LITTLE GUIDE TO E-COMMERCE (2)

Banner, Text Links, PopUp, Popunder
 

The classic use of banners, text links, popup and popunder

Banner have been the most popular choice of advertising since the beginning of intenet advertising. The difference between now and then is that in the past nearly everyone clicked on the banners, whilst today only very few people do. The advantage of the classic 468x60 banner is clear: strong branding (you can easily insert in the banner the URL of your site so that people, by seeing it over and over again, remember it, espcially if your URL is very simple). In this way you can get some people coming to see your site without you having to pay for it, even many weeks later. In addition, nearly everyone today chooses to pay per click rather than to pay per impression so that you only pay for the actual click so that if people don't click much it is still ok for you.
However, the most experienced webmasters (those with the successful sites) will very rarely choose to place banners with somebody elses's URL being clearly displayed for this very reason; in fact, these webmasters will very rarely place banners altogether (or will place them only if paid by impression)...

The disadvantage of this method is that banners are over-used and their efficacy is now rather limited (except for the branding issue which can help publicise your site, provided that you buy thousands of clicks or impressions each time and that the name of your site can be easily remembered). In addition, there is always the webmaster problem...although there are very sophisticated ways of ensuring that everyone keeps to their end of the bargain, this is not always the case as there are ways of bypassing the system. This can lead to misunderstandings between the webmaster, the advertising company and the client.

Text links generally have a better click rate than banners, and are usually considered more acceptable by surfers. However, unlike banners, your brand cannot be as effectively publicized (the impact created by graphic banners is higher). Nevertheless textual links have a greater click rate. An important disadvantage is of course the risk of 'fake' clicks. Despite this limitation, this method is still highly sought and worth pursuing.

Popup and popunder are those windows that appear whilst people surf (and in general they are not liked much). This type of solution is used by those businesses that want an "in-your-face-" publicity, but they are not usually particularly effective. You pay per window opened. To be quite honest, I wouldn't particularly recommend this option (although you can spend your money as you prefer!). Neverthess, if many companies are still using this method it must mean that they can still make a profit...

A more effective system than all the ones presented so far is to contact directly the webmaster of a high quality website and reach an agreement regarding the type of advertising that you have in mind and the economic deal that you are prepared to offer (in fact, if you bypass the advertising agency you may save yourself some money and you may offer a better deal to the webmaster). Let's give you an example. Let's assume that you have a travel agency. To publicize it you can look for high quality sites that talks about leisure time, or travelling, or Africa or Asia and so on. You can contact the webmaster directly and ask the person to place a link (banner, text link or whatever) on specific pages in their website. This type of advertisement is less expensive and more effective.

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