Banner Advertising: How To Make It Work
When it comes to banner advertising, the same rules don't apply
to everyone. If you want to make your advertising work, it's
more than just having an attractive banner. For example, are you
trying to develop awareness of your brand, attract prospective
customers to your site, or actually make sales? Is banner
advertising for you? Ask yourselves these questions before
making any rash decisions.
But whatever you are trying to achieve with banner advertising,
there are few key rules to getting it right.
Don't lose sight of your objectives
If building awareness is your objective for banner advertising,
then make sure that the series of campaigns you develop will
follow this trend. Eventually, building awareness and brand will
result in traffic to your site and perhaps even produce some
sales, but don't get the messages mixed up.
Look before you leap when it comes to planning real estate
Because banner advertising isn't simply about having
eye-catching designs, where you place your advertisements is
crucial. Before you design your banners, evaluate the web sites
you will be placing them on. Is there too much information on
the page? Will your banner clash with the site's own banners? Is
the content competing with the content of your banner? Avoiding
issues like these will set you on the path to success.
Tailor your banner advertising to your target audience
With the Internet, remember that the experience your audience
has will vary. Therefore, design your banner to work with
different browsers as well as with different connections like
dial-up and broadband. Also, make sure you've researched your
audience, so, for example, if your audience is made up of
novices on the Internet, don't use a Flash based banner.
Keep diligent watch over the performance of your banner
Keeping on top of how often your banner was served and the
impact it has had to your web site traffic is key to present and
future campaign plans. Make sure you are getting accurate
results from the suppliers, because hits or clicks on your
banner can sometimes suffer due to browser caching and proxy
server caching. Caching simply means images and banners are
stored locally so that users don't have to call them from remote
locations. Once you've analysed the data, make sure you use it
effectively to make improvements or do more research.