subject: Is Your Banner Campaign Cost Effective? [print this page] Is Your Banner Campaign Cost Effective? Is Your Banner Campaign Cost Effective?
Any well-planned internet marketing effort must include a banner campaign using the most popular creative ad found on the internet today. Unfortunately, any banner campaign, if poorly planned and left unchecked, can become expensive. In reality, a banner campaign with proper attention does not need to be expensive given its potential to generate traffic and sales faster than text methods.
The marketer should begin by defining goals within the business' marketing plan and a marketing strategy to fulfill them; however, the marketer should take care that these goals go beyond the obvious and provide more results than some metric like eCPM to judge campaign success.
Make a spreadsheet using excel, more specialized software, or an out-sourced service (see below) if to list a plan's specific activities, its description, reference to site(s), goals, and potential cost. Then prioritize and choose those strategies that best fit marketing objectives, business plans, and budget. The bottom of the list then provides back-ups for non-producers. Create enticing landing pages that give people a reason to give their name, e-mail address, and phone number.
Too often "management" wants to know the immediate ROI. For example, what is the percent increase in monthly sales, the number and value of new clients each month, or the number of "new" website visitors. This is a common error in judging campaign results.
Often forgotten is that advertising goals should include data that cannot be monetized. Peripheral data from any banner campaign should provide measures of individual banner effectiveness, the company's website conversion rates, landing site effectiveness, and new demographics data. These data are immediately useful to modify, on the fly, any banner campaign and contracts with ad publishers should include a provision for 24-hour cancellations for modifications.
Clearly, a banner campaign requires the marketer's continual, if not daily surveillance. Also, go beyond the websites or methods the business now uses and choose a CPA ad server to quickly and effectively increase exposure and obtain specific demographic data. Include tracking tricks like specific coupons, codes, or separate entry pages for each banner campaign spot.
A growing business should consider use of an "adserver" that is a powerful tool used to manage traffic and media buys including a banner campaign. An ad server manages placing, targeting, testing, and tracking of the internet ads in a business's advertising portfolio.
Post Click Tracking, Custom Reports, Flexible Payouts, and Custom Optimization are features an advertiser should look for from an adserver provider. Some offer audience segments by geography, time of day, browser type, keywords, and user history. Top Ad Servers include Atlas Suite, Open Adstream, AdManag, DoubleClicker, Zedo, Falk and others.
Of course, features vary so before signing a contract, a marketer should ensure that the adserver's approach is going to be able to meet their needs. If you do not know how to use an Adserver, you are really missing the big picture of what internet marketing is all about. If this overall plan is pursued and the necessary modifications made any banner campaign will more than fulfill initial goals and prove cost effective.
