Since 1994, when banner advertising first appeared on the internet, there has been a considerable increase in its use in online marketing. Anyone who is serious about online advertising should learn more about using banner advertising as an integral part of their website marketing plan.

A web banner advertising campaign will display an advertisement thousands of times to targeted visitors of other websites and is an effective form of website promotion. Banner advertising is a great way to promote a website and is a form of advertising that exposes an internet advertising banner in a prominent location on relevant websites.

Web banner advertising is an excellent way to promote brand awareness, increase visitor traffic and generate sales. It is the equivalent of newspaper or magazine advertising in the online world. Banners are often animated to capture the attention of the visitor, and can display a variety of images and information including a company logo. An internet advertising banner can be linked to a specific page of a website that is relevant to the products or services being advertised, this will enable a visitor to click through to a web page and immediately view further information and purchase the products or services.

The success of an internet advertising banner depends on how effectively it is designed and the creativity used in the banner. The objective is to create a design that grabs the attention of visitors. This can be achieved by using a good combination of colors, some form of animation and a catchy strap line. Animated banners are a great way to catch the eye of potential customers. Flash banners in particular can have very rich animated content with a very small file size.

The success of the banner design can be measured by the number of visitors that click through to the target web page. Normally an internet advertising banner that offers some sort of incentive to the visitor will achieve a higher click through rate.

Banner sizes are measured in pixels, the most popular banner size is 468x60. However there are many different sizes and shapes available and an effective online banner advertising campaign should contain a mix of these. Skyscrapers in particular can be very effective as they are displayed down the side of a web page and therefore stay in view for longer as the user scrolls down the page. An ideal mix of sizes for a campaign would be as follows:

Banners (468x60) Leaderboards (728x90) Skyscrapers (120x600) Rectangles (300x250)

Costs for banner advertising campaigns vary widely, according to the required targeting options, the size of banners used and the volume of inventory purchased. Web banner advertising campaigns can be purchased on either a CPM basis (cost per thousand impressions) or on a CPC basis (cost per click).

Purchasing a banner advertising campaign on a cost per click basis is the most sensible option for a company that has no previous experience of this type of advertising. This will enable a fixed budget to be agreed for a guaranteed number of clicks and the publishing network take the risk of displaying the banner (impressions) as many times as required to ensure the agreed number of clicks are achieved. However if a company has previous experience of this type of advertising and has achieved a high click through rate for previous campaigns, then it may be more cost effective to purchase the inventory on a CPM basis.

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