10 Benefits of Using an Ad Server

An ad server is a software platform used to manage the banner ads displayed on a website. These servers are designed to make it easy for websites to sell ads. These are 10 ways working with a good server can benefit your business.

1. Keep it Simple - Adding a new ad, removing old ones is simple with a few clicks.

2. Mixing it Up - Multiple ads can rotate and display together in one placement, including those from your own advertisers and from ad networks or affiliate programs.

3. Stay in Control - You know for sure where each ad shows on your website and how often each one takes from your available impression inventory. Moreover, this server can optimize using your chosen criteria so that better ones display more often.

4. Try it Out - You can test multiple ad versions (colors, words), or locations (left vs. right) to see which is better for your advertisers and for your revenue.

5. Make your Advertiser Happy - Your advertisers have their own accounts to view impressions, clicks, CTRs, and visitors seeing their ads. This is a benefit to them since you put your advertisers in control. Or you can schedule an automatic email report to their inbox weekly so they do not have to lift a finger.

6. Target your Audience - You and your advertisers can target a very specific and narrow group of visitors from a specific region, city, time zone, or interest.

7. Sell it Smart - You can try and experiment with different pricing models: CPM, CPC, CPA, or the simple flat rate. Different ad formats can have different rates. For example, charge more for an expandable flash ad than a text link ad.

8. Display In-House Ads - You can cross-sell and up-sell other related products or promote your own advertising opportunities in the same spot. This server is a very flexible tool to manage and display ads so keep your ideas alive.

9. Report all Numbers - There are many different types of reports and statistics on your ads and your visitors. You can see clicks, views by the hour, view breakdown reports for each ad placement.

10. Maximize your Savings - By outsourcing technical operations to a reliable team of experts, you can cut costs, focus more on selling ads, and deliver better value for your advertisers.

If you are a serious website owner planning to run a comprehensive campaign or just display few ads, make sure that you get the services of ad servers - the most intelligent ad tools on the Internet today.

Making Money From Your Website: Are Banner Ads for You?

When you have a website, you hope that people will flock to your site to buy your product or service. To facilitate this, you aim to develop an attractive, easy-to-navigate website that will be a useful marketing tool for you. Wouldn't you like to make money from your website itself, even as it was helping you cultivate sales of your product or service?

Since the 1980's, when Prodigy first tried online advertising to promote Sears and other companies, opening a website to outside advertising has been a growing way to turn website space into revenue. By the early 90's, the ads were clickable banners that ultimately became traceable for advertisers. In the early years, the advertiser paid the website owner based on impressions, but later this model was changed to ad response. Currently, Yahoo and Google AdWords have perfected tracking ad response and related it to keywords.

The principle is that you can sell banner ads on your site for a fee, which you set based on how much traffic your site commands. This might be the $5-10 range per thousand page views (CPM), but increases if your site has a highly targeted audience. If you generate 20,000 page views per month at $5 CPM, you might make $100, while for 1 million views, you would receive $5,000. According to Dr. Ralph Wilson writing for Web Marketing Today, banner advertising works best on sites set up to deliver a lot of information, such as news sites, hobby or industry-related sites, directories, download sites, databases, or movie listing sites. These sites tend to pull a lot of traffic, which makes them interesting to buyers.

As a website owner, banner advertising is not just a cash cow that grazes on your site. You have to feed and clean up for the cow. Assuming your site generates enough traffic to make banner ads pay off, you need to either work with a banner advertising agency or buy the appropriate software to manage the ads. You need to capture accurate statistics on the number and type of visitors to your site so that advertisers can judge if your site is a good match for their ad dollars. Unless you are working with an agency who does this for you, you will need to aggressively promote your site space and pull in advertisers who are a good fit for you. In short, you need to devote a combination of time and money to develop banner advertising as a steady revenue stream. You have to ask yourself if the return will be great enough to justify the costs involved in setting up and maintaining viable banner ad sales program.

As a website owner, the fundamental question to consider before selling space on your site is whether it will dilute your message. Will visitors click on the ad and never come back to your site? Is it worth earning a few dollars if potential customers drift away from you site, where you are selling a $100 product, and never come back? Considering that the "click through rate," which measures how many customers click on the ad, averages only 1-2%, this is a small risk, but flashing banner ads can be distracting. If you think about the flack caused in recent years when doctors and lawyers have resorted to consumer advertising, you might also consider if banner ads are in line with your general image.

If you have a site which generates sufficient traffic to make banner advertising successful, you might consider selling space. Like any other business decision, you must carefully consider whether setting your website up to make money will be cost-effective and in line with your vision of how you want to promote your company.

Using Flash Banner Advertisements for Your Online Business

When it comes to having a business on the Internet, you will have to take the time to make sure that you know what the best ways to advertise are. There are numerous different ways that you can go about advertising online, however, you should keep in mind that not all of them work as you would hope. For example, most businesses no longer use pop up advertisements because there have been many blockers that have been made to combat this form of advertising. You should consider using banners as a way to advertise for your business.

It is essential that you take the time to set up your banner correctly in the beginning before you even start searching for a website to use it on. You should make sure that your flash banner is interesting enough to keep the attention of individuals; however, you will want to keep it simple as well. You should make sure that your flash banner has a headline that will make people want to know more. If you take the time to include graphics, you will not have to worry about catching possible visitors' attention.

Once you have attracted attention, then you will have to make sure that you are able to keep it. There are a couple of ways that people decide to go about this. Two of the main ways that people use flash banner advertisements is by first incorporating a rotator into the banner. This will allow you to use graphics that will change at even intervals. You can also use either a game or a video because this is a great way for you to advertise with a banner advertisement. You should remember that you would want to do something that will make people want to know more.

Once you have your banner advertisement set up the way that you would like, you will then have to make a decision on which sites you will like to incorporate your banner onto. Before you make a final decision, you should make sure that you take the time to speak to the webmaster to find out how much you will have to pay him or her to be able to place your flash banner on their site. If you do not have the amount of money that you will need to pay to have your banner placed on another site, you can still place it on certain sites such as social networking and article submission sites.

Writing Winning Ads That Will Attract

Dynamic, magnetic ads that stand out from the crowd! This is what we all want!.

How do we go about it? What are the guidelines?

Let's start with understanding the goals of your ad - three of them. A good ad attracts the people you want to attract - when you know your target audience - these are your best prospects. What are the goals of the ad?

1. Generating clicks from qualified traffic/visitors

2. Discouraging those people from clicking on the ad who are not likely to become your customers.

3. Establishing the expectations of your prospects so that your website gives them more than they expected - they are satisfied.

How do you attract the right prospects and yet discourage the wrong type? The clue is in the offer in the ad itself, not the sale. You can't make a sale in an ad but you can make the ad itself so attractive that their attention is captured. This is the first step of the ladder if you like.

The follow up is done with e-mails, your website and possibly phone calls, but not the ad itself.

If you are paying for clicks on say, Google, then you don't want to pay for the wrong clicks! A lot of money out with nothing coming in!

So how do you start with making your ad unattractive to the wrong person? Negative qualifiers for example. State who should not apply - ie only for serious entrepreneurs, no get rich quick schemes - if you are looking for this - dont click here.

Then it is important to manage expectations of your visitors. ie if your ad is conveying playfulness for example, then you can't send your visitor to a serious, ultra-professional looking landing page! There has to be congruency - if you are making a particular point of a particular benefit then the landing page needs to focus on that benefit. Make sure that your prospect understands that you will keep your promises - even the smaller ones that are in the ad - it is all about building a trusting relationship.

Your ad is the headline of your landing page if you like - ensure that it shows the absolute benefit that someone will get when they click through into your website.

Using the keyword and tuning to it is of the utmost importance. Who you are selling to - your target market - this is where your keyword comes from. Keep it as personal as you can to them. The Ad is all about (you) them.

The keyword is defining who your market is and what they want. It is also the message that gets through to their desires and their perception of their identity. Keeping your ads in tight groups can pinpoint more exactly the target market and therefore the tone and style of the ad; the message and then the offer can relate to what each market will respond best to.

This is a difficult market - the most competitive one there is on-line. How do you cut the cake differently? All ads appear together on Google - no differentiation into sections as there is in the white pages or yellow pages. That would definitely make life easier!

Ad Words has been likened to the game of tennis - Google rewards relevance in the ad with lower prices and a higher positioning.

Perhaps the most important rule when trying to stand head and shoulders above the crowd is, you go the opposite way to everyone else - zig and zag. Always keep in mind your prospect's biggest question of why they should click on your ad rather than someone else's - when you are composing it.

Study your competition - search for your 5-10 top keywords - print out the results. Keep studying them - note down your thoughts about each of them:

What is the tone?

What is the emotional appeal?

What is the big promise?

What proof is offered?

What features are highlighted?

Is there a logical appeal?

How do each of these ads try to position itself as different from the others?

What is the call to action?

Different is good, but perhaps not enough. Your ad must be better also! Your goal is to write an ad that sets you apart from the other ads in such a way that it will connect you with your target market. Offer what they are not after you have checked out the competition on AdWords.

Your market research can show you ideas about what your niche wants and what is currently being provided and talked about by your competition. Now you can write ads that focus on needs that have not been met by anyone else!

What are your goods and services? Can you offer them at a better price?

Slice the niche differently. Do your research. Break it down and offer differently with a better first offer than the competition. Even though the ultimate goal is to buy, the first step can be to offer something else that will whet the appetite of your prospects - advice, newsletter,reviews, samples etc Just ensure that this 'magnet' will attract prospects rather than the non-prospects.

Finally, no matter what you sell you can always position yourself as an expert in the field. Your customers are searching - which shows there is a gap in their knowledge as far as they are concerned. If your ad offers to guide and educate in this rather than just selling - then your offer can stand out because you are offering the most important thing of all - value!

Here's to your success

Where Are the Best Placements for Banner Ads?

An important thing to consider when thinking about how best to optimize advertising on your website is the best placements for banner ads. Where you place, how you position banner ads and the content of these ads can have a big impact on how many people look at your ads and click on them. You have to put yourself in the position of the user of the traffic you are targeting. In order to increase your CTR (Click-Through Rates), it is important to consider these suggestions.

The first thing one must consider is ad placement and positioning. Where you place the ads is crucial to engaging users and achieving higher CTR's. Ads that are placed close to content tend to be more successful than ads that are placed farther away from the content of the page, especially on the periphery. Heat maps of websites are good evidence of this. Ads that are placed above the fold are usually much more successful than those that are placed below the fold. Essentially, what is initially viewable when the page loads, without having to scroll down gets a lot more of the user's attention.

You must also think about the amount of ads on your website. Now, this is an avenue where you can go seriously overboard. A website with too many ads is off putting for users and for potential advertisers. Not many users will be interested in low content websites and find the large amount of ads distracting. Also, advertisers may not like competing with a massive amount of other ads.

Another thing that's important is to know your user, know what target you want to traffic. This is where doing research is absolutely essential. Decide who exactly you want to target and research that demographic. Advertising what suits their lifestyle; basically what ads would interest them is an important way to optimize your banner ads.

Ads that are animated can be useful for grabbing a user's attention; however, it is important not to go crazy. Animated ads with automatic sound can come off as startling and irritating. If an ad does have sound, it is best to make it optional as to not alienate potential customers. You don't want your website to be considered the website with the annoying ads. Also, a powerful heading for your banner ads can be a useful way for grabbing a user's attention and encouraging them to revisit your website. Also, interesting illustrations can grab a user's attention and an incentive for more information can make the user want to explore the offer further.

It is also important to consider the size of your banner ads. Larger sizes such as leaderboards (720x90) have been found to perform better since they tend to get prominent placement (header of the website) and stand more since they are larger. Other sizes that also tend to perform better are rectangles (300x250). Banner ads that are 486x60 tend to produce the worst results which may be because they are smaller than other ads and therefore are less noticeable and tend to be buried in content or since this size is the oldest size, users have gotten used to it and now ignore ads like these.

When thinking about the best placements and positioning for your banner ads there are many things to consider. Some essential things to consider include; ads placed above the fold and near content tend to be more successful. Also, one must know what target you want to traffic and also think about content of the banner ads and what will grab the user's attention. Size of the banner ads also plays an important role as larger banner ads tend to perform much better than the smaller sizes. If you would like to learn how Monetize More could find the most optimal AdSense creative combination for you site, contact us at: http://www.monetizemore.com/contactus.

Do I Need A Corporate Identity?

The short answer is YES! Regardless of the size of your business, it is vitally important that your customers recognise your branding, particularly in the increasingly competitive website marketing culture. This can be anything from your colour scheme and images to your company logo and tagline. Having a consistent look and feel to your website, brochures, newsletters, emails and so on, creates an identity that customers and potentials gradually associate with you and your business.

Many new business owners often underestimate or spend far too little time on this aspect of their business development. Large corporate organisations with big marketing budgets frequently spend astronomical amounts of money on creating a strong corporate identity. So how does the small business owner compete? Well, you do not need to! You can just as easily create your own logo using software such as Adobe Photoshop or similar (or get a professional graphic designer to do it for you from about £150.00), then keep a consistent colour scheme, fonts and styles along with some carefully selected images throughout all resources, marketing materials and your website. It is all about customer perception and although there will always be competing businesses, your branding and how well it penetrates into the customers psyche is the true identifier of a successful business.

While many logos and colour schemes work well on printed materials, quite often these do not translate as well for the web so you should consider whether the size and style of logo and colour scheme will work on a website too. Make sure your logo is scalable or can be disassociated with the business name so it can stand alone to represent your business as your brand is established. Choose colour schemes that can be adapted to use for the web taking into consideration element such as background colours or heading styles.

If you have a specific logo, which is often an abstract design, initially this alone may not be sufficient to create a strong enough identity or web presence. Introducing a strapline or tagline that reinforces and explains what your business does or what it sells, makes a significant difference to customers. Customers simply do not want to waste time looking at a website only to discover that it does not actually provide the product or service they are seeking.

If you envisage that in the future your business may evolve, it is important that the branding can encompass each new area or can easily be rebranded to do so. You do not want to spend a fortune on designer fees for your whole company branding only to recreate it a few years down the line. This may also result in losing customer confidence in your brand.

Simply going through this process often helps business owners focus on what direction they want their business to take and hone down the best marketing techniques to achieve it.

When a good web designer creates you a website they should always start with questions about branding, colours schemes and styles that are either already used in your business or that you like about other businesses. If you already have suitable branding then that can be extended through to your website. If you do not have a branding, then suitable colour schemes, layouts and styles that compliment your business type can be recommended that re-enforces your identity to create a strong web presence. This is one important element to get right ensuring your website attracts the right audience, i.e. prospects AND turns them into paying clients.