Banner advertising is an effective way of getting your advertising message seen on
Internet. Banner ads should not be your only online form of advertising, but they are an essential part of your online advertising mix.This article assumes that reader knows what a banner ad looks like, but do you know how they work, and how you can derive benefit from them? Let’s define a few terms before answering these questions.
1. “Page views” or “page impressions.” These terms are interchangeable and they refer to number of times that a page within a website has been displayed on a website.
2. “Banner view.” Like a page view, a banner view is number of times that a banner has been displayed on website.
3. “Click through.” A click through is number of times a website visitor has “clicked” on a particular banner ad and was transferred to website of banner advertiser.
4. “CTR.” CTR is acronym for “click through rate,” which is ratio of number of banner view versus number of times visitors have “clicked through” to your website. CTR is expressed as a percentage, so a click through rate of 1% means that for every 1,000 banner views, 10 visitors have clicked through to your site.
5. “CPM.” CPM is an acronym for “cost per M,” where “M” is ancient Roman numeral for 1,000. Translation: CPM is price your business will pay to have its banner advertisement displayed 1,000 times on a website, e.g, cost of 1,000 banner views. So, for example, if CPM to advertise on a site is $80.00 your business will pay $80.00 for every 1,000 banner views.
6. “ROS.” ROS is acronym for “run of site,” which simply means that a banner ad is displayed on every page in a website, as opposed to being displayed only in a particular category of a website or only when a particular keyword is entered into a search engine.
Everyone who is in charge of a advertising or marketing department (that’s you if you’re sole shareholder of company) knows that advertising is, in large part, a numbers game. The more frequently your message is seen or heard, more likely consumer is to purchase your service or product. Take Mattress Mac with Gallery Furniture , for example. If you live in Houston area, or if your radio can pick up signal of almost any Houston area radio station, you cannot go a single day without hearing or seeing an advertisement for Gallery Furniture. Peppering your senses with constant reminders that “Gallery Furniture Saves You Money!” has enabled Mr. McIngvale to build his single location furniture store into an empire. (Of course, advertising alone won’t do it; you still must have a quality product or service). I have no scientific data to support this assertion, but I’ll make it anyway: I’m willing to bet that Gallery Furniture is known to more people in greater Houston area than any other single business. How did that come to be? Mattress Mac understands advertising numbers game and plays it better than anybody else.
