Banner Ads / Media Buys
Digital Hill Multimedia, Inc.
Internet Marketing banner ads are no good if they can’t be tracked and tested. A rule of thumb is: don’t trust the analytics provided by the website the internet marketing banner ad is on. It must be tracked with internal analytics all the way to the point of conversion to accurately measure the banner ads effectiveness. If a return on investment cannot be tracked for an internet marketing banner ad it is recommended to end the banner ad campaign.
Choosing Media Buys
When choosing sites to place banner ads on, identify those sites which provide the most referrals to your website already. This can be identified using Google Analytics. There’s a good chance that a well designed ad on that site’s home page could massively increase traffic to a site or landing page.
If personas have been created for your target demographic, ask yourself: “Where do my potential customers hang out on the internet.” Once that question is answered go to those websites and look at the banner ads on them already and contact those businesses. Ask them how their banner ads campaign is doing. The next step is to contact the website you’d like to place the banner ad on. Ask them to provide detailed banner ad analytics. Remember: Take their analytics with a grain of salt.
Banner Ad Testing / Click-Through Rate Optimization
In order to maximize the effectiveness of your internet marketing banner ads it is recommended to create three versions of a banner and run each one separately per month for three months for testing (or longer if traffic numbers are low). By the end of that quarter you will know which ad is most effective and can deploy two more internet marketing banner ads that are more closely designed like the original successful ad. This way, over the course of the campaign your banner ads will be optimized for maximum click-through rates.
Landing Page Conversion Testing
It is not always recommended to send someone directly to a main website from an Internet Marketing Banner Ad campaign. Often, a very targeted landing page will maximize conversion after the click-through. Some campaigns utilize segmentation, dividing the visitors up into more than one segment and giving them a unique call to action that leads to unique content for them. Other campaigns lead visitors to a page with one action only and that action counts as a conversion. The last strategy is to allow users to navigate off of the landing page and onto the main website. All of the strategies mentioned should be tracked and adjusted utilizing analytic data and Google Website Optimizer Testing.