INMA_A01.QXD

Making banner advertising work

As with any form of advertising, certain techniques will result in a more effective adver-

tisement. Discussions with those who have advertised online indicate the following are

important to effective advertising:

1 Appropriate incentives are needed to achieve clickthrough. Banner advertisements with

offers such as prizes or reductions can achieve higher clickthrough rates by perhaps as

much as 10 per cent.

2 Creative design needs to be tested extensively. Alternative designs for the advertisement

need to be tested on representatives of a target audience. Anecdotal evidence suggests

that the clickthrough rate can vary greatly according to the design of the advertise-

ment, in much the same way that recall of a television advertisement will vary in line

with its concept and design. Different creative designs may be needed for different

sites on which advertisements are placed. Zeff and Aronson (2001) note that simply

the use of the words ‘click here!’ or ‘click now’ can dramatically increase clickthrough

rates because new users do not know how banners work!

3 Placement of advertisement and timing need to be considered carefully. The different types

of placement option available have been discussed earlier in the chapter, but it should

be remembered that audience volume and composition will vary through the day

and the week.

Buying advertising

Banner advertising is typically paid for according to the number of web users who view

the web page and the advertisement on it. These are the ‘ad impressions’ referred to earlier.


 When payment is made according to the number of viewers of a site it is important

that the number of viewers be measured accurately. To do this independent web site

auditorsare required. The main auditing body in the UK is the Audit Bureau of

Circulation Electronic, ABCelectronic (www.abce.org.uk).

Banner advertising is purchased for a specific period. It may be purchased for the ad

to be served on:


 the run of site(the entire site);


 a section of site;


 according to keywords entered on a search engine.

Traditionally, the most common payment is according to the number of customers

who view the page as a cost per thousand (CPM) ad or page impressions. Typical CPM is

in the range £10–£50. Other options that benefit the advertiser if they can be agreed are

per-clickthrough or per-action such as a purchase on the destination site. Although ini-

tially media owners were able to control charging rates and largely used a per-exposure

model with the increase in unused ad inventory, there has been an increase in results-

based paymentmethods. Organisations such as Valueclick (www.valueclick.com), now

operate ad networkswhere the advertiser only pays for each response. This advertising

model is similar to the affiliate method (see the earlier section 3a Affiliate marketing)

except that with the affiliate method, the referring site is usually paid a commission

based on the cost of the item sold.

4 INTERACTIVE ADVERTISING

Web site auditors
Auditors accurately
measure the usage of
different sites in terms
of the number of ad
impressions and
clickthrough rates.

Run of site
Cost per 1000 ad
impressions. CPM is
usually higher for run-
of-site advertisements
where advertisements
occur on all pages of
the site.

Results-based
payment
Advertisers pay
according to the
number of times the ad
is clicked on.

Ad networks
Brokers who place ads
for advertisers over a
range of media sites
using different payment
models such as CPM,
CPC and CPA.