Zavose » Monetization

Simple, Effective Banner Advertising – 3 Great Tips

Chuck Lockhart (Zavose) — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 04:07:22 +0000

Advertising a website or business is deceptively complicated process, and those who think it’s as simple as creating a colorful box couldn’t be further from the mark. But hey, we’re here to help – here’s a simple idea for an effective banner advertisement that’ll make sure your advertising money isn’t wasted.

The aim of any website advertisement is to draw people into your website, boosting your traffic and increasing website visibility. The key phrase that most people forget when creating an advertisement is the whole idea of “drawing people to a website”, not placing your entire website into a very small box. The aim of any advertisement should not be cramming a heap of information into a very small space – instead the perfect advertisement should give viewers just enough information to intrigue them, but not enough information so that they don’t actually have to visit your site to find out more. The “ideal” advertisement should make people want to find out more by giving them just enough, but not enough. Banner advertising is essentially manipulation, but in a kinda good way.

1. Use Color (keep it simple)

Color is possibly the most underused yet most effective element in banner advertising, as it’s a big key in determining the visual impact of your banner. Try to use a vivid shade for your background, but keep it light – no dark blue or black.

As important as color is, you also have to make sure you limit it’s use – keep the background monochromatic – don’t overcrowd your banner, and make sure your colors don’t clash.

2. Differentiation Through Imagination.

The downfall of any banner advertisement is that most advertisers try to fit a thesis into a 535×100 pixel box – it never works and will make your advertisement look cheap and unprofessional. Instead, consider what is the very core of your business or website that you want to convey to your customers. What is the essential to your business? How can you help your customers? What can you offer them to make their lives easier?

In a nutshell (to use a cliche), the less words you use, and the more your advertisement makes people go “Wha….?”, the more clicks you will get. We call it differentiation through imagination – the more wild, unpredictable and radical your advertisement is the more it will be noticed, and the more it will be clicked.

Display is also important. We take the modernist approach to advertising by keeping the colors simple and uniform, however it’s really up to you here to exercise some originality. Make sure you find a font that complements your banner, and one that doesn’t clash with the background. Take a break from the generic stuff and use something different (see the resource list below)

3. The Finishing Touches

The often overlooked areas of banner advertising can make a difference to the final product. Ensure that the most important text in the advertisement is big, clear, and more obvious than anything else. Don’t overcrowd your advertisement with unnecessary images and/or text – whitespace is very important.

Also, providing viewers with an action path, such as a button that says “find out more” or something similar will help in converting views to clicks, as buttons reassure people of where they’re going if they choose to click on your advertisement.

Creating an effective banner advertisement is all about simplicity and functionality. It’s not as complicated as you think – use color to your advantage and make it noticeable. The skills demonstrated in this tutorial extend past banner advertisements alone – any type of publication designed to be noticed will benefit. And to get you started, take a look at some of the resources we’ve listed below.

Build Internet Why Niche Banner Ads Fail
Web Design Ledger The Best Free Fonts of 2009
Inspired Magazine The Science of Whitespace in Design

BuySellAds: The Definitive Review

Chuck Lockhart (Zavose) — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 08:00:39 +0000

It used to be social network websites. Then there was the video uploading sites. And now, apparently, we are witnessing the rise of the advertising networks, of which BuySellAds, a project undertaken by Todd Garland, is one of. But is it any good?

Just Googling BuySellAds (BSA, to those already familiar) results in a couple a’ million different reviews, all of which with a different opinion on whether the latest incarnation of a tired formula is worth your time. Regrettably, in an age where one good idea leads to a thousand second-rate copies, it’s often difficult to weed out the godawful from the genuinely good. So where does BSA fit in?

BuySellAds, as the name indicates, is essentially a service for both advertisers (a.k.a. you’re advertising a product) and publishers (a.k.a. people are buying the advertising space on your website), allowing the sale and purchase of advertising space through a sophisticated, well-rounded system that takes the hassle out of advertising.

the advantages

BuySellAds separates itself from other networks first and foremost through an incredibly intuitive and simplistic user interface. It’s clear that the aim of BSA is to simplify the process of buying and selling advertisements, and it certainly succeeds in this area.

Everything about BuySellAds is just easy, from listing your website’s advertising space (publishers) to buying advertising space (advertisers). The whole process is as easy as breathing, which is a huge plus for anyone who finds the process of selling and buying ads frustrating and time consuming.

A fully-fledged analytics program as well as support services are also a click away for both advertisers and publishers, again another huge advantage. At the moment banner ads seem to be the way to go, although BuySellAds is undergoing private beta testing of pay-per-click advertisements, which will allow both advertisers and publishers a bit more freedom in the future.

For publishers, your website is listed in the BSA directory, allowing advertisers target-specific searches to help find a compatible website. A gray place holder box that’s become a somewhat recognisable icon sits in your advertising space, potential advertisers just a click away to purchasing that space in monthly subscriptions.

We found that payouts were quick and seamless, the PayPal system very efficient. Wire transfers and cheques are also available as payout and payment options if PayPal is not your thing.

the drawbacks

Too good to be true? You know the saying, and yup… it is. Well, sort of…

Let’s start with the publishers. By using BSA, you are paying for the simplicity, and you’re paying for it big time. The BSA system will take away 25% of your earnings – for those who failed second year maths, that means BSA will take 25 cents in every single dollar you earn. Compared to the major ad networks out there, or to selling advertising space privately, the cut is unusually high, and can be quite damaging for higher earning websites.

The circumstances change depending what your website focuses on, but another aspect to consider regarding BSA is the fact that it is a very niche-specific network, meaning only websites focusing on tech, web design / development or freelancing have a chance of succeeding in this system. While this will probably change in the future considering BSA is relatively new on the scene, at the moment it’s a fairly limited community of websites all focused on specific areas. In other words, if you blog about the nutritional value of capsicum, you haven’t got much of a chance.

And because no one cares about the nutritional value of capsicum, and therefore you have no visitors, you will again be rejected because BSA requires a base impressions level of at least 100K per month, although we’ve found this figure to be very flexible. BSA is not all that welcoming to websites with little traffic and no reputation – you need to have a solid foundation of steady traffic to stand a chance of being “accepted” into the BSA system.

The Verdict

Publishers
For startups and smalltime blogs and websites, BuySellAds is unsurpassed as a well-rounded easy to use advertising network, so long as you can be accepted. BSA really does remove the stress of selling advertising space like no other service can, and for small time websites BSA is the ideal solution.

For websites commanding larger amounts of traffic (and consequently a bigger income) BSA may not be the solution you are looking for, only because of the steep 25% cut, which when you are earning thousands of dollars will severely eat into your profit. BSA provide a good service, but no one likes a company THAT much to give them a quarter of our earnings…

BuySellAds takes the pain out of selling advertising space and is certainly a service that should be considered for all web startups and small time websites focused in the design and web services area. If you don’t fit into any part of that previous sentence, Google Adsense, or privately selling your advertising space may be the smarter option.

Advertisers

For ease of use there is no service quite the same. We have yet to compare click through / impression rates compared to the other major services, but as long as you are advertising a product relevant to the design, tech or web services industry, BSA really is a no-brainer for driving targeted, specific traffic to your website. Stay tuned for the site-wide release of PPC advertising.

BuySellAds

Affiliate Marketing versus Advertising PPC: Which one is right for you?

Chuck Lockhart (Zavose) — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 07:47:38 +0000

Monetizing a website is an exciting yet challenging process, and depending on website traffic it can be very easy or extremely difficult. There are thousands of choices out there which will almost always come down to just two options – pay-per-click advertising or affiliate marketing? So what should you choose?

Advertising Pay-Per-Click

Let’s start with advertising. To keep it simple, we’re going to compare the most popular form of web advertising, Pay-Per-Click (PPC), a system used through countless advertising programs, the most well known being Google Adsense.

the advantages

The biggest advantage of using PPC advertising on your website is that it’s immediate, easy money. Earning 25 cents or whatever the amount may be per click is as easy as implementing a small amount of Javascript, and you’re earning straight away. The entire process of installing the advertising script, watching your profits grow and receiving your money could not be any easier, and this is the primary reason why these types of network are so popular among so many websites.

Recent advancements, particularly with the Adsense system, mean that advertisements are now targeted specifically at users using the information stored in their web browsers. How fascinating, I hear you say, but what this means for you is visitors are going to (potentially) click on more of your ads, more often, increasing your profit. And you didn’t even have to do anything.

the disadvantages

The problem, as far as PPC is concerned, is about your income, and how it can change very rapidly. PPC networks traditionally are very secretive as to how much individual clicks are worth, and this can be annoying, because your monthly profit can change very quickly.

The rules and regulations surrounding PPC advertising is enough to give anyone a headache, and limits some of the freedom you have for your monetization strategies… AdSense Policies

Using PPC advertising on your website can be a great for blog income, but you don’t have complete control over your marketing strategy. On the other hand…

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is the other option here – so how does it compare?

the advantages

Affiliate marketing means you become the salesperson. YOU are flogging someone else’s product, and getting a cut of the profit upon that product being sold. The immediate advantage with this is that it allows you to work with products you choose – affiliate marketing provides much more flexibility in regards to what you are actually advertising compared to PPC. You can implement affiliate links wherever you like, you can encourage people to click on them however you like (within reasonable limitations) – the choices are up to you, and when done correctly your profits will be larger than what you would receive from equivalent PPC advertising. And above all, you’ll know exactly how much you’re going to earn every time someone buys a product using your link.

The sheer amount of affiliate products out there means you can advertise products relevant to your own website. For example, we are affiliates with WooThemes, a wordpress theme company, and we provide affiliate links in our Wordpress themes posts. Unlike PPC which can only estimate what visitors would be interested in, by using affiliate links we can directly target our visitors with relevant products that will benefit them.

the disadvantages.

What makes affiliate marketing great also makes it suck – there is work involved. Well, not necessarily, but if you want to make the most of affiliate links, you’ll have to put in the effort. Sure, a simple banner advertisement with a link will garner you some profit, but to make the most out of affiliate links, incorporating links strategically into content, recommending products to users, creating custom banner advertisements and trawling through the countless number of affiliate programs out there will mean you need to put in the work. But when done right, the reward will be well worth it.

Affiliate marketing does not provide that instant profit that PPC provides, either. Visitors clicking on a link is (usually) not enough to gain a profit – they have to actually buy the product for you to get a cut, meaning the products you are affiliated with have to be worth your visitors time.

So what’s the better choice?

Ideally, both. No one said the two cannot work together in perfect harmony – employ both systems to get the best of both worlds. But we know you didn’t read this blog post looking for that answer, so if we had to choose? Affiliate marketing would win every time.

PPC is a godsend for small websites, or for webmasters who want the easy option, but affiliate marketing affords you so much more freedom to advertise what you want, how you want, knowing exactly how much you can expect to earn off each purchase.