Successful Online Display Advertising
Successful Online Display Advertising
Successful Online Display Advertising
Display Advertising
Small businesses that are considering online marketing strategies will find this booklet useful.
This booklet focuses on using online display advertising techniques (e.g. banner advertisements)
to advertise your own business. You may want to read this booklet in conjunction with other
booklets in this series that such as “Increasing Traffic to Your Website Through Search Engine
Optimization Techniques” and “Social Media Marketing” to gain a broader understanding of the
various online marketing strategies.
Disclaimer: This booklet is intended for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, technical,
business or other advice and should not be relied on as such. Please consult a lawyer or other professional
advisor if you have any questions related to the topics discussed in the booklet. The P.E.I. Government does not
endorse any commercial product, process or service referenced in this booklet, or its producer or provider. The
P.E.I. Government also does not make any express or implied warranties, or assumes any legal liability for the
accuracy, completeness, timeliness or usefulness of any information contained in this booklet, including web-links
to other servers.
Formats for Online Display Advertising
Display Advertisements can be posted in a variety of formats. Some of these formats are described below:
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Keep in mind that click through rates can increase based on the relevance, placement
and design of the ad on the website.
An ad network’s value proposition to publishers is that it can sell inventory that the publisher can’t sell
itself – either because the publisher is small (and so doesn’t have its own sales force), or, in the case
of larger publishers, the inventory is of too low-value to merit direct selling. This kind of inventory is called
remnant inventory. “[Ad] Networks come in all shapes and sizes. There are ‘premium’ networks which work
with remnant inventory for large publishers; there are vertical networks which focus on a particular industry
or technology (such as video); and, at the bottom end, there are contextual networks which provide an
auction-based marketplace for selling keyword-based ads on small sites. You may have heard of the #1
network in this space - it’s called Google AdSense”.
Source: Online Advertising Business 101, Part I - The Online Advertising Value Chain. June 2, 2008.
• Less costly option. • Cost will vary. Ad • Cost will vary depending
placement on high traffic on the popularity of the
• Works best if website sites will likely cost more. keywords you select.
is complementary to
your business. • You control on which • You can place a ceiling on
websites you would like your budget.
• Consider if you want to your ads to be placed.
design the ad yourself or • Little control over which
outsource design. • Consider ad networks. websites your advertisement
will appear on.
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1. Ad Exchange – Finding Businesses
That Will Exchange Ads
Some suggestions for finding businesses to exchange display ads include:
•C
ontact local businesses that have complementary
websites and offer to exchange ads. Legal Issues
• S earch for businesses on the Internet. For example, Regardless of the option you might choose,
if you type in the keywords - banner exchange advertising laws require that advertising be
Atlantic Canada - you will find examples of Atlantic truthful, honest, fair and accurate.
Canada businesses that will exchange banner ads.
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Advertising Through Product/Service
Search Engines
There are also special product search engines that can be used to find specific products or services. The products
are usually ranked according to how much the advertiser pays. However, the user can also sort the search results
by price.
2. C
ost per Impression (CPM). Costs are based on the number of times the advertisements are
viewed. The M in the acronym is the Roman numeral for a thousand, and as such it is also referred to as
Cost per Mille. Banner ads are generally sold by CPM, but they can also be sold by pay per clicks. A $50
CPM means you pay $50 for every 1000 times your ad appears.
Note that pricing can also be based on number of sales, number of new leads and number of orders received.
Pay per Call and Cost per Action means that the business only pays when the ad delivers a solid lead. Click fraud
is minimized with this option.
• P
ay attention to the quality of content contained in your advertisement. It should be informative, clear,
concise and interesting. Questions or statements that create curiosity can be effective. Keep the
message and wording simple. The user needs to quickly understand what the ad is saying.
• Assess
how you can best reach your target audience. What websites would your audience likely visit? What
keywords would they likely use?
cont’d
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Tips for Successful Online Advertising
• Pay attention to the design of the banner ad. A good design can increase click through rates. Keep in
mind that good design should highlight the content in a visually appealing way. Complex design involving
animation will not be effective if the content is not highlighted. Font sizes and colours should optimize
your ad’s readability.
• P
ay attention to the placement of the ad on the website. Consider that home pages get the most traffic.
However, ad placement on other web pages may provide a more targeted audience.
• A
void intrusive types of display ads (e.g. pop-ups). Limit the use of banner ads to web pages that are
relevant to the ad’s content.
• F or advertisements placed on other websites, ensure that the websites have high traffic and contain
content relevant to your advertisement.
• C
arefully review “free” online advertising offers. For example a “free” banner ad developer may want
reciprocal links or ad placement on low quality websites (e.g. a website that contains a lot of
intrusive advertising, such as pop-up ads, a website that is not appropriate for your product).
• Where appropriate, the ad should clearly identify how the targeted market will benefit from your product
or service. If your product is geared to a specific audience, identify how they will benefit.
• For advertising via search engines, select a large number of relevant search words or phrases.
Advertise on the terms used to describe your business, products, services, the product names, product
codes, and questions a user might type into a search engine. Use keyword search tools such as
http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com to help you find search terms that result in a high number of
searches, but are low in competition (less competitive words will be less costly). If you specify search
words that you don’t want included, this will help users who are searching for a similar product (but one
that you don’t offer) avoid your website.
• Ensure that the ad takes the user to the most appropriate page of your website (e.g. the page with the
specific product rather than the homepage).
• Monitor the results of your advertising strategy and refine your strategy to better reach
your target audience.
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Tracking Online Advertising
It’s important to keep track of your online advertising
campaign to help you assess whether or not you should Popular web site analytics and
continue with online advertising, or whether you should statistics packages include:
increase your investment. Online advertising is easy to
track. You can measure success such as click-through rates, Web Trends – www.webtrends.com
page impressions, cost per sale and so on. Some search Google Analytics – www.google.com/analytics
engine companies have free or low cost tracking tools Microsoft adCenter –
available (e.g. Google Adwords). www.adcenter.microsoft.com
AWStats – http://awstats.sourceforge.net
Conversion tracking helps you track the number of sales Yahoo Site Explorer –
you receive from your advertising campaign. Reviewing http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com
your sales and the value of the sales can help you decide
Sources:
if you should increase your budget or further adjust your www.e-future.ca/alberta/ebusiness/pwt_internet_marketing.asp,
advertising campaign to better target customers. www.wikipedia.org
5. Track your success using online tools such as Google Analytics, Yahoo
Site Explorer or other analytics programs.
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Overview of Internet Marketing Strategies
While online display advertising is the focus of this booklet, it is important to consider a range of other Internet
marketing strategies as described below:
Affiliate Marketing A business contracts with other individuals or companies (“affiliates”) who market
the company’s products for a commission (on sales or leads). Affiliate marketing
overlaps with other Internet marketing methods because affiliates can use a
variety of marketing strategies. Those methods include SEO, paid search engine
marketing, email marketing and display advertising. A common type of affiliate
marketing occurs where a Web advertiser or merchant recruits webmasters
to place the merchant’s banner ads or buttons on their own Web site. Webmasters
will receive a referral fee or commission from sales when the customer has clicked
the affiliate link.
Social Media Social media marketing (SMM) is essentially a strategy that promotes your business
Marketing through word of mouth via online networking. It involves methods for
generating publicity through social media and online communities. Examples
of social networking sites include www.facebook.com and www.myspace.com
and www.nexopia.com (a popular Canadian social networking website).
Examples of SMM methods include: Joining relevant online communities or social
networking sites to help promote your business; adding RSS feeds to your website
(RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and is a simple format that can be used to
regularly update content); and blogging (where you add content to blogs); or creat-
ing a business blog. For more information about this type of marketing strategy see
the booklet entitled: “Social Media Marketing.”
Acknowledgement
Permission to publish the information found in this booklet was received from the
Province of Ontario, Ministry of Economic Development and Innovation and the
Ontario Queen’s Printer. We are grateful for their support.
INNOVATION PEI
This booklet is part of a series on advanced e-business topics which Telephone: (902) 368-6300
supplements an introductory handbook How You Can Profit from Facsimile: (902) 368-6301
E-Business. For more information on those publications, visit the E-mail: [email protected]
Innovation PEI website at www.innovationpei.com/ebusiness. Website: www.innovationpei.com