Global Marketing Research

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June 18th 2008

By Blaine Stevens
Tustin, California


The demise of Banner Advertisements appears to be an issue on numerous internet marketers lips these days even though the banner advertisement remains among the three most popular forms of advertising on the internet. In reality, banner advertisements are presently the most effective form of online advertising! Internet advertising expenditures increased overall in 2007, as compared to 2006 and this increase was felt in all advertising sectors of the economy and the online increase was actually less than what some experts anticipated in other advertising sectors. According to the Internet Advertising Bureau's (IAB), http://www.iab.net/ the online Ad Formats break down as follows: "Percentage use of various ad formats increased fairly well in 2007.



Search advertising revenues total $8.8 billion for the full year 2007, up 30 percent from the $6.8 billion reported in 2006, good news for space brokers like me who sell space on high traffic sites to people who are looking for more link and banner advertising space. Display-related advertising totaled $7.1 billion, or 34 percent of full year 2007 revenues compared to $5.4 billion (32 percent of total reported in 2006. Display-related advertising includes Display ads (21% or $4.5 billion of2007 full year revenues), Rich Media (8% or $1.7 billion), Digital Video (2% or$324 million) and Sponsorship (3% or $636 million). Classifieds revenues accounted for 16 percent of 2007 full year revenues or $3.3 billion, down slightly from the 18 percent ($3.1 billion) reported for 2006. Lead Generation revenues accounted for 7 percent of the 2007 full year revenues or $1.6 billion, down from the 8 percent or $1.3 billion reported in 2006.



Advertising revenues for 2008 are expected to surpass these estimates with the absolute majority of the advertisement revenues being channeled into Banner advertising campaigns*. "A Working Hypothesis Uncovers That Viewing Internet Advertisements Exclusively, Regardless of Click-Through Percentages, Leads To Sales". This hypothesis has put a fresh perspective on the time-honored techniques behind banner advertisements. Market indicators have established that there is a solid pattern coming forth from users who recently saw an internet banner advertisement and converting that advertisement experience into a sale.



At present there is a measurable as well as tangible value to an advertisement impression without a click-thru. Internet advertisers now need to pay close consideration to the 97% of general population that doesn't click-thru on their advertisements but do take notice of the content for future reference point and visits. This essentially heightens the economic value of the internet as an advertising medium,

Since this analysis establishes that merely seeing a banner advertisement exclusively will produce sales both on and offline. Let's keep these new findings in mind as we start our own advertising campaign, while remembering for a banner advertisement to work well, it will need to cover these "key" elements:



1. A Highly Targeted Audience.

You must recognize who your market is in order to effectively direct your advertising campaign*. The banners you utilize should be positioned on websites that sustain high or rising traffic and will have guest similar to and exactly to what your advertising campaign requires for success.



2. Performance Based.

Remember any good Internet Advertising Professional provides interactivity on their websites and in their banner advertisements for a better visiting experience for the consumer. This allows the consumer to take different actions, and is the very reason why banner advertisements that include the clear-cut phrase, "Click Here" have a much greater ratio of success than a banner without that phrase. In my opinion and that of many other internet marketers, any banner advertisement that does not have a call/request to action will constitute a complete waste of capital and prime advertising space .



3. Branding.

The first banner advertisement models simply asked consumers to take action to click-thru to your web site. At present you need to communicate your merchandise "Brand" so that consumers will recall it when they find the need to visit you in the future. Web site domain names which convey this "Branding" can now be more effective than ever. The 468 x 60 banner remains by far the hottest advertising form on the Internet. Current pricing ranges from $45 to $145 per thousand exposures depending on who's services you employ. Even better yet are the Free Banner Ad Exchanges that are still available (I will list a few at the bottom of this article). Yes, believe it or not, there are still many free banner ad exchange resources that could land you a constant flow of targeted traffic to your web site. If you don't have a banner to use for exchange there are still many good free banner creation sites obtainable online as well, such as http://www.addesigner.com



4. Banners That Have Been Tested & Proven...

To get the best results you should always be updating your banners based on the latest technologies, industry shifts, and use constant testing and research to continually generate new traffic. With constant testing your banners will generate beyond the industry standard of 0.2% to 0.8%. When banners have been tested and proven to generate traffic with a little tweaking you can generate as high as a 10% to 14% click-thru rate!

Now, please understand that click-thru rates this high will only occur when these banners appear on sites where the traffic is highly targeted, but I just wanted to give you a clear idea and some insight into the differences between testing banners to increase traffic and industry standard without testing. Once you have designed and tested at least 5 banners that have proven to attract the highest click-thru rate then make sure they are seen in as many places as possible!



Make sure you take advantage of as many of these FREE banner resources as you can so you'll be able to have your ads working for you in this still critical method of ad exposure online. Use the above ideas for your banner advertising campaign and watch your sales online explode just like the Pros!