An innovative use for banner ads
May 26th, 2009 by John Dilbeck
Over the years, I’ve shown many thousands of banner ads on a variety of sites, including traffic exchanges.
Now, I know some of you aren’t fans of traffic exchanges and even I don’t use them as much as I used to.
When I first started marketing online, I could depend on good banners getting a pretty good click-through rate, on the order of 1% or so. That has changed over the years and now the click-through rate I’m seeing is much lower than that, even for well-designed banners.
I still use them now and then, but not to the extent I did a few years ago. In fact, I’ve pretty much given up on them until this morning.
What changed?
I was reading an article by Seth Godin that he posted on his blog a couple of days ago: On becoming a household name
Part of what he said in that blog post jumped right out and grabbed me…
Being a familiar name takes you miles closer to closing a sale. People like to buy from companies they’ve heard of.
It turns out that this is an overlooked benefit of banner ads….
On some level, I’ve felt that it was unfair to me - the affiliate - to use some banner ads, because they promoted the merchant and didn’t really help me make the sale.
When I read what Seth wrote, I realized that this may have been the purpose of the banner in the first place - to build name recognition for the merchant while I paid for the advertising.
So, how can we turn that around? How can we use banner and other graphic ads to build our own brand and name recognition?
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about that for a new site I’ll be unveiling soon and I can see several ways that good graphics shown on similar sites can help build awareness of my new site and hopefully bring more visitors.
Even if I never get a single click-through from those graphics, they may do their work well if they help build name awareness of the brand.
It’s not a complicated concept, just one that I hadn’t thought of since I was so focused on getting clicks that lead to sales.
Have you ever thought of banner ads from this perspective?
Act on your dream!
JD
This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 26th, 2009 at 12:25 pm and is filed under Advertising, Attracting Visitors, Marketing, Promote Yourself. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
May 26th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
I used to use traffic exchanges all the time. I found that they actually did work, but about ten years ago! I can remember a time before Google when there was no real way to get traffic to your site unless you used traffic exchange programs. Ah, the old days. Now you have to build your name and get authority from other already established pages. Good luck, regards!
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May 26th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
Good afternoon, B. R.
(If you don’t know, I prefer to address people by name rather than keywords, so if I don’t know someone’s name, then I just use an abbreviation.)
I remember when traffic exchanges worked much differently than they do today. We actually spent some time reading each others’ sites way back then.
Google has made a difference that is hard to overstate.
As you say, building your name and getting authority for what you write are two very important ways to build traffic now.
Thanks for your comment and welcome to our discussions.
Act on your dream!
JD
May 26th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
I hadn’t quite thought about it like that, John, but now that I have, I’m thinking that, depending on what it is you’re doing, you might be able to use your name and notoriety in a couple of interesting ways.
One is kind of what we were talking about in the other post. That being writing a review about something we particularly liked endorsing it while also selling it. Course, that could look like it’s a paid advertisement, but I think regular readers would know better, and those are the people you’d be trying to raise your perception with anyway.
Two, for certain banner ads, if you know the product and really like it, you can type something either above or below it kind of endorsing it, like “John Dilbeck personally recommends” or “John Dilbeck stands behind”, or something like that. The idea being that your name gets associated with the product, and advertises you as well as the product.
Now, if you don’t do that because you’re marketing something you’re not totally familiar with, which I do often enough, then don’t do it, and the contrast between those banner ads that have your endorsement and those that don’t makes you look like a truly honest man.
Your thoughts?
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May 27th, 2009 at 8:38 am
Good morning, Mitch.
I like your take on this and I may very well use modified banners that say something like “John Dilbeck personally recommends…”
I wasn’t really thinking in those terms, however.
While it’s still premature and the site has been planned, but not launched, my new site for promoting selected businesses in Murphy, NC will be called MurphyGold.com.
In order to get visitors to the site, I’ll be using a combination of online linking, offline advertising and promotional products, and email marketing (opt-in only, of course).
I have temporarily pointed the MurphyGold.com domain to a page on my social networking site at MurphyNC28906.ning.com, and, just yesterday, I started working to build some interest in it.
What I’m thinking of doing is creating standard size banners and buttons (468×60, 125×125, etc) that say only “Murphy Gold” or “MurphyGold.com” and working cooperatively with other local websites.
The initial goal is to get people starting to think about Murphy Gold so that I can later expand on the topic and show the visitors how they get more for their money when they patronize Murphy Gold Businesses.
I’ve been thinking about this idea, off and on, for a couple of years and have been working hard the last few months to put it together.
In starting something like this, it’s going to be important to do a lot of offline advertising and marketing, with the goal of getting the folks in this area to start thinking “Murphy Gold” and supporting local business owners who are working hard to run their businesses and also give back to the community.
I have a meeting tomorrow with a young lady who is interested in doing outside sales for me.
In order to take advantage of the specials the local merchants will be offering, we’ve decided that a customer only has to show something with a Murphy Gold logo on it, or even the words “Murphy Gold” or “MurphyGold.com.” At first, I was going to sell membership cards, but we have decided that there should be no cost to the customers to take advantage of the specials.
Even if they show up and write “Murphy Gold” on a piece of paper, they’ll qualify. We just want them to get used to those words.
So, in this case, it’s not a matter of getting my name out there, but those words.
I’ll be competing with the newspapers and don’t know how receptive they’ll be to working with me, but I’ll be talking to one of the publishers in the near future to see if we can work together.
But, back to affiliate marketing, I like your idea of using my name on a banner to promote a product I use and personally recommend. I had not thought of that.
I further agree with your last caveat about not putting my name on any banners for products I don’t really know well. In fact, I’m pulling back from promoting products I don’t use myself and that may not be much of an issue. Still, I think it is an important consideration.
Thanks, Mitch. You have given me more to think about.
Act on your dream!
JD
May 28th, 2009 at 11:18 am
Glad my suggestion might work for you, John. I like your idea of the MurphyGold coupon; I’d actually been thinking of setting up a site like yours for the Syracuse area, and wondered how I could go the coupon road and make sure I got my “cut” of the discount, which is something you’d still need to figure out if you were going to go that route.
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May 28th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
A banner style business card with nothing more then the name…..I like it.
As for Mitch’s idea, I’d take it a step further and say, ““John Dilbeck personally uses” assuming you do of course. This cuts off the first related question at the pass.
Whenever someone “personally recommends” so,mething to me, the first question is alwa
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May 28th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
Ok and I didn’t even hit enter…
Whenever someone “personally recommends” something to me, the first question is always, do YOU use it?
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May 29th, 2009 at 9:06 am
Good morning, Mitch.
I spent all afternoon yesterday in a meeting with the lady I mentioned and, once I explained the total picture to her and demonstrated what I already had in place and what is on the drawing board, she was very interested in doing the outside sales for me.
We have another meeting Monday afternoon. I’m looking forward to it.
I don’t want to get a cut of the coupons.
In order to become a Murphy Gold business, the business owner (and, of course, the business) has to receive two personal recommendations from an existing Murphy Gold business, and those recommendations will be posted online on the site when they sign up with us.
I don’t want to call it a membership, because it’s not really, but I get paid by each business with a calendar year annual payment. So, I’ll get paid up-front and then I’ll be working to promote them and build more traffic to my local sites over the rest of the year.
Since this is going to be a joint venture, co-marketing site, only one business will be accepted in each category and we’ll be working actively with each of them to do joint venture marketing between their businesses and other complementary businesses using vouchers and coupons.
As long as they have been personally recommended by two other business owners and I do some checking to see whether their business lives up to the standards I expect, then I’ll do everything I know to help bring them customers.
In return, I’ll do everything I can to get the best deals I can arrange for the people who live in, and visit, Murphy. That means there will be a year-long special (either a discount coupon or value-added offer) that is only available using the “Murphy Gold” key.
Additionally, we’ll be helping them with seasonal and holiday special promotions.
These offers and other information will be distributed via an email newsletter.
Of course, I won’t know how it’s going to work until we do it and run into problems that need to be solved, but I have a very good feeling about this.
The main offline marketing device will be a wooden nickel with “MurphyGold.com” written on it and we’re planning to distribute over 1,000 of them at the July 4th community events. I had hoped for Memorial Day, but being sick slowed me down.
We have one business signed up and ready to go and we’ll be seriously meeting with other select business owners starting next week.
I’m going to be talking about this more on JohnDilbeckAndFriends.com over the next couple of weeks.
What do you think of that?
Act on your dream!
JD
May 29th, 2009 at 9:09 am
Good morning, Dennis.
You bring up a great point.
Does someone who personally recommends something also personally use it?
I think that’s an important distinction and also an ethical issue.
Do you think “John Dilbeck personally uses and recommends…” is too wordy?
Act on your dream!
JD
May 29th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
That’s a different way, but actually a smarter way because you’d know how much money you should be bringing in every month, whereas my way would be hit and miss. Way to go.
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May 29th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Depending on the banner size, yes. Plus it seems a little redundant; “uses” is like a 2 for 1 word. Would you not recommend something you use?
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