Banners

In this article we will discuss the ins and outs of banner
ads. Are they worth your advertising dollars or are they a
thing of the past?

When the Web first started, banners were all the rage.
Today, they’re pretty much passé. They’re no longer a
novelty and unless they’re super-clever, users pretty much
ignore them. Conversion rates have dropped through the floor
and many advertisers have found other ways to push their
products.

And yet, every website still contains a whopping great
banner ad splashed along the top or running up the side. In
part, that’s because they’ve become more sophisticated with
better targeting and improved graphics. But in practice,
banner ads tend to be used for one of two reasons: as a
method of gaining/ giving users through an affiliate
program; or as a way of generating revenue—or
traffic—through paid advertising.

Both these methods work to some extent, but the key is
always to make sure the economics make sense. We’ll look
closely at the math in this chapter, but before we go on to
talk about the math of banner ads—and how to tell whether
your banner campaign is worthwhile—let’s just take a look at
the terms involved. You’re going to see these words whenever
you join an affiliate program or take part in any other kind
of online marketing scheme. You should definitely be
familiar with them.
Banner Glossary

* Banner Ad — A graphic ad linked to an advertiser’s
website. These usually run across the top of the page but
can also run up the page (“skyscrapers”). Banners are
usually limited by size.
* Banner Views —The number of times a banner is seen by
users. This is usually the same as "page views," but
counts the number of times the banner is actually
downloaded rather than the number of times the page is
downloaded. Some users click away before the banner
finishes loading.
* Clicks/ Click Throughs — Banners are operated by clicking
the cursor over them. Not too surprisingly these responses
are called “clicks” or “click throughs.”
* Click Through Rate (CTR) — The percentage of users who see
the banner and click on it.
* Conversion Rate —The percentage of people who visit your
site and actually give you money. The higher the better!
* Cookies — Small files placed on a user’s computer. They’re
used for all sorts of reasons and by all sorts of sites.
Banner ads use them to make sure the user hasn’t seen the
banner recently, which banner brought them to the
advertiser’s site, and even which adverts they’ve seen
recently.
* CPM — "Cost Per Mille." The amount you pay for every
thousand times a banner is shown—the usual way of charging
for banners.
* Hits — The number of times a server receives a request for
a Web page or an image. Not a great way to measure
interest. One page can have lots of images and get lots of
hits, even if it’s only seen once. Often, people will say
"hits" when they really mean "page views" or
"impressions."
* Page Impressions or Page Views —The number of times a Web
page has been requested by the server. Much more accurate
than hits: each view is a potential customer looking at a
page of your site. But not necessarily a different
customer...
* Unique Users — The people who download a Web page,
counted by IP address. You want to bring lots of users to
your site so that you can create a broad customer base.
The same user clicking on a banner a dozen times could
cost you money without increasing your sales. Most
reputable sites will check the IP address of the person
clicking on a link and only count it once in a 24-hour
period. If a site doesn’t do this, don’t advertise with
them.

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Banner Economics
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Business online, like business offline, always boils down to
math: the difference between cost and revenue. If your
banner campaign is costing more than it’s earning, you won’t
be in business for very long. To figure out how your
campaign is doing, you’re going to need to know your Cost
Per Mille, your Click Through Rate and your Conversion Rate.
These are your basic tools. If you don’t know them, find
out!

Let’s say your CPM is $20, your CTR is 1%, and your
Conversion Rate is 4%. (So you’re paying $20 every 1,000
times your banner is shown, it brings you 10 new users, and
you make one sale for every 25 users the ad brings). The
question you need to ask yourself is how much are you
wasting on the 24 users who don’t buy.

Cost per visitor = $20 / 10 = $2 So each visitor costs you
$2, but you need 25 visitors to make one sale, so...

Cost per sale = $2 * 25 = $50 ...if your product is worth
less than $50, you’re making a loss.

That’s pretty simple, and as you can see, there’s not a lot
of room to maneuver here. Margins are tight on banner
advertising and that applies to both the site selling the
advertising space and the webmaster buying it.

Of course, hard cash isn’t the only way to measure the
success of a banner ad, and one reason they’re still popular
is that they’re a pretty effective branding tool. After all,
advertisers spend millions on billboards without expecting
motorists to drive straight through them and make a
purchase! On the Web, those advertisers can even be
reasonably sure that the people who see their ads will be
interested in them. But branding costs money—lots of it—with
no guarantee of results. It’s usually best left to the big
boys.

The banner ads on my sites usually send users to my
affiliate partners, and the banner ads I place on other
people’s sites usually come from my affiliate programs. They
don’t cost me anything and as long I’m making the sales to
pay my affiliate partners, everybody’s happy.

If you do decide to purchase banner advertisements though,
and if you have a very specific market in mind, make sure
they are strategically placed—on sites where the traffic
will most definitely be interested in your product or
service. Find a site that suits exactly your specific
product and you’re going to be appealing directly to your
target market.

That’s it for this week. As you can see, banner ads are not
the guaranteed money making tools that they once were but
they can still be used effectively if targeted properly. Is
banner advertising for you? Only you can determine that.

Warmly,
Vj.Uyo

A few avoidable errors when promoting your affiliate program

In this article, I have listed a quick and easy bulleted
list of does and do not’s when trying to promote your
affiliate program.

* Many affiliate marketers make a huge mistake of posting
their ads on forums. Forums can be used to promote your
affiliate programs and your website but in a proper
manner.
Posting banners is very similar to spamming and may
easily
upset forum administrators.

* Always do your research before promoting your affiliate
program to a potential customer. Do not offer affiliate
programs to visitors who are not at all interested in
the products associated with the program. This is a
futile endeavor.

* If you promote affiliate programs offered by other
merchants, ensure that you develop your own advertising
copy. Many websites commit a common mistake of using the
same advertising copy as used by the merchant
themselves.

* Avoid Copyright infringement in all cases. Always use
original content or ask permission to use graphic images
or text found on other websites.

* Do not submit your programs to free websites. These may
be free but your programs would hardly ever be noticed,
especially by Search Engines. Moreover, your own ranking
would get lowered if you submit your affiliate programs
to such websites.

* Avoid using caps on your web page or email ad. Using
caps is symbolic to shouting, which never goes well with
potential customers. A few words may be written in
capital text to give them additional emphasis. However,
such practice should be limited.

* Always respond to all queries sent by visitors as soon
as possible. A slight delay in your response could
easily result in loss of a potential client.

* Do not use pop-up ads along with your webpage. Most
surfers are likely to close their browser if they come
across pop-ups.

* Do not host your website on a free server or use free
email accounts. This gives a negative impression to
visitors. Using free hosts and email accounts looks
cheesy and loses sales.

* Many websites do not have an opt-in list. Create an
opt-in and opt-out list for your visitors. Without
these,there is no way of tracking potential customers.
Visitors should be allowed to opt-in at any time
as well as opt-out at any time.

* Most sites have a poor tracking mechanism. It is
essential that you track all business activities.
Accurate record keeping is crucial. There are many
software tools, discussed earlier in this chapter,
than can automate your record keeping process with
minimal error.

* A 'mall' site is best used as a central hub to send
visitors to your other domains. As a main or only site,
unfocused mall sites don't get traffic from the engines,
and they don't convert well to sales. Highly focused
theme sites attract traffic and sales.

* Offline advertising may not be effective. A lot of money
and effort should not be wasted on offline advertising.
Most people rarely check websites that are advertised in
local magazines or newspapers.

* Avoid focus on animated banner ads. These simply use up
bandwidth, thus making web pages load slower.

* While advertising do not degrade other competitors. It
is recommended that you highlight your products’
uniqueness and superiority but never mortify other
products.

* Banners or text links that expire are guaranteed to
eventually send your visitor to a broken link or show a
broken graphic on your page. Time sensitive advertising
is best used only in email advertising campaigns.

* Never put affiliate links on your homepage. This is
similar to asking your visitors to leave immediately.
Give them a chance to browse, sign up for your
newsletter and decide that they'd like to come back
to your place before introducing them to your
affiliates.

* Technology changes with amazing speed. To keep up with
this rapidly evolving industry, you must invest time and
money in research. The investment is a tax write-off,
and will pay you back many times over in additional
revenue.

Hopefully this list has proven helpful to you and has shown
you some red flags to avoid when it comes time to promote
your own affiliate site. Good luck and take care.


Warmly,
Vj.Uyo

Setting up Your Own Affiliate Program (part two)

This article is the second of a two part series on setting
up your own affiliate program. In addition to starting an
affiliate program, you must manage it and keep track of it.
The following information will show you how
Managing and tracking your affiliate programs

The key to any business is to promote your products and
services to people who need them. Your affiliate business is
no different. In order to earn commissions you must put your
products in front of the people who need them. The beauty of
marketing affiliate programs is that it is anybody’s ball
game. This is the one place you can burrow deep into your
own niche and stick it to the so-called 'big wigs'.

You may create your own affiliate program or you may promote
other popular affiliate programs that are related to your
product or service. The best way to manage and track
affiliate programs is by creating your own affiliate program
website. This is where you can list all your affiliate
programs.

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Staying Organized
************************************************************

There are many affiliate networks that provide multiple
affiliate programs and merchants. Keeping a track of all
affiliate programs in a single network is easy. You would
generally be given one username and password as well as a
single interface that controls all the programs. However, if
you have many of your own affiliate programs or you promote
several stand-alone affiliate programs from your website,
the task of staying organized becomes a bit more complex.

There are many software programs available on the Internet
that organize and keep track of all data associated with
affiliate programs. Some of these are My Affiliate Program
2000 and Affiliate Assistant 1.0. These programs maintain
databases pertaining to information about all your affiliate
programs. A typical database would consist of the following
fields:

* Program Name
* Date joined or created
* Contact Name
* URL
* Email Address
* ID
* Password
* 1st Tier Percent
* 1st Tier Sale
* 2nd Tier Percent
* 2nd Tier Sale
* Total Income
* Additional comments

Once the program information has been entered, you can add
information about individual sales made and checks received.
The program then keeps track of sales to date, amount
collected and receivables. Besides, some of the advanced
software programs also provide analysis and comparison tools
for all affiliate programs. If you take the time to input
collected data about clicks, sales, and page views,
impressions, emails sent etc. from your various campaigns
and enter all of it into the program, it will show you:

* Click to Sale Ratios
* Impression to Sale Ratios
* Amount Earned Per Impression
* Amount Earned Per Click

Apart from these are a few other tips that might help you
manage your affiliate programs.

* Always ensure that your website is up and running. On a
Daily basis type your URL into your browser's address bar,
refresh the page and find out. The danger in not knowing
that your site is down comes when you are running a pay per
click advertising campaign. The click costs add up whether
your site is functional or not. If your site is down, you
are paying for advertising, but no one is buying.

* Check your statistics daily, maybe even twice a day. This
will give you a better idea of your income trends and also
highlight affiliate programs that bring your business. Visit
the statistics interface for each network and individual
affiliate partner and input your total revenues into any
accounting software. Using such software frequently will
also keep you informed as to whether certain checks have
become overdue.

* Be prompt in answering any queries from affiliate partners
or customers, especially when these are about your products
or services. This probably means that the customer trusts
your site and is thinking of buying your product.

* One of the main aspects of any affiliate program is
residual income. You've got to make the most of each and
every customer you receive. The best way to do this is by
promoting affiliate programs that offer residual commission.

* This allows you to repeatedly get paid for work you do
once. For example, if a visitor arrives at your site and
purchases auto responder services, newsletter subscriptions,
ISP/hosting services, you will collect a portion of the
monthly fees for as long as they remain a paying customer.
Membership sites are a good way to collect residual
commissions and are steadily growing in popularity. There
are many affiliate programs that offer residual commission.

* A well placed recommendation placed at the end of an
outgoing email can bring in extra sales. Target your
audience, what are their specific needs? If you can offer
them a product they need/want, often times the end result
will be a sale.

* Finally, track all your affiliate links. The best way to
accomplish this is by setting up tracking software for your
affiliate links. There are a number of scripts that will do
the job. Most tracking programs typically allow you to setup
tracking links for any product you promote, telling you how
many hits each product has received, and where the hits are
coming from. A more detailed view of tracking and analysis
is given in the section below.

* It is not enough to have a few banners and classified ads.
You must provide as much help as possible for your
associates if you want them to be successful. You should
have tested and proven endorsements, testimonials, sig
files, ezine ads, and other unique tools and techniques. You
must also make yourself available, either through email or
the phone, to help your affiliates implement these tools and
to answer any questions they may have.

* Whether you run your own or participate in an affiliate
program, you must be able to determine what methods work
best in a particular medium. For instance, which ezine ads
work best and in what ezine; which banner ads produce the
greatest clickthroughs and from which sites or banner
exchanges; and where on your website is the most effective
spot to include a testimonial.

* Some affiliate programs, have implemented unique payment
procedures to get affiliates their commission checks on a
timely basis. Some of these procedures include: online
electronic payment services, direct bank deposits and checks
by fax. If you can solidify your payment procedures from the
start, you will save yourself an administrative headache and
more importantly, keep your affiliates happy and working to
promote your program.


This concludes my series on starting your own affiliate
program. This information should be all you need to start,
manage and track your own affiliate program.


Warmly,
Vj.Uyo

Setting up Your Own Affiliate Program

This week we will start the first of a two part series on
starting your own affiliate program. Joining an affiliate
program is a neat way to make money from your users. But
just as you can join someone else’s affiliate program, so
you can set up your own program and invite webmasters to
sign up.

So…what would that bring you? The same as you’re bringing
your affiliate partners: deals. Every time someone sends you
a user who gives you money, you give a portion of that money
to your affiliate. It’s an easy way to generate traffic and
earn cash.

And you don’t need to be a programming genius to set up an
affiliate program. There are a whole bunch of companies out
there that offer entire affiliate kits right off the shelf.

Ultimate Affiliate lets you run a fully featured affiliate
program from your website. It integrates with virtually
every payment method, awards down-line commissions, and can
handle high-traffic websites. You can edit the sign-up form
to match the "look and feel” of your site as well as delete
some of the optional fields. The administration area allows
you to edit affiliates and commissions, create printable
reports of money due, export the data to a text file, view
the traffic through your affiliate program, and much more.
Your affiliates can log in at any time and see their traffic
and commission statistics as well as change their
information and get links and banner code.

Once the program is set up you'll only need to log in once a
month to print out a list of the affiliates, their
addresses, and the money owed. You can do this quarterly if
you wish. You can export the payments owed to a text file in
PayPal's "mass pay" format and then just upload it to your
PayPal account to pay everyone automatically. Or, you can
simply write your own checks. If you have to pay a lot of
commissions, there is a check printing service called
qchex.com. Upload the file and they’ll print and mail your
checks for a fee of about 80 cents each.

Alternatively, Locked Area Pro is an advanced member's area
management system offering very good security that’s easy to
maintain. The system provides a huge list of useful features
including automated sign-up, user account validation,
optional random password generation and an administration
approve/decline account feature. It also comes with an
extremely powerful control panel with an online
administration of users, backup, and full customization
facilities from the browser. A statistics system is also in
built in. What more could you want?
5.3 Cooking off the Spam

Any time you run a program where your affiliates rely on
other signups to generate profits, you will eventually have
a problem with spam. One of your affiliates will inevitably
get it into their head to blitz the Web with unwanted
garbage.

When this happens you need to be ready to take
action—otherwise it will cost you! Your Internet company can
boot you off your server and you can find yourself
blacklisted. Not good for business. If you get an email from
someone claiming they received spam with your URL, then take
it as an early warning. I am not advising you to immediately
terminate the affiliate’s account, but be sure to contact
them to follow up on the complaint. Let your affiliate know
you received a complaint and advise them to remove this
person from their list.

If you only get one or two complaints, it’s probably not
spam—the complainants might simply have signed up for an
email list and forgotten all about it. You will know when
one of your affiliates is spamming, because you will get
anywhere from 10 to 100 complaints in the same day all
regarding the same URL. The best thing to do in this case is
to immediately terminate or disable the account of the
affiliate URL that was spammed.


This concludes the first installment of my two part series
on starting your own affiliate program. Stay tuned for
more.


Warmly,
Vj.Uyo

Affiliate

Affiliate Marketing Is not Game but how you can get the money and play them