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The fact that banner ads are the source of millions
of dollars in revenue each year is undeniable. A less clear question
is whether the "free" services provided by banner exchanges can aid
the smaller sized business that might not be able to afford thousands
of dollars worth of banner displays on Yahoo every month. Are those
banners you're displaying at the top of your pages worth it, or are
they drawing away potential sales?
This article will address the question of whether
or not a banner exchange program is right for you and your website,
and will examine in detail two such programs.
I recently had a conversation with a colleague about
this. He said, "Say my banner from my banner exchange draws in 5 surfers
a day. But if I lose 10-20 folks who click on the banners I have to
display, that's not exactly a fair trade." This seems clear, but before
you run off and remove all those banners from your pages, let's take
a closer look.
The question that my colleague raised seems to me
to be a question of audience. That is, just who are you trying to
attract to your site and why? Granted, if you just maintain a personal
home page, losing a few visitors to the exchanges is no big deal.
But most of us are trying to make an income with a website, and every
lost visitor is perhaps a little less "bread on the table." The real
question becomes then not one of losing visitors, but of losing customers.
One thing I've noticed about my site stats is that
the number of unique visitors to my main page and the number of new
subscribers to my newsletter are essentially the same. I have the
newsletter subscription form in a very prominent place on the page,
and hope that most of my visitors will fork over their email addresses
(if not their cash). This means that even if I do lose them to a banner
(they have to eventually go somewhere, don't they?), I know that I
might be able to bring them back to the site. And I wouldn't have
had many of those subscribers in the first place if not for the banner
exchange that I use.
This brings us back to the question of audience. Perhaps
the most important variable of all resides in what kind of product
or service you are selling. If you are dealing with impulse products,
it would probably be a bad idea to show your visitor lots of snazzy
banners that could distract him and take him and his unstable money
elsewhere. But what if we're talking about non-impulse items? Does
anyone hire a web designer, or decide to go with one web hosting company,
without first checking out the others? Perhaps, but I would imagine
not often. If you've got a potential customer who is "ready to buy,"
you can always decrease the chance of his leaving by filtering out
the banners of your direct competition (and the good exchanges let
you do this - more on this below).
Thus, the main factor which you should use to determine
whether or not to use a banner exchange on your site's pages is your
audience. Are you targeting impulse buyers? If so, then maybe now
IS the time to run off and remove those ads from your pages. If, on
the other hand, you are selling a product or service that encourages
your customers to shop around anyway, then showing a few 468x60 graphics
at the top of your pages isn't going to hurt. In fact, it can generate
a significant amount of extra traffic, which may in turn transform
into extra sales!
We turn then to the actual programs. I will focus
on two of them, LinkExchange (the "old standby") and LinkBuddies (a
fairly recent addition to cyberspace), although the criteria presented
will apply to any, and should help you select a winner.
If I were to play psychologist and ask you, "What
is the first word you think of when I say the words banner exchange,"
I'd be willing to bet that the great majority of you would immediately
think of our friends at LinkExchange. Why? Well, they've been around
a long time, and their banners are everywhere (further evidence that
everyone thinks of them first). But does that necessarily mean they're
the best? Should you surf on over to www.linkexchange.com
and open a free account with them? Not so fast!
Let's first take a look at what LinkExchange offers:
"Free banner advertising on over 250,000 web sites." Sounds good!
"Support for over 3,000 geographic regions and subject categories
and over 30 languages." Even better! "Reports and statistics about
the people who visit your site." Keep it coming! "Free listing on
the Surf Point directory." Really?
Let's take a closer look. Last things first, I've
submitted several sites to LinkExchange in the past and not one of
them has EVER made it into Surf Point. Surf Point IS a very nicely
organized, Yahoo-style directory. But like Yahoo, it's a real pain
to get listed. And getting listed is supposed to be one of the benifites
of membership. You on guard yet?
The next question you should ask of a banner exchange
program is "What is the display ratio?" In other words, how many banners
do I have to display on my site to earn a display of my own banner
on another site? For LinkExchange the answer is 2. For every two exposures
of banners on my site, I get one in return. That means LE is keeping
50% of all exposures for themselves (and advertising they sell, etc.).
Already you may see that you might not be getting
the best deal from LinkExchange. Let's turn for a moment to one of
their competitors: LinkBuddies www.linkbuddies.com
Linkbuddies offers a 4:3 ratio if you display their
banners at the top of the screen. You get 3 exposures for every four
you provide. PLUS, you get 500 free exposures just for joining. PLUS,
you get 7 free exposures each and every day. For my site, this has
worked out so that I've actually received only a few less exposures
than I've given!
You get the same kind of statistics with LinkBuddies
that you do with LinkExhange: a measure of the impressions. This can
be useful, but it is in no way a good measurement of actual visitors
to your site (but that's a whole other article).
While LinkBuddies is already far ahead in my book,
they really win the prize in this next issue. What is the most important
aspect of ANY kind of advertising? Targeting. LE's targeting is virtually
nonexistent. (You can decide what "rating" of sites you want your
banner displayed on, but this is mainly for protecting children from
"mature" topics, not for increasing click-thrus.) LinkBuddies on the
other hand has hundreds of categories of sites on which you can display
your banner. By default, all of these are selected, but you can choose
as few as you like. Thus, for a web site which has jazz CD reviews,
you can have your banner displayed on sites in categories as specific
as "Music - Jazz", "Music - Reviews", and "Music - Instruments".
Can this targeting really make a difference? Ask any
marketing guru you know. On LinkExchange a certain banner I use received
a CTR (click-thru ratio) of 200:1 or worse. That means my banner was
displayed 200 times for every one time someone actually clicked it!
The EXACT SAME banner on LinkBuddies had a CTR of 25:1 or better.
Did people suddenly like my banner design a whole lot better and decide
to click it more often? Of course not. My banner just showed up on
sites which had visitors who were often interested in what I had to
offer.
All LinkExchange banners have that little bar across
the bottom that links to the LE site. LinkBuddies gives you the option
of whether or not you want to include something like this. You can
just display the 468x60 banner if you like. If you DO choose to link
to LinkBuddies, you receive a 10% "commission" on anyone who signs
up through your link. Thus, if all the people who have signed up through
me earn a total of 10,000 credits in a given week, I receive an additional
1000 credits that week for referring them to the program. Quite nice!
LinkBuddies also allows you to exclude your direct
competition's banners from displaying on your pages. Any good exchange
program should have this feature.
I have focused here on two specific banner exchanges,
but the criteria presented, especially targeting, should apply to
any banner exchange program that you are considering. If anyone from
LE happens to be reading this article, my apologies if I have hurt
your feelings, but perhaps you should take this as criticism on how
to make your service better. (In defense of LE, they DO have several
great services, and I've been a loyal reader of the LE Digest for
months.) I should also say that I am in no way affiliated with LinkBuddies.
I am merely a very satisfied customer.
If anyone has had a different experience with either
of these two services, I welcome your feedback. Email me, or better
yet, stop by the Design/Pro Forum and leave a post about your experiences
for everyone to read: www.firstsolve.com/wwwboard/
My advice to you at the end of this article? If your
site isn't one that relies on impulse buyers who could be distracted
by snazzy banners at the top of your pages, then design yourself a
nice banner and surf on over to LinkBuddies to sign up. If you're
really feeling generous, and would like to sign up through me, head
to: www.firstsolve.com/bannerexchange.html
Thanks!
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