Archive for June, 2009
Banner Ads: How Effective Are They?
Eyeblaster, an NYC based firm that gathers statistical information through online ad monitoring estimates the average click-through rate for banner ads across the entire worldwide web to be near 0.20%., or just 1 click for every 500 impressions. Considering the average conversion rate for online merchants in general is between 1% and 3%, that equates to 50,000 impressions per sale.
Now, just to be clear, the ads we’re describing are the ones that typically appear in a fixed location on a website, often near the top or side of a page. They’re sold in quantities of ’1000′ at a time, and are for the most very untargeted. An exception to this general description would involve placing a banner ad for a very specific product or service on an equally specific website. For example: an ad for microscopes on a site that rates and reviews microscopes–pretty targeted.
Pay-Per-Click Basics
Pay-per-click advertising offers a performance-based approach to online advertising, meaning that even if your ad appears in the number one spot, you don’t pay anything until someone actually clicks on it. Google’s “AdWords” program is by far the most popular of the pay-per-click programs, having sold over $16 billion in AdWords advertisements in 2007.
Pay-per-click is especially useful for start-up websites, or for websites that have not been optimized for the search engines. It can take months or even years to rise in the search engine rankings for certain keywords. But who has that kind of time or patience? A pay-per-click campaign offers the possibility of top placement…for the right price.