For many webmasters, earning income from paid banner advertising on their website is a fundamental part of their online marketing strategy. However the unfortunate reality is that many webmasters make the mistake of thinking that by simply adding some web banner ads to their site; that their well on their way to earning lots of extra revenue, with no affect on their user base at all. If only it was that easy.
Selling paid advertising and building your website up to the point where you’re ready to consider accepting advertising placement is a process that needs to be carefully considered by anyone in the position to do so. Many great websites have lost considerable amounts of traffic and have dealt huge blows to their loyal user base because they placed advertisements on their website too early, damaged their design with advertising, or overwhelmed their audience with distracting and loosely relevant web banner ads that disenchanted their audience. By taking the time to break-down when and how you may be best positioned to earn money from your website through banner advertising, you’re far more likely to put yourself in the position to do so on a longer-term basis which in turn, will hopefully grow into a more lucrative channel for you as time goes on.
Timing and strategy are vital to your success
The Internet audience is a discerning bunch, and by that I mean if they don’t like something, they’ll quickly go somewhere else via the click of a mouse. Before you begin to place banner advertising on your website, you’ll need to consider whether you’re ready to do so, and why you want to make this choice in the first place? Sure, there is a ton of money to be earned from online web banner advertising, especially if you have large traffic volumes coming to your site on a monthly basis, but remember, without your audience online you’re nothing, and if you loose them, news will travel fast, and so will your chances of earning any income from your website in the future. Before deciding whether or not paid advertising is right for you, ask yourself the following questions:
- Are any of my competitors offering web banner ads on their sites, and if not, why?
- Does my site layout lend itself to traditional web banner formats, and if not, will advertisements encroach on my current design and layout?
- Do I have enough traffic to warrant offering paid advertising, or are my efforts premature? (Discussed in more detail below)
- Are there other channels I could be earning an income from before I offer paid advertising?
- Do I have a loyal customer base unlikely to be deterred by advertising?
- What sort of advertisements would I accept on my site?
- Is promoting external providers the best option for me, or should I use banner ads to promote my services first?
If by the end of this list you have more questions than answers, it may be time to rethink your strategy. But if not, you have a great opportunity to start building a new and highly profitable revenue stream.
How much traffic do I need to start placing advertising on my site?
Because successful web banner placement has long had a strong correlation with high traffic numbers coming to your website, one of the first questions you’ll need to ask is how much traffic do I need before I consider placing ads on my site? Although this is a fair question, the answer is not so simple. However one thing, which has changed over the past few years, is that no longer is it only possible for the top-end of town to earn revenue from paid advertising with a number of new providers offering advertising solutions for lower traffic, or niche websites.
For example, if your website only has a limited amount of traffic coming in each month (i.e. 50,000 visitors), you now have the chance to offer up banner placement on your website via sites such as buysellads.com and buyads.com. Sites such as these let webmasters who are at both the top-end and entry-level points of their development and traffic generation sell ads taking a commission of all ad sales. These sites, which are an excellent option for many webmasters; allow niche industries which may not be as high traffic as other industries such as technology or business to offer advertising solutions to customers who are looking for a highly targeted audience. Often you’ll find that if your traffic numbers aren’t extremely high (into the millions), you may still be highly appealing to clients who are trying to reach a particular audience type correlated to their market sector, which is where you can really start to reap the benefits. Although sites such as Buy Sell Ads and Buy Ads do require reasonable traffic levels for acceptance into their programs, they can be a great way to gauge how much traffic you need to generate a certain level of income, simply by looking at who is on their site, and how much they’re charging.
What about Google AdSense? Will that work for me?
Google’s AdSense advertising program has been around for many years now, and many different clients ranging from highly successful companies such as eBay to small blogs and personal sites use the program to generate revenue. If you’re not familiar with the program, basically once accepted, you can place web banner ads on your site which generate income for you when the banner ads are clicked. These are generally text, image or video advertisements of websites who pay for display advertising across the Google search and partner network. In what’s called a CPC model (Cost per Click), Google’s AdSense program has proven to be very successful for some, whilst moderately successful for others over the years.
However like most advertising solutions, Google’s AdSense program is a thriving business which will prove to be more successful for those with large traffic numbers, and those who can place advertisements in prime positions in a non-distracting manor that ads to the user experience, rather than detracting from it. Of the many benefits to Google AdSense, the ads are contextual, meaning that the content of your web page that the ad is placed on, affects the content of the web banner ad displayed.
Traditional banner shapes and sizes: Is your website ready?
Traditionally, web banner ads were generally produced across a number of standard sizes so that webmasters and advertisers could easily work together without having to redo artwork or alter web pages to public content. The most popular sizes included:
- Leaderboard: 728px x 90px
- Medium Rectangle: 300px x 250px
- Square: 250px x 250px
- Small Horizontal: 468px x 60px
Although these days, with the advent of rich media banners and more flexible web layouts, we are seeing many more sizes than the traditional few. However as a guide, most webmaster do still tend to build their sites to be capable of ‘at least’ being able to handle these sizes if they intend either today or in the future of adding web banners ads to their layout. Often you will see advertisers place the medium rectangle and square formats in a left or right sidebar, and the leaderboard and small horizontal sizes either at the top, middle or bottom of the page.
Selling ad space on your website or blog
When it comes time to sell ad space on your website, you have a number of different options which you may want to consider. Each of these options has it’s own windfalls and pitfalls, however if you find the right process which works for you, each can be very effective and lucrative given the right circumstance and traffic volumes.
You sell your own ads: Selling advertising space on your own website cuts out the middleman. You save on commission, you handle everything yourself, and the buck stops at you. Although this can be very attractive at first, if you don’t have the connections to the clients, the understanding of tracking software, HTML skills, and reporting skills, you’re going to find this process challenging. This is why many publishers choose to have this area of their business managed outside of their organization by professionals who are experts in the field. If you can however sell some advertising yourself, and have an agreement in place with a advertising agency selling on your behalf that any sales you make on your own are yours, then this can work well for publishers of all shapes and sizes.
You use online ad sale sites: Selling on sites such as buysellads.com and buyads.com is a great way to reach a very large audience, and hopefully sell some space on your site. However you are competing directly with some very famous websites that everyone wants to be on; so keep this in mind. Often if you can find a price point where your website is perceived to be highly valuable, this will not be an issue, especially if your site presents well and offers good value for money and great click through rates for your clients.
You hire an agency: In the early days of online advertising, even the largest companies hired advertising agencies to find paying clients for their web portals. One of the interesting developments that came from this, was that the agencies were notorious for looking after the big clients, and not so interested in the small to medium guys. As a result of this online sites targeting mid-tier advertisers spawned and the market opened up. Because there were so many great blogs receiving good traffic on niche topics, these sites really offered up some great value, which led to a change in the industry for many publishers. Never the less, if you can find an agency with your best interest at heart, try them out, however be mindful of those who have walked in your shoes before.
The CPC road: As previously mentioned, programs such as Google’s AdSense allow you to earn revenue when banner ads placed on your site are clicked. Unlike traditional paid advertising solutions where a client pays by the number of impressions or for a particular timeframe, CPC advertising is performance based, and often takes significant traffic to generate any measurable revenue. Although CPC programs are open to just about anyone, these options can take a lot of traffic to earn quality revenue, so you may be better placed to focus on building your core traffic before spending time on these options.
Determining my rates and service package
Because you’re selling a service when you enter the world of web banner advertising, you need to have a good idea of how you’re going to operate, what you’re going to offer to the market, and what you’re competitors are offering so you can find your point of difference.
First of all, we recommend considering what banner sizes you’re going to offer, and whether or not you’re going to go with a monthly sale of that banner’s space, a CPM (Cost per thousand impressions), or any other common industry model. As a guide, generally providers start by selling some CPM based options to gauge their performance, or by selling a monthly package for one banner size (maybe a leaderboard), and then some other banners using the CPM model. By doing so, you’re going to figure out where your site sits in the scheme of things, whether you priced too high, low, or whether you’re brand is just too new to the market to attract buyers.
Because you’re selling ad space, you’re also going to have to setup a mechanism to serve the appropriate number of impressions or banners per time period with minimal fuss. Service such as Google’s Double Click for Publishers are a widely used method of using off-the-shelf banner advertising software to serve your ads, but generally come at a cost. You can, if you’re efficient in programming build your own, but remember, clients want solid reporting, so you will need to factor this in to any custom service you build.
And finally, if you’re up and running and you feel you could be charging more for your banner ads as your traffic grows and your audience stay longer, make you case. If you are going to bring your prices up, by all means do so, but support your methodology. Just as in life, people want to know why they’re paying more for a service, and it’s only fair you give them a reason to keep coming back. Do so, and you’ll be well on your way to a hefty paycheck at the end of the month!
The post Web Banner Ads: When and How to Earn Money from Your Website appeared first on .
