Banner (or media) ads in Russia are often being undeservedly ingnored by bloggers as well as advertisers. Honestly, do you see pages with paid media ads at least regulary? Don’t only be confused by those free banners of online-stores placed to receive free clothes.
But I believe that problem is not in being undeservedly ignored but in lack of knowledge about this type of advertising. Bloggers just don’t know what and how to sell:) Of course, we are not living in an ideal world, where one post is enough to become a pro in banner marketing, but let’s try to find out the basics, ok?
What types of banners do exist on the web?
Gosh, I will do my best not to mess up everything in your heads now:)
You should understand that there are as many banners formats as people can only think of: square, rectangular, even round.
But almost each web-site includes thin long banner on the upper part of the page, what is obviously the most expensive place, cause there is no chance for your visitors not to notice it:)
One of the standart formats is also a banner in right/left column. The most wanted for advertisers among them is a place in a first screen – it always gets most of the views. The new trend – to place a so called skyscrapper in a column (banner, that is long, but not wide) – it can be very effective as well.
But talking about effective banners, impossible not to mention some of more up-to-date formats. Like fullscreen, for example. It appears above the page when you only enter it. It can be rubber (if it is always of a screen size, no matter how big the screen is) or of static size, placed in a middle of the screen. Or branding – giant banner behind the content zone that can be seen on its sides. When selling branding, people usually include all the other banners (or those of them placed in a first screen) for the better effect on page. Or flying banner – when there is something flying out of the certain place, doing something and than hiding back. Or interactive banner – when your visitor can play a game, pass a test or smth else in a banner window.
Fullscreen
Another type of fullscreen
Banner that opens when you touch it
Branding
There is also enother classification for banners.
They can be static or dynamic. In the first case your advertisers buy concrete place and stay there all the time. In other case advertiser only buys number of views of his banner. It means if you know for sure you have 10 000 views per week and your advertiser only pays for 5 000 views, you can place another banner on this spot as well, cause you still have some free views and rotate them:)
Banners can also differ by theirs graphic type. From common JPEG and GIF to JAVA, Flash and iFrame. The last ones have way more possibilies. But don’t forget, that in any case, you can show movie or make a game even in a tiny 300×200 px space. The more original and unusual media advert is, the more effective it can be!
There is no better type of media ads. It all depends on your goal. Don’t forget to create smth new for each your partner! It will help him and you:)
How the payment for banners is calculated?
Trust me, knowing all the definitions will make you feel like a web queen:) I still think of this knowledge as of one of my advantages (though I will have to forget about it after this article!). But it’s not the only reason to learn about the systems of payments. The main one is to sell your space for appropriate price – good for you and your advertiser.
CPC or Cost per Click
Is probably the most popular payment system in media marketing, when advertiser pays for transitions from your blog to his site. Usually the cost is set for 1000 clicks, so be careful to decide in advance what to do in case your visitors don’t make exactly 1000-2000-5000 clicks.
CPM or Cost per Mille
In this case advertiser pays for 1000 views of his banner. It means he doesn’t care about traffic but about the image of his brand, of being recognized by your audience. This system can be very helpful in planning your income and future transactions with it in case you know your approximate views number.
CPA or Cost per Action
Type of relationships with an advertiser when he only pays for shopping or any other transaction (like subscribing for a news letter, filling in any form, etc.) on his web-site. Don’t forget to find out how many days they keep cookies. The more is the better for you now, cause it means if your reader didn’t do the transaction while comming from your blog, but returned directly to advertisers web-site in some days, you still get the money.
How the efficiency can be calculated?
There is one more abbreviation to remember: CTR or click-through rate. And that is obviously the most popular abbrevation on business meetings with Internet workers:) Cause CTR is the number showing the efficiency of your banners. That is click number devided on views number, multiplied in 100. Usually calculated in percents. Common number for Russian Internet is 0,1-2% CTR. But if you choose the right partner, that fits your audience, right place for a banner, right images, words, you can probably increase this number to several tens.
Though in my opinion, for those advertisers who work with bloggers traffic or sales are not the most important goal, cause they can better work on image here. Our readers trust us, so they will trust our partners as well. That is why in bloggers case CTR is not always as important as views or direct audience number.
That is probably the minimum you should know before placing banner spaces on your blog. Now it’s your turn to calculate the right price, cause here everything is very individual! Just don’t you ever forget – the more visitors you have and the more they love you – the more expensive you cost!
