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Banner Ads on a Website: Are They As Great As They Seem?

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It may sound like a basic question because banner ads are so commonly used, but Internet marketing is constantly changing. It’s important to go back and analyze your “staple” Internet marketing tactics and assess whether or not the reward is greater than the price. The use of banner ads is one thing that often leaves industry leaders with differing opinions because of SEO, usability, and overall web design factors—and this goes for both putting banner ads on other websites as well as accepting them on your own website.

Banner ads are easy and are often one of the first things that a new website owner will use, but after a while a website owner should ask himself or herself: Are these ads doing more harm than good?

Different Types of Banner Ads Explained

Before diving into when banner ads work and when they don’t, it’s important to understand that there are a few different types and formats of ads that can be considered banner ads. There are also a few different ways that a company can decide where to place banner ads for their website onto your website. A few of these different places that banner ads can occur include:

Different Ways to Use Banner Ads

  • Category– Category banner ads are usually general and therefore you pay less for impressions. For example, if you sell hiking equipment you may want to place you banner ads on categories like sports or outdoor activities categories.
  • Contextual– This type of ad describes one that is placed onto a page that is directly related to the ad. For example, if there is a webpage with content explaining the best places to travel, a contextual banner ad might discuss travel agents or hotels for those specific areas.
  • Behavioral – This type of targeting looks at a person’s browsing history and then severs them an ad that is relevant. This ads cost more, but they are usually more effective because you’re putting an ad in front of a very targeted customer.
  • Retargeting – This is a strategy that usually uses banner ads to retarget people who have already visited a particular website. Retargeting can happen no matter where someone is on the web (not just your site) and is generally one of the most expensive ways to utilize banner ads.

Different Banner Ad Sizes and Formats

Aside from understanding why people use banner ads and why websites may want to use banner ads, it’s important to understand the different formats you can choose for your banner ad or for a banner ad you allow on your website. Below are a few different sizes:

  • Traditional – A traditional ad is 468X60 pixels.
  • Leaderboards – These are larger and of course more expensive at 728X90.
  • Skyscrapers – This shape is almost always found on the side of a page at 120X600.
  • Medium Rectangles – Normally a part of a page filled with content at 300X250.

banner ads

Once you know what size banner ad you think you want, it’s time to consider what type of format would work best. There are really three different types of banner ad formats:

  1. Static – Usually just text and a still image.
  2. Animated – A little bit of movement in the ad.
  3. Flash – Allows users to interact with the ad if they put their mouse over it.

Knowing which format and size to choose will really depend upon your reason for having a banner ad in the first place; hence why that section was discussed first. If you’re going to be spending a lot of money retargeting someone who you know is already interested in your website, it might be best to splurge for a large size or a flash ad. If you have a more general intention, a static image should work just fine. As with all marketing, testing will help you determine what is successful.

Banner Ads: The Good and The Less-Talked-About Bad

Banner ads can be both good and bad. It is clear that blogs love using banner ads of all shapes and sizes because they are usually very affordable and easy. After all, if you own a website, why wouldn’t you want to advertise for it online? The same can be said when it comes to placing banner ads on a website. For many blog owners, this is one of the main avenues to turn a profit. So the advantages seem quite clear, but what are the disadvantages?

There are a few reasons that banner ads might be better kept to a minimum:

First, free banner ads can be dangerous. If you want to put a banner ad on another blog that blog will likely want to put an ad on your blog. This will lead you with a blog full of ads, and no one wants to see that. You also have to be careful that you don’t fall into a link farm-type website where they just collect banner ads.

Second, many blogs ask advertisers to pay each time someone clicks on the ad as opposed to the impression. While this will likely bring in more money initially, it’s really the brand recognition that banner ads can offer, so you’re not getting the better end of the deal (and advertisers know this).

In the end, it is important to note that banner ads can be a good source of revenue. If your blog is not making money through anything else, it might make sense to keep a lot of banner ads; just remember to make sure there are no more than three visible at one time.

Does your blog have a lot of banner ads? Have you found that certain types or reasons for banners ads work better than others? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

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How to Park Your Domains and Why It Pays to Park

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Parking LogoSelling a domain can seem like such a process, especially if you are considering parking your domain. While domain parking seems like an extra step that you could easily choose to avoid, you should reconsider. Parking domains is simpler than you think, and worth the few extra minutes it takes to complete the following steps:

Sign up for a domain parking service. Joining a domain parking service is simple, normally free of charge, and there are many options for you to choose from. You can find a site that focuses solely on parking domains, or a domain buying and selling marketplace that also offers parking options. This will depend on whether you want to sell your domains on your own or list them on a domain listing service. If you decide to sell the domains on your own, then simply enlisting the help of a parking service will be sufficient. However, if you want to gain more visibility, while taking advantage of domain parking, a domain listing service may be the more efficient and beneficial choice.

Point your DNS. A Domain Name System, or DNS, is a database that converts your domain name into an IP address. By pointing your DNS to the domain service, you are giving them access to your domain, which allows the domain to be parked. Keep in mind that the domains must be registered in order to parked as well.

Choose a template. Depending on the service you’ve selected, you may have to choose a template to display on your parked domain. A domain listing service with an added parking program will most likely take care of providing this parked template for you, while a domain parking service may require you create the parked page. The parked template page is what buyers will see when they type the desired domain name directly into the address bar. The page will be populated by the template chosen, normally including a “for sale” bar at the top indicating that the domain is for sale and who can be contacted for more information. Having this on the page, can help sell the domain faster.

Start earning revenue. The parked page will also have relevant search terms attached to it, which generate ad links on the page. This is where earning revenue comes in. If a consumer clicks on one of the keyword links on your parked page, you will earn a certain percentage per click, with the domain service you’ve chosen taking a percentage of this revenue as well.

While this process often varies depending on the specific domain service, the basics of parking your domains are simple and the benefits are numerous. Take advantage of the revenue and visibility that domain parking offers while you wait for your domains to sell. Whether you are a domain flipping expert, or a domaining novice, domain parking is a no brainer.

As the world’s largest domain marketplace, Afternic offers an excellent parking program. Since parked domains are more likely to sell, Afternic encourages all its current and new members to take advantage of the parking program. Increasing visibility by domain parkting is a great way to make buyers aware of what you have to offer.

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What We Can Learn From Video Games in Online Business Monetisation

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The internet offers us a ton of ways that we can earn money. To understand some of the ways that an online business can operate (ie. Bring revenue in the door) is to look at the way video games monetisation has evolved over time.

One Time Access Fee

This was the original model for games. People would go out and purchase a game for say – $100 and then would be able to use it as they wished on their computers. Often the publisher of the game would set up some sort of service to facilitate multiplayer play between strangers. This would simply be a value add that the publisher provided to make more software sales. Of course, this hinged on the idea that enough copies would be sold to make it worth keeping online services up for however many years are required.  This model works fine for stand-alone games but is not a very good model for an online game or a game with online functionality, which we will discuss next.

Pay Per Week/Month/Year

To deal with that fact that a good amount of work is required to host an online game, as well as providing quality and timely bug fixes it is necessary for people to pay for their continued use of the game. This is the idea that was adopted for nearly all massive multiplayer online games. Sometimes there is a ‘box fee’ which is similar to the One Time Access Fee, this is an upfront expense to reflect post-payment for the prior development efforts.

This model is fine, and has worked well so far, but soon online game developers realised there was a better way to leverage profits from the intense feeling of community that existed within their audience.


CC BY-SA 2.0 by William Hook (contact)

Microtransactions

This is the latest model and by far one of the best methods for monetising games. It is so good that many game developers are now able to offer their games for ‘free’ or for a very small one-time access fee. Some simply use it on top a a subscription fee to earn even more money.

The way it works is that users pay money for in-game commodities which either provide an in-game advantage or simply give an aesthetic edge to their character or avatar. It has been shown that people who play ‘free’ games will often spend several hundred dollars a year on microtransactions, far greater than the amounts charged under older models.

Microtransactions are a way of monetizing the ‘community’ that evolves around a game, and can also be applied to other businesses. The transaction must be conspicuous and ideally have some sort of relative scarcity.

Advertising

In game advertising remains largely untapped, but there are a few games who are working to integrate this into their monetisation strategies. It generally has not worked all that well for games in the past. Advertising is, however, one of the best monetisation models for people who play games on a professional level. A competitive gamer nowadays is often kitted out in a jumpsuit that looks similar to a Formula 1 driver, plastered in advertising motifs.

Conclusion

Here are some of the major monetisation methods in the game world. How they can apply to your business is up to you to decide. We can’t spell this out for you. Especially consider the concept of microtransactions, and how you might be able to make them apply to your online business.

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