a phone online from Best Buy is needing to activate it in store. In this ad, they assure their audience that this isn't necessary, making the implication that "Buying from us will be convenient, so shop without worry." This is particularly timely when people may be actively avoiding hectic holiday shopping.
You've probably interacted with a ton of banner ads with minimal knowledge of them. The truth is that they're a great asset to boosting visits to your site and expanding your audience. Not that complicated, right?
Depending on where you decide to advertise, your ad costs will vary. The average cost of an advertisement on Google Ads is $2.32 per click. The average cost per click of an ad on the Display Network is less than 58Â.
This vertical banner catches your eye with a simple but effective visual of a shoe on a blue background. Allbirds uses this digital marketing campaign to attract internet users who share its vision to support sustainability and the environment.
American Express uses an animated GIF to communicate multiple messages about its account options through its one small square banner ad. The movement of this animated banner is sure to attract more eyes to this banner ad.
Using a beautiful photograph or piece of artwork is a great way to catch the eye of people browsing the web. This ad campaign for the new Star Wars series, Andor, is a great example of an advertising banner that will stand out on any web page.
Sometimes simple is more eye-catching on a busy site than an ad jam packed with information and visuals. ÅŒura uses a straightforward background, image, and font with this square banner ad to make its product stand out.
If you have the budget, take advantage of large banner sizes to get your ad noticed. This Enfamil ad put up by Walmart is able to use the higher specs of this half-page ad to include better graphics, pictures, and more information.
Depending on your industry, you may know of some niche websites that are very popular and have an advertising program. Reach out to the operators of those sites and find out their advertising rates. These sites can sometimes be the best bang for your buck when it comes to banner ads.
First things first: you need to decide where you want to host your ad. Ensure the websites, affiliates, and networks you use align with your business goals and that they will reach your target audience.
This is an involved, time-consuming way to place your banner ads, but it does offer some significant advantages. Mainly, placing all your banner ads yourself gives you a lot of control over how you advertise. You can fully investigate potential publisher sites to decide if their content matches yours and you can often work with the site to find the best location for your ad. This can be a relatively inexpensive way of advertising, if you target small Web sites that don't attract a lot of other advertisers. If you choose such sites carefully, your banner ad can be fairly effective. A small Web site that caters to a particular niche may not have very high traffic, but the people who do visit are all interested in some of the same things. If you sell rare PEZ machines, for example, a well-placed ad on a small toy collector site could bring you significant traffic.
Larger sites will probably have a set advertising package with a relatively high price tag. Most sites sell advertising space on a CPM basis, in a package consisting of a certain number of impressions. CPM varies considerably -- you can expect to pay anywhere from $5 to $100 per thousand impressions on a fairly popular site. There is such a wide range because different Web sites have different levels of popularity and different sorts of audiences. A site with consistently high traffic will usually charge a lot more than a less popular site. If a site caters to a particular niche, it may charge more than a general interest site because its advertisers can more effectively target a specific demographic. The amount of impressions in an advertising package varies, but 50,000 to 200,000 impressions sold at a time is typical of good-sized sites. Smaller sites may not have any advertising plan whatsoever, which means you might be able to work out a good deal with them.
A full-service advertising agency will do most of the work of posting banner ads for you, and it will lend its expertise to the process. Agencies help you seek out suitable publisher sites, they negotiate the price of banner ad space, and they help you make the best use of your advertising budget. Additionally, advertising agencies work with you to conceive advertising campaigns and they create professional banner ads for your site. They can often get a better price on advertising space because they have a lot of clients and can buy impressions in bulk. There are many good Internet advertising agencies, offering a wide variety of special services.
The cost of using an agency is certainly worth it to very large companies because they need the expertise and talent of professionals to make their ads competitive with rival companies' ads. It may be a necessary investment for a smaller Web site too, if it wants to establish itself as a significant presence on the Internet. Advertising is a very difficult process and an important ad campaign is certainly best handled by experts. If you have a limited advertising budget, however, you might do better to spend most of your money on actual banner ad placement, rather than marketing plans and top-of-the-line banner design.
38c6e68cf9