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Instant Banner Creator Review

December 14, 2008 by John Dilbeck
Filed under: Advertising, Poll, Traffic Exchanges, Web Services 

Right at the start, I want to say that I absolutely hate all the hype and commotion surrounding product launches in the Internet marketing field. I subscribe to lots of blogs, mailing lists, and follow quite a few marketers on Twitter. Today, I’ve been inundated with messages for Instant Banner Creator.

To be honest, I was prepared not to like it, but I thought I should check it out to see for myself.

The main reason I chose to do this, instead of just ignoring it, is because I respect the owners, John Merrick and Soren Jordansen. Soren has gone out of his way to answer questions I had a few years ago and he has always been responsive to my questions and suggestions. I’ve earned a bit of money promoting his traffic exchange, Dragon Surf, over the years, too.

Instant Banner Creator Review

Yes, you can use Instant Banner Creator for free, but there are some advantages to upgrading. When you first sign up, you’ll see several OTO pages (one-time offers). The first offers a life-time membership (at a pretty good price if you’re going to be using this tool a lot). The others offer discounted memberships.

Once you get inside the site, everything is well laid out and easy to use.

Tutorials

Instant Banner Creator offers two sets of tutorials. You can choose to watch video tutorials or download a written tutorial with screenshots in PDF format.

I did not watch or read either tutorial before starting, but I’ll download the PDF version right after posting this review.

Creating a banner

As you may know, I live in an area where I’m surrounded by broadband Internet access about three or four miles away, but I’m still on a very slow dialup connection. I was expecting a frustrating experience.

When I clicked the link to create a banner, I got what I was expecting.

The first time, I had to endure an excruciatingly-slow download of the available banner templates. I’m sure it is much faster if you have broadband, but I went and did something else for 10 or 15 minutes while the graphics loaded.

Once they were cached in my browser, however, the system was nice and responsive.

On many sites, when I’m downloading lots of graphics, the servers time out and the pages don’t load. There were no timeouts nor errors when using this tool.

I was disappointed with the quality of the banner templates. Most of them are dull and uninspiring, even most of the templates that can only be used by upgraded members.

Another thing that I did not like was the fact that the graphics don’t show their exact height and width, something that I think would be very important.

I didn’t find a banner template that I liked, so I went into the do it yourself section and created a simple two-toned gradient graphic template and used that as the basis for creating my first banner using this system.

I didn’t see any clipart I liked, so all I did was add some text to the banner.

The text editor offers lots of fonts, and you can easily select the size and color of the text you want to use.

If you don’t have the tools for working with graphics and/or you don’t have the talent and experience, I think you’ll find this tool to be pretty easy to use.

For my first banner, I used a large font to show the name of the product, and a smaller font for the call to action.

When adding the text to the graphic, I did not see any tools to help space things properly on the template, i.e., I didn’t see any tools for centering one on the other. So, i just eyeballed it and centered them approximately.

The programs I normally use (Photoshop and TypeStyler) offer precise alignment tools, but perhaps for most uses you really don’t have to be that accurate.

After placing the text on the template, I could drag it around until I was satisfied with the placement and then click a button to have it added to the graphic. There is one level of undo if you don’t like it.

When I was done, I saved the new banner. At that point, the system told me the link I’d need to use to show the banner somewhere. Graphics can be stored on their site or downloaded to your computer and uploaded to wherever you want to store them. The benefit of storing them on their system is you don’t have to FTP the files around or pay for the bandwidth.

I chose to leave the banner on their site.

The system then gives the option of linking to a target destination, and, since they offer an affiliate program, I chose to link to my affiliate page. When I entered the URL and clicked the appropriate button, their system gave the complete link for showing the graphic and linking to the destination page.

I choose to open off-site links in a new window or tab, so I added the target code to the HTML they provided.

Now, it’s a simple matter of copying and pasting that code anywhere I can put HTML.

Like so:

I think you’ll agree that I’m no artist. Even though I have the professional tools and have been doing graphics for over 20 years, I don’t have the artistic and design talent to make the eye-popping graphics that a professional artist can produce.

Still, in just a few minutes, I think I have a serviceable banner and it is hosted and ready to go.

The banner graphic they host on their site after I saved it does not look like the banner shown above. On their site, the text is centered more-or-less and not truncated on the right as it shows here. I downloaded the graphic and it still looks right. Hmmm. I wonder if this is a problem with the CSS design for this blog. I don’t think it is, because the other banner shown a few paragraphs lower looks fine. Let me test that. I’ll get back to this later, in the comments. This center column should be wide enough for a standard 468×60 banner.

I think anyone with a modicum of talent can produce banners that get the point across, but if you want the best, hire an artist to create them for you.

While I’m unimpressed with the banner templates, I give the system for creating and hosting them a big thumbs up. I think just about anyone can work with this system and create banners you can use just about anywhere.

Of course, I’ve just scratched the surface of what this system can do. You can upload your own templates and clip art and use the system to create a new banner with different text. So, even free members aren’t limited by what’s available.

I decided to try creating a button.

Creating a button

Again, there was a very long wait while the template graphics loaded in my browser window. Once they were cached, everything sped up, again.

This time, I liked some of the graphics, especially some of the templates that are available only to upgraded members.

I’ve already described the process for banners, and it works pretty much the same for buttons.

Here’s a button I put together in a few minutes. It’s hosted on their system.

It’s not great, but it’s not bad, either.

Again, an artist could do much better, and many talented amateurs could, too. Here’s an example of one of the banners an artist designed for promoting the site:



For the rest of us, Instant Banner Creator does a good job of creating and hosting the graphics we need.

I’m giving the button creator a big thumbs up, too.

Headers and Footers

I didn’t have much more time for looking at this and decided to see what the header graphics look like. These header (and footer) graphics can be used as part of your template for creating websites, and I’m sure they can be used on most blogs, too.

Again, there was an excruciatingly long wait as the header graphics loaded. Once, again, however, when they were cached, everything sped right back up.

I played with a header, but didn’t save one.

One thing that is a big difference between the banners and the headers is that I loved most of the headers. They are beautiful. I think that’s one of the best parts of the system, out of the parts I had time to look at.

Even the free headers were very nice.

If all you want to do is create a header and footer for a new website, that would be reason enough to join and use this system.

Animated Banners and Peel Away Ads

I did not try the animated banner or peel away ad creators.

While finishing this review, I did start loading the large peel away templates, and most of the ones I looked at are beautiful, in stark contrast to the very low-quality banner templates.

I do plan to give the peel away ads a try when I have more time. When I do, I’ll talk about it in the comments to this post.

Conclusion: Thumbs Up

Yes, there was a lot of hype about this all day, and yes there are several OTO pages to go through, but I believe this system is sound and very useful. Toss in free hosting and bandwidth, and what do you have to lose?

If you plan to use this system a lot, pay close attention to the OTOs, because you can save a lot of money over what you’d have to pay with a regular monthly subscription.

Of course, I’m using my affiliate links to link to the Instant Banner Creator and I’ll earn a commission should you decide to upgrade. You can, too.

Unlike many of the tools I’ve looked at over the last few years, I feel good about recommending this service to you. Free or upgraded, it offers a valuable service to its members, and the owners are honorable, reliable, and helpful.

I have no doubt that Soren and John will be adding more features to this site over the coming months.

Hopefully, they’ll add some better banner templates, especially since that’s part of the site’s name.

Give Instant Banner Creator a try and let me know what you think.

Do you like it, dislike it, or prefer another tool or software?

Act on your dream!

JD

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14 Comments on Instant Banner Creator Review

  1. Mitch on Sun, 14th Dec 2008 11:35 pm

    2. Interesting review, John. You gave it a great thumbs up, but it certainly didn’t seem to be the way you were leaning. I haven’t quite figured out the importance of having a banner, I must say, which probably explains why I don’t have one.

    Mitchs last blog post..Number 301, A Year To Remember

  2. John Dilbeck on Mon, 15th Dec 2008 1:07 am

    3. At first, I really was leaning on giving it a thumbs down, but the quality of the graphics for the headers and peel away ads made much of the difference.

    Still, I think I left out part of my thought process, because I worked on that review for a few hours and I was getting tired and wanted to publish it.

    I have been using Photoshop and TypeStyler for years and actually prefer using them for creating banners, buttons, t-shirt designs, etc.

    It takes a lot of time to get the most from those programs and they’re expensive.

    I got to thinking about how many people don’t have the time and money to master these programs and how much you can do with Instant Banner Creator for free.

    That was the tipping point. For most people, they can make adequate banners and buttons using their system and even have them hosted on the site – all for free.

    If someone wants to create something now and then, it’s a very good solution for that. Heck, it’s a good system for people who want to create lots of items, but at some point they’d have to upgrade to get more storage – which is fair.

    I would expect a site like this to run probably 90% free members and maybe 10% paid members, who really foot the bill for everyone else.

    If I were just getting started, I’d probably be very happy with Instant Banner Creator.

    For most of what I do, however, I’ll stick with my professional graphics programs, even if I don’t have the talent to get the most from them.

    As far as having a banner is concerned, I don’t think they’re all that important unless you are active on the traffic exchanges, and then they are very important.

    I have a couple of banners I created for two of my domains. One domain, GetAFreeMarketingSite.com, redirects to LinkScout. The other links to one of my Squidoo lenses, but I don’t use that one as much as I used to.

    Here’s the banner I use on the exchanges:

    Get a Free Marketing Site

    Since I’m active on about a dozen traffic exchanges, I generate and/or buy thousands of banner impressions every month, and get regular sign-ups from them. Yes, it’s a low conversion method, but it still generates a couple of dozen sign-ups per month.

    In general I prefer using text links rather than graphics links, but sometimes the graphics work better. It’s a matter of testing.

    All things considered, I think Instant Banner Creator is a worthwhile system and provides value even for free members – if you need what they offer.

    Does that explain better why I ended up giving them a firm thumbs up?

    Act on your dream!

    JD

  3. Mitch on Mon, 15th Dec 2008 1:16 am

    4. Yes it does, and I thank you for it. Actually, I had to create a little something for Sire’s new project, which you can check out here: http://coolbloglinks.com/. But it wasn’t a real banner, just a picture. However, maybe that’s why I didn’t get the traffic exchange thing.

  4. Sire on Mon, 15th Dec 2008 8:15 pm

    5. I usually use PaintShop Pro to design banners and stuff but I think that for the many bloggers and webmasters who do not have that facility the instant banner creator would be a very convenient tool. When I get the time I may even give it a go myself as it may have a lot of time saving features.

    Sires last blog post..Wassup Blog’s Mean Woman Blues

  5. John Dilbeck on Mon, 15th Dec 2008 8:25 pm

    6. Good evening, Mitch.

    Yes, that’s a banner you have on CoolBlogLinks.com. One of the standard size banners is 468×60 pixels and there are lots of places they can be used. You just gave an excellent example of one.

    Banners can also be advertised on a huge variety of websites, sometimes free, sometimes paid.

    I use banners on some of my websites. Some placings I sell, but mostly I use them to cross-promote my other sites.

    Other standard button sizes are 120×60, 120×90, 125×125, 88×31, etc.

    You can learn all you want to about standard ad units at IAB – Ad Unit Guidelines.

    I’m going to have to check out Sire’s Blog Links when I can make some time for it.

    It’s a good reminder that I need to create a banner and several buttons for this blog.

    There’s never enough time to do all that needs doing.

    It’s a good thing I love what I’m doing.

    Act on your dream!

    JD

  6. John Dilbeck on Mon, 15th Dec 2008 8:38 pm

    7. Good evening, Sire.

    I think you’ll find that PaintShop Pro will still be your best bet for creating quality banners, but Instant Banner Creator offers other things, such as storage and bandwidth that makes it easier.

    Using their system, you also can centralize your preferred banner and button templates and save your finished graphics all in one place that is easy to get to.

    So, by combining custom templates you create yourself, and the ease of changing the text and or clip art that Instant Banner Creator provides, it could be a really nice combination.

    And, as you say, for people who don’t have the professional graphics programs, or the skill and talent required, I think ISB provides real value.

    Good to see you, again. I’m planning on getting over to your blog tonight. It’ll be good to catch up and see what you’ve been up to for the last few weeks.

    Act on your dream!

    JD

  7. Sire on Mon, 15th Dec 2008 10:24 pm

    8. Don’t expect too much John, I would hate to disappoint you ;)

    Sires last blog post..Increase Return Commentators With A Simple Plugin

  8. Brian D. Hawkins on Mon, 15th Dec 2008 11:35 pm

    9. I really like that button John. That was almost enough to get me to sign up, your honest review pushed me over the edge. It will be nice to make a quick banner without loading a program.

    Like Sire I use PaintShop Pro (Older version 7) I also like Gimp a lot. I had Photoshop once but it took me all day to figure out how to do anything. Way too complicated for what I need.

    BTW, if you have a minute can you go to my site and let me know how well it loads with a dialup connection. I’ve been wondering because it’s heavy in both content, script and graphics. I have a feeling it will load slow, I just hope it doesn’t time out.

    Brian D. Hawkinss last blog post..Just Ask Someone

  9. John Dilbeck on Tue, 16th Dec 2008 12:32 am

    10. Good evening, Brian.

    Welcome to our discussion.

    I know what you mean about complicated programs. They are a real pain to learn.

    I guess I’ve been using Photoshop so long that I don’t really remember learning it. Actually, for most of what I do these days, I’m probably using less than 20% of what it’s capable of doing.

    I hope you’ll drop back in after you’ve had a chance to use Instant Banner Creator and let us know what you think of it. I know I’d rather learn that than tackle Photoshop, GIMP, or PaintShop Pro as a beginner!

    (Photoshop was a lot simpler when I originally learned it. One of our main problems back then was dodging the remaining dinosaurs that were still wandering around.)

    For your site, it took about 90 seconds for the article text to show up so I could start reading. It looks like all your content was loaded by about 4 minutes, although the recent visitors widgets were still loading avatars for another minute or two. I didn’t see any timeouts or problems.

    And, when I say I’m on a slow dialup connection, I mean it. Most days I connect at 24K and now and then manage a bit more. I’ve never seen 30K, let alone 56K. There’s a lot of ancient copper between me and the phone company.

    I’ve learned to have multiple tabs open and I generally work on something else while a site is loading, so it’s not as bothersome as it may sound.

    It beats the heck out of those 110 baud modems I rented from AT&T Longlines back in the late 1970s. ;)

    Thanks for dropping in. I hope you like Instant Banner Creator.

    Act on your dream!

    JD

  10. Mitch on Tue, 16th Dec 2008 1:09 am

    11. Hi John,

    It showed up as a banner, but all I did was a screen print of my main page, then cropped it into a banner of some size. I figure that should be good enough, eh?

    Mitchs last blog post..Website Marketing Tool Book; Price Increased

  11. Sire on Tue, 16th Dec 2008 1:39 am

    12. @ Brian, that is the same version I’m using and I still don’t know all the ins and outs of that program. :(

    Sires last blog post..Increase Return Commentators With A Simple Plugin

  12. John Dilbeck on Tue, 16th Dec 2008 4:04 am

    13. Hi Mitch,

    Sure, that should work, as long as the graphic is the correct size for Sire’s script. Some scripts also check for file size, so usually it’s a good idea to make the graphics smaller in size so they’ll load faster (smaller in kilobytes, not pixels).

    Most scripts can handle graphics in jpg or gif format. An increasing number can handle png graphics, too.

    I think I mentioned that I needed to make a banner for this blog. All I plan to do is grab the title at the top, resize it to fit, crop to 468×60, add a border, and upload it to my server.

    Then I’ll have a banner, and I’ll head over to CoolBlogLinks.com and see what I have to do to join. I’m going to give y’all a run for the top spot, but I don’t have any pretty feet to show. ;)

    The tricky part will come when I create some buttons for this blog. I’m not sure what kind of graphic I want to create.

    The beauty of it is that they can always be changed if they don’t work out the way we like.

    Act on your dream!

    JD

    PS. Regarding changing buttons and banners. That’s how the banners work for the special promotions of Site Build It!.

    A few months ago, the affiliate manager introduced the new special promotions ad units. All we affiliates need to do is post the proper links where we want. When there is a special promotion, the team at Sitesell changes the graphics on their server to reflect the current special. When there is no special running, they change them back to the standard graphics. Once our links are set up, it’s set it and forget it.

    Just imagine if you had hundreds of banners and buttons promoting your book. In November, you could have changed them to “Price Increase Imminent!” and then changed them back when you did your maintenance a few days ago. Who knows how many books you may have sold by spending a few minutes on your banners and buttons.

    But, now, you can get rich from that huge jump in price. ;)

  13. Ravi Kuwadia on Sun, 16th Aug 2009 7:01 pm

    14. Hey John,

    I don’t have a banner on my blog yet. I am looking to get one professional looking banner soon. I usually create small banners on my own but for one of my blogs I need a better banner.

    Thanks for the post. I will check out the banner creator soon.
    Ravi Kuwadia´s last blog ..Steps to First 1000 My ComLuv Profile

  14. John Dilbeck on Tue, 18th Aug 2009 12:38 am

    15. Good morning, Ravi.

    I hope it was able to help you create a banner that will work until you can get a professional one made.

    Thanks for your comment.

    Act on your dream!

    JD

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