1. Highly Targeted.

You must know who is in your market is in order to effectively target your ad campaigns.

Your banners should be placed on web sites that will have visitors similar and precisely to what your market needs.

2. Performance Based.

Internet advertising allows for interactivity. The consumer can take action, which is why banner ads that include simple phrase, "Click Here" have a greater ratio of success.

Any banner ad that does NOT have a call or request to action will be a waste of good advertising space and money.

3. Branding.

The old banner ad model just called for viewer to take action to click-thru to your web site.

Now you need to convey your product "Brand" so that viewers will remember it when they find need to visit you in future.

Web site domain names which convey this "Branding" can now be more effective than ever.

The 468 x 60 banner remains far and away most popular advertising form on Internet. Current pricing ranges from $20 to $45 per thousand exposures.

Even better are FREE Banner Ad Exchanges that are available.

Yes, believe it or not, there are still many FREE banner ad exchange programs that can bring you a steady flow of targeted traffic to your site.

And, do not worry if you do not have a banner ad to use for exchange because there are still many good FREE banner creation sites available online.

For a FREE list of "FREE Banner Ad Services!" via auto-responder, send a blank email message to: mailto:banners@emailexchange.org

Make sure to take advantage of these FREE banner resources so you can have your ads working for you in this still vital method of ad exposure online.

Use above "KEY" ideas for your banner ad campaign and you will explode your sales online.

4. Good ad copy This one is kind of a given, but you should always include good ad copy in your banner, lots of fancy animation and pictures won't entice them to click, they look after grabing attention of visitors. It's actual text that will get people wanting to check out your product. Try to emphasis benefits, not features of your product or service. Tell people how your product will make their life easier. Keep your wording short and concise, if you can use words that have be proven to attract people such as 'free','proven' and 'secret' do.

5. Fake factor Many of very successful banner ads of late have incorporated some kind of fake elements in them. There are various fake element's banner designers can use, such as fake scroll bars, fake text links, fake selection boxes, fake text boxes, fake submit buttons to mention just a few. Banners with fake elements perform so well because people think there clicking on a link to go to another page on current site (as in fake text links) or they think they are click on a button, but in fact they are actually clicking on a banner with a picture of a button and text link.

These fake banners are made using Print Screen button usually found on right side of any standard keyboard. Simply open a webpage or application and press 'print scrn' then crop image around button or scroll bar area (the area you want to fake) and then paste it into your banner, and that's it, you have fake elements in your banner. Alternatively designers simply draw buttons, scroll bars etc. using their graphics program.

Well there you have it, five most important pointers to remember when desiging banners. I'd normally end article now but before we end, I want to talk about targetting your banner.

Always, always place your banner on sites that cater for your target audience (ie - people most likely to buy your product). There's no point putting a banner for a new golf club you sell on a site dedicated to software, visitors to site simply are not going to be interested and you're just wasting your money. You should be aiming to place golf banner on golf course websites, sites like PGA.com, generally golf related sites, this way you are much more likely to make money. If you are not exposing your banner to your target audience, none of above tips and tricks can save you.