By
David Aguirre G
Banner ad placement is definitely one of the preferred methods by
marketers to drive traffic to their websites. However, for people who
are just starting out in this industry, it can be difficult and
confusing to know where, when and how to place banners that really
convert clicks into leads and ultimately into sales.
Let's uncover step by step, how to first define your audience, then, look for a high converting publisher websites, where to place your banners on such sites, and finally, when is the best time to run your ads.
Defining Your Target Audience
Defining your ideal or target audience is the very first thing you want to do to run any successful online business. Whether you are offering your expertise through e-books, your services through phone consultations, or a product delivered straight to your customer's door, it is imperative that you know what your ideal customer looks like, how they browse the internet, what their interests are, etc. To do this, you can ask yourself: what problem does my product/service solve? Who might be interested in this solution? What is the potential pain/problem that I am trying to give a solution for? What is the typical age range of my customers? Where does my ideal client live? Is my customer male or female?
For example, you might be offering a series of videos explaining how to grow, prune and care for Bonsai trees. In this case, your answers to the questions above might be something like:
Now that you have your audience identified and narrowed, when you are running a banner ad campaign (or any kind of ad campaign for that matter) what you have to ask yourself is: what is it that I am really offering and what kind of website(s) can give me the traffic I need for the audience I identified?
Still using our example of the Bonsai trees course, it would be a huge mistake to run our banners in websites which offer things like financial services, online gaming, music recommendations, etc.
Answering the above question, you could come up with the following answer: I am offering a series of videos to teach people how to grow Bonsai trees. Sites that can give me targeted traffic could include sites that talk about gardening, gardening supplies, home gardening, landscaping, etc.
Those are part of your keywords, and they are what you need to identify the sites you want to run your campaign on. To do this, you simple type into Google those keywords and ideally, you should try to advertise on the first 3 or 4 websites that came up in the results. The way to do this is opening each of those websites and go to the bottom of the landing page where there usually is a link that says "Advertise with us" or something similar.
As a side note, a very good tool you can use to research your keywords is Google Analytics. Just type it into Google and you can use it for free.
Now you have to get in touch with those websites and that's what the next section explains in more detail.
Location of The Banner - Part A
So now that you have 3 or 4 sites in which you want to advertise and you have confirmed that they actually sell advertising space on their website, the next step is to contact them to talk about specifics about your ads. Especially, pricing and location. It is highly recommended that when you are negotiating with the site owner, you make it clear that you will be paying per click, rather than paying for impression. Next, it is also important that you dig deeper on their site and negotiate to show your ads on specific pages only.
For instance, if one of your results when looking for Bonsai related keywords is a "gardening supplies" website and you want to advertise with them, the probabilities are that this site offers many types of gardening supplies, not just Bonsai trees supplies. This is why you have to get in touch with them and be clear and tell them that you will pay only for clicks that are generated on a page that is showing relevant content to your offer, which in this case could be a page that has an article about how to make your own Bonsai tree pot out of a used, old and broken home appliance.
This is very important to you, as you don't want your ad to be sending traffic to your website from people who were browsing the correct website but not the correct webpage. For example people browsing the same site about gardening mentioned above, but that saw your ad on a page that had an article about how to use manure as fertilizer...
Be very careful with this, as your budget may run out pretty fast if you get lots of clicks from non-targeted people. Remember that you are paying per click, and it doesn't matter if the person who clicks on your ad eventually becomes a paying customer for you or not. Either way, you will still have to pay for that click.
Location of The Banner - Part B
You can (and actually should) go one level deeper when negotiating banner location, and this means the location of the banner on the page itself.
Ideally, you would like to have your banner shown "above the fold". Above the fold comes from the time when ads first began being used on printed material such as newspapers. Supposedly, the ads that were "above the fold" of the newspaper sold and worked better than the ads shown below the fold. Taking this analogy to our digital world, above the fold means the space that fits your screen right when your browser loads the webpage without you having to scroll down.
So what you would like to negotiate is to show your banner at the top of the page or on either side of the article related to your desired keyword.
It's Showtime!
So now that you have all the above steps covered, some products and services are relevant only on specific times of the year, or even they are only relevant on certain times of the week. Some are so specific that are only relevant on certain times of the day.
In our example of the Bonsai trees video series, fortunately there is no time of the year in which people really can't learn how to grow and prune Bonsai trees. Probably winter isn't such a good time to promote this hobby, but nonetheless Bonsai trees need to be taken care of no matter what season we are in.
So for sake of this article, let's pretend that your video series are only relevant during the spring. And going one level deeper, you have noticed that the time people are more receptive to this kind of material is from Friday evenings up until Sunday nights.
In this case, it would be in your best interest to negotiate with the publisher (the website owner who will run your ads on his website) to show your ads only during that specific time frame you identified above. Again, remember that you will have to pay for every click that your banner receives, whether that person becomes a customer of yours or not. So for instance if someone clicks on your banner just out of curiosity but in the end he or she remembered that they have to go back to work because it is a Wednesday morning, you will still have to pay for that click.
So as a recap, remember:
Let's uncover step by step, how to first define your audience, then, look for a high converting publisher websites, where to place your banners on such sites, and finally, when is the best time to run your ads.
Defining Your Target Audience
Defining your ideal or target audience is the very first thing you want to do to run any successful online business. Whether you are offering your expertise through e-books, your services through phone consultations, or a product delivered straight to your customer's door, it is imperative that you know what your ideal customer looks like, how they browse the internet, what their interests are, etc. To do this, you can ask yourself: what problem does my product/service solve? Who might be interested in this solution? What is the potential pain/problem that I am trying to give a solution for? What is the typical age range of my customers? Where does my ideal client live? Is my customer male or female?
For example, you might be offering a series of videos explaining how to grow, prune and care for Bonsai trees. In this case, your answers to the questions above might be something like:
- Problem solved: Teach people how to grow, prune and care for Bonsai Trees.
- Who might be interested: People who have this hobby
- Potential pain/problem being solved: The need to have someone to teach them how to grow Bonsai trees
- Age range: adults between 50 and 60 years old, but this is not an exclusive age range
- Customer location: In the case of Bonsai trees, this could be irrelevant
- Gender: Both males and females
Now that you have your audience identified and narrowed, when you are running a banner ad campaign (or any kind of ad campaign for that matter) what you have to ask yourself is: what is it that I am really offering and what kind of website(s) can give me the traffic I need for the audience I identified?
Still using our example of the Bonsai trees course, it would be a huge mistake to run our banners in websites which offer things like financial services, online gaming, music recommendations, etc.
Answering the above question, you could come up with the following answer: I am offering a series of videos to teach people how to grow Bonsai trees. Sites that can give me targeted traffic could include sites that talk about gardening, gardening supplies, home gardening, landscaping, etc.
Those are part of your keywords, and they are what you need to identify the sites you want to run your campaign on. To do this, you simple type into Google those keywords and ideally, you should try to advertise on the first 3 or 4 websites that came up in the results. The way to do this is opening each of those websites and go to the bottom of the landing page where there usually is a link that says "Advertise with us" or something similar.
As a side note, a very good tool you can use to research your keywords is Google Analytics. Just type it into Google and you can use it for free.
Now you have to get in touch with those websites and that's what the next section explains in more detail.
Location of The Banner - Part A
So now that you have 3 or 4 sites in which you want to advertise and you have confirmed that they actually sell advertising space on their website, the next step is to contact them to talk about specifics about your ads. Especially, pricing and location. It is highly recommended that when you are negotiating with the site owner, you make it clear that you will be paying per click, rather than paying for impression. Next, it is also important that you dig deeper on their site and negotiate to show your ads on specific pages only.
For instance, if one of your results when looking for Bonsai related keywords is a "gardening supplies" website and you want to advertise with them, the probabilities are that this site offers many types of gardening supplies, not just Bonsai trees supplies. This is why you have to get in touch with them and be clear and tell them that you will pay only for clicks that are generated on a page that is showing relevant content to your offer, which in this case could be a page that has an article about how to make your own Bonsai tree pot out of a used, old and broken home appliance.
This is very important to you, as you don't want your ad to be sending traffic to your website from people who were browsing the correct website but not the correct webpage. For example people browsing the same site about gardening mentioned above, but that saw your ad on a page that had an article about how to use manure as fertilizer...
Be very careful with this, as your budget may run out pretty fast if you get lots of clicks from non-targeted people. Remember that you are paying per click, and it doesn't matter if the person who clicks on your ad eventually becomes a paying customer for you or not. Either way, you will still have to pay for that click.
Location of The Banner - Part B
You can (and actually should) go one level deeper when negotiating banner location, and this means the location of the banner on the page itself.
Ideally, you would like to have your banner shown "above the fold". Above the fold comes from the time when ads first began being used on printed material such as newspapers. Supposedly, the ads that were "above the fold" of the newspaper sold and worked better than the ads shown below the fold. Taking this analogy to our digital world, above the fold means the space that fits your screen right when your browser loads the webpage without you having to scroll down.
So what you would like to negotiate is to show your banner at the top of the page or on either side of the article related to your desired keyword.
It's Showtime!
So now that you have all the above steps covered, some products and services are relevant only on specific times of the year, or even they are only relevant on certain times of the week. Some are so specific that are only relevant on certain times of the day.
In our example of the Bonsai trees video series, fortunately there is no time of the year in which people really can't learn how to grow and prune Bonsai trees. Probably winter isn't such a good time to promote this hobby, but nonetheless Bonsai trees need to be taken care of no matter what season we are in.
So for sake of this article, let's pretend that your video series are only relevant during the spring. And going one level deeper, you have noticed that the time people are more receptive to this kind of material is from Friday evenings up until Sunday nights.
In this case, it would be in your best interest to negotiate with the publisher (the website owner who will run your ads on his website) to show your ads only during that specific time frame you identified above. Again, remember that you will have to pay for every click that your banner receives, whether that person becomes a customer of yours or not. So for instance if someone clicks on your banner just out of curiosity but in the end he or she remembered that they have to go back to work because it is a Wednesday morning, you will still have to pay for that click.
So as a recap, remember:
- Define your target audience (age, gender, household income, etc).
- Carefully choose which websites you want to promote your offer in (sites that attract the same audience you are after).
- Narrow the placement of your ad to pages that have content relevant to your product/offer.
- Narrow the ad placement even more by negotiating that your banners be shown above the fold.
- Define what are the best seasons, months, days and/or time of the day to show your ads.
My name is David Aguirre and I am a full-time marketer. My goal
is to teach other aspiring marketers what I've learned over time so they
can apply these lessons and be able to earn a full time income working
online. If you would like to know more about how to effectively run an
internet business, I encourage you to join our community of mentors,
where you will be personally taught one on one how to be successful
online. Join us at http://www.mentoredentrepreneurs.com/?t=ezine
Article Source:
http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=David_Aguirre_G
0 comments:
Post a Comment