What is Online Advertising?
Online advertising can mean the difference between success and failure in an online business. There are many ways to get a better online presence and advertising is one of the faster ways to accomplish this. Maybe you do not have time to wait for the results of social media or other methods. This article goes into a brief overview of the different types of advertising that an organization can possibly start utilizing.
Banner Advertising
Banner advertising is the most common types of online advertising. This type of advertisement usually shows up either at the very top of or the right sides of the pages. The reason this is the most common is because it’s easily visible without bothering the viewer from other content. The click through rate for these are also low because people are so used seeing them online. Usually either the banners are one static advertisement or multiple advertisements that are part of ad networks. This depends on the revenue goals of the organization
Advertising Sizes
The sizes of your advertisements play an important part in the success of your campaign. If the advertisement is too small the customer would not be able to notice it but if it’s too large or noisy the visitor will be annoyed and likely will not come back to your site. Below are some common banner sizes:
- Expandable (970 x 160) – This size is useful because it is expandable advertisement meaning once you scroll over the ad it will get larger. The visitor will then have a chance to click on it for more info.
- 300×250 – This ad is a great size for any website. Usually this size goes on the right-hand side of the website. Also, many companies use two of these ads to fill up space. One is at the top right and another is at the bottom right.
- 145×145- This is a good size for email newsletters that you would like to put advertising in. Another way sites use this is to have multiple smaller boxes with different ads or affiliate links.
Types of Advertisers
There are different ways you can advertise on your site. From having individual businesses pay for ad space to posting ads promoting your own services. Look at these for the right fit for your needs:
- Direct Advertisers-This means individual organizations will pay you to be on your site for a certain amount of time. Usually this can be on a month to month basis and price would depend on how many page views your site has. Use Google analytics to track this in detail.
- House Ads – These ads are specifically for you to advertise your own products or services. If you offer ad space to other outside businesses, you can use this are to promote when there are no advertisers.
- Ad Networks – Ad networks are groups of advertisers that rotate across the web based on the sites the visitors go to. A good example of this is when you are searching for cars on a popular car website and afterwards you see automobile ads on other sites you visit.
- Sell by Impressions – If you want to off multiple advertising spots on your site you can do the share voice model. This means if you have four potential advertiser you can give them an equal spit of impressions. An example is you have 20k impressions and 2 advertisers. This would mean each advertiser gets 10k web impressions
Banner Positions
Where you put the ad on your site is vital because you want the best click through rates. Here are optimum areas to use:
- Top of Page –Useful area because people that visit the site will still have a good view of the overall content.
- Right Side of Page – The right side also gives users the space needed to read content and decide if they would like to click on.
- Inside Content – If you put your ads here you want to make sure it is at the bottom of the content so your visitors will not get upset and leave. I wouldn’t recommend doing side banners along with inside content banners.
- Interstitial – These ads get the most clicks because they are roadblocks that force the visitor to view the ad and act. A good practice is to only allow this ad to be shown once a day for each visitor.
Overall this is a good place to start if you are considering advertising as a part of your online strategy.