Are Banner Exchanges Right For Your Site?
| Category: Banner Advertising | Date: 2003-10-22 |
You can get banner advertising for free, but there is a catch! You knew it was too good to be true, didnt you? It works like this. You join a banner exchange service. The service will display your banner/s on other members websites. Heres the catch! You have to earn the impressions first. You must display other members banners on your website. Typically, you will receive one impression for every two that you give, but some new banner exchanges offer better rates.
Most business websites probably wouldnt consider using a banner exchange program such as those offered by the LinkExchange and SmartClicks. Thats probably true if you are a major company with huge promotional budgets. As for most of the smaller business websites, generating publicity and attracting visitors is probably the hardest thing about running an online business.
Here are some arguments for and against you joining a banner exchange program, if you run a commercial website:For:
Free visitors: I have often read about peoples disappointments with banner exchanges. They complain about click-through ratios of about 2-3%. It may not sound like a lot, but no matter what kind of promotional campaign you run, be it direct mail, paid-for banner advertising, or opt-in mailing list advertising, marketing professionals are quite happy to achieve a 2-3% response rate. What do these people expect, a 20% response rate? Obviously these people dont know anything about response advertising.
Standard banner exchange programs offer a ratio of 1 display of your banner on another site for every 2 that you display. Some offer better ratios now, going as high as 4 for every 5 you display.
Lets say that every one out of your 100 visitors makes a purchase, then 99 of them have done nothing for you, except use up your bandwidth. If you have a banner program on your site, these 100 visitors would give you 50 banner impressions on another website, a 2 for 1 ratio. So if you get 5000 visitors a month, that works out at 2,500 banner impressions advertising your site elsewhere. If we take a conservative click through rate of 2%, then another 50 people would visit your site, who otherwise wouldnt have. Remembering that we said 1 in 100 visitors make a purchase, then youre half way to making a sale!
Free publicity: Not all advertising is about getting a direct response from the target audience. A lot of it is to get a brand name or image across. Just look at the amount of advertising and promotions you see on TV for Nike or Coca Cola. Their name is plastered everywhere. Most of us have heard of "Amazon" and we know that they sell books. In fact their brand name "Amazon" is so successful on the net, that they could probably sell just about anything with it. You should also try get your brand name out everywhere on the web and I feel banner exchange advertising is one of the best ways of achieving this, especially as its free!
Real-time visitor stats report: I use the LinkExchange banner swap program on my site. And one feature they have on their site is a real-time display of your visitor stats. I know that most of you probably use some kind of visitor tracking program, but I have found that it takes time to download the log files to build the report page. Especially if you have a lot of visitors.
It shows the total number of visitors that have accessed your site in the last 24 hours, as well as on a hourly basis. It also gives you a page breakdown of your visitors. This feature only works on the pages where the LinkExchange banner is displayed. This is especially useful if you have a number of entry pages.
Its FREE!! Need I say more?
Against:
No real control of banners displayed: You only have a limited say in the nature of banners displayed on your website. It could be a banner from a competitor. That wouldnt be too good, would it?
Banners can distract your potential customers: These banners might be a distraction for your visitors. If they saw an interesting offer, they might click on the banner and leave your site, thus losing a potential sale.
Low response rate: The number of click throughs from other websites is usually low compared to the number of banners impressions that you have displayed. You should only expect a return click-through ratio of about 2-3%. And thats only if your banner is well designed and brings across the right message.
If you cant really afford to advertise your website, then a banner exchange network is a good method to generate some publicity for your site.
About The Author
Copyright, Jan. 2000, Michael Wong, Editor and Webmaster at eBoz!. eBoz.com is listed as one of the Top 101 Best Business Sites by Windows Magazine. eBoz! offers webmasters & web marketers free valuable resources to help them build successful websites. Visit his site today!
:To contact see details below.
michael@eboz.com
http://www.eboz.com
Most business websites probably wouldnt consider using a banner exchange program such as those offered by the LinkExchange and SmartClicks. Thats probably true if you are a major company with huge promotional budgets. As for most of the smaller business websites, generating publicity and attracting visitors is probably the hardest thing about running an online business.
Here are some arguments for and against you joining a banner exchange program, if you run a commercial website:For:
Free visitors: I have often read about peoples disappointments with banner exchanges. They complain about click-through ratios of about 2-3%. It may not sound like a lot, but no matter what kind of promotional campaign you run, be it direct mail, paid-for banner advertising, or opt-in mailing list advertising, marketing professionals are quite happy to achieve a 2-3% response rate. What do these people expect, a 20% response rate? Obviously these people dont know anything about response advertising.
Standard banner exchange programs offer a ratio of 1 display of your banner on another site for every 2 that you display. Some offer better ratios now, going as high as 4 for every 5 you display.
Lets say that every one out of your 100 visitors makes a purchase, then 99 of them have done nothing for you, except use up your bandwidth. If you have a banner program on your site, these 100 visitors would give you 50 banner impressions on another website, a 2 for 1 ratio. So if you get 5000 visitors a month, that works out at 2,500 banner impressions advertising your site elsewhere. If we take a conservative click through rate of 2%, then another 50 people would visit your site, who otherwise wouldnt have. Remembering that we said 1 in 100 visitors make a purchase, then youre half way to making a sale!
Free publicity: Not all advertising is about getting a direct response from the target audience. A lot of it is to get a brand name or image across. Just look at the amount of advertising and promotions you see on TV for Nike or Coca Cola. Their name is plastered everywhere. Most of us have heard of "Amazon" and we know that they sell books. In fact their brand name "Amazon" is so successful on the net, that they could probably sell just about anything with it. You should also try get your brand name out everywhere on the web and I feel banner exchange advertising is one of the best ways of achieving this, especially as its free!
Real-time visitor stats report: I use the LinkExchange banner swap program on my site. And one feature they have on their site is a real-time display of your visitor stats. I know that most of you probably use some kind of visitor tracking program, but I have found that it takes time to download the log files to build the report page. Especially if you have a lot of visitors.
It shows the total number of visitors that have accessed your site in the last 24 hours, as well as on a hourly basis. It also gives you a page breakdown of your visitors. This feature only works on the pages where the LinkExchange banner is displayed. This is especially useful if you have a number of entry pages.
Its FREE!! Need I say more?
Against:
No real control of banners displayed: You only have a limited say in the nature of banners displayed on your website. It could be a banner from a competitor. That wouldnt be too good, would it?
Banners can distract your potential customers: These banners might be a distraction for your visitors. If they saw an interesting offer, they might click on the banner and leave your site, thus losing a potential sale.
Low response rate: The number of click throughs from other websites is usually low compared to the number of banners impressions that you have displayed. You should only expect a return click-through ratio of about 2-3%. And thats only if your banner is well designed and brings across the right message.
If you cant really afford to advertise your website, then a banner exchange network is a good method to generate some publicity for your site.
About The Author
Copyright, Jan. 2000, Michael Wong, Editor and Webmaster at eBoz!. eBoz.com is listed as one of the Top 101 Best Business Sites by Windows Magazine. eBoz! offers webmasters & web marketers free valuable resources to help them build successful websites. Visit his site today!
:To contact see details below.
michael@eboz.com
http://www.eboz.com
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