Branding with Banners
Many exchanges will allow you to win banner impressions while surfing, and I get complaints all the time about it. Over and over people tell me that banners are useless, or they have no banners, or they just don’t want banner views.
What they are forgetting about is branding. It’s simple really, and it’s something many try to teach with traffic exchanges. Use your photo, because you can brand yourself. And one really great way to do that is with banners.
Simply put your photo in a banner, and get as many impressions as you can out. Of course, make the banner actually advertise your business, but the key feature is your photo being shown.
Then people will recognize your photo, and take more notice when your pages come up in rotation. Countless people have seen their results go up when they started branding. It works!
If you don’t have a banner, then of course I’m going to tell you go check out Soren’s Instant Banner Creator! I made the banner below in a minute, put it into StartXchange and had a click on it within minutes. Don’t forget about banners!
i have not try that would try to make 1 and see
It really does make you stop and pay closer attention to something when you see a familiar face while surfing. And, to go along with that, being able to get to know your fellow marketers thru the chat (on SX) gives more oomph to their pages in the TE’s.
Well, I’m off to ‘build a better banner…’
Well, if it is any encouragement to use banners, I actually have received several signups from my banners. I have never paid for a banner impression, so these were free signups.
Michael Baldwins lastest blog post..Internet marketing on a budget
I understand the comment about branding but most of us don’t have time for branding as much as we want to make money and branding seems like something that doesn’t make you money. How does branding improve your bottom line, I guess is the question?
It increases the results of your advertisements. You don’t even have to buy impressions – StartXchange you can win them while surfing, and not using them is just wasting potential ;-)
I can relate to what the users are complaining about. I don’t know the situation with StartXchange, but some Traffic Exchanges use absolutely horrible placement of their banner advertisements.
I will say on thing though, I am liking this movement towards advertisements that show up as surf pages instead of banner ads. You could brand the hell out of a product using that kind of advertising.
If you get on a TE that is doing that, and they have an average of 500 unique surfers per day… then you just put your ad in front of anywhere from 2000 to 3000 different visitors in a week.
Combine that ad with normal surfed pages views and you will be doing really well… playing into that it must be viewed on average 7 times before a user will click.
Dennis Grubbss lastest blog post..Firefox Paypal Clickbank Adsense Scam Alert
Banners will never give you the same return that a splash page will. I am like Michael Baldwin. I have received more then one signup off of banners.
I always add a banner. It takes just a minute and you leave it there. There is not a high conversion rate on banners but if there is something there to catch their eye, like your picture as Tim says, they do work.
Most traffic exchanges provide them as part of the package so why not use them. They still work if they are different. In Banner advertising it pays to dare to be different.
One thing that is important about branding is that the Internet is changing. People have been burned so many times buying fluff that was supposed to help that they are starting to deal with people they know or have seen before. If you pop up on their screen or into their inbox and they do not remember you then you have two strikes against you before you start.
They may not remember where they saw you but if you have done a good job of branding yourself you are much more likely to get the response you want. It is called spaced repetition and is an important part of marketing.
Thanks
Bo Tipton
The Ornery Marketer
Bo Tiptons lastest blog post..Put Your Line In The Water
In my opinion,
are good way to brand yourself and sow your seeds for your business.
I would like to use banners more, however, there is not enough positive information about creating a good banner. I hear a lot about banners don’t work anymore or that they are cheap to use and get a few signups. But how to determin the best infomation to put in a banner that makes it the best banner (beside my picture?)
I’d put the headline you are using in your splash pages. There isn’t room like splash pages for much more.
Tim,
I an working on this right now and the idea of having your own photo on the banner is excellent advice.
Thankyou,
Les
Banners should never be overlooked!
They are free to place – and – with an eye catching relevant one, may just be enough to catch that extra signup
BTW not too impressed with IBC (free member), think I will stick with the free ones I use already lol!
I do use banners, but not many have my picture I’ll have to see about changing that!
Thanks for all the good info.
Carole
As far as the branding goes, I always try to pick domain names that are easy to remember. That way even if they only see a banner or link just for a moment, they won’t have to think back to what the exact name was.
But in this case for the TE Banners. If you are winning free banner ads why not put them to use. It certainly doesn’t cost anything extra.
Dennis Grubbss lastest blog post..Firefox Paypal Clickbank Adsense Scam Alert
I know people use banners and I know that you can get signups from them – having my own traffic exchange – I just made some new ones and it was the banners that brought people in – I get emails all the time telling me that it was my banner that caught their eye.
Banners are getting easier and easier to make these days – and like stated before – FREE advertising – just takes a few minutes to add them – don’t miss any opportunity to keep you name ot there.
Nancy Radlingers lastest blog post..Everyone that likes contest – here is one that you don’t want to miss
Excellent point Tim. As a former traffic exchange owner I heard it all the time that banners do not work. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Along with branding your picture you can brand your logo as in the Trafficman Logo. I don’t know if Brett is going to keep Trafficman in his makeover but people were getting use to seeing TrafficMan all over because I used banner advertising everywhere. While not only did it help brand Traffic Heroes my sign up rate averaged 8%. That’s 8% of members I would not have had otherwise and people got use to seeing the Trafficman logo.
Rich Morris