Are free advertising boards a waste of time
Not if you are consistent.
Of course everyone will admit that all these free advertising boards floating around the net can benefit the board owners but what about the free posters In short, the free poster has nothing to loose and if they stay consistent and reply to those re-post notices you can absolutely build some side traffic to your site.
These boards certainly cant generate enough traffic to be any sites primary source of advertising but there are a few techniques you can try in order to improve your results:
1. First of all - read and obey the board terms! This has to be one of the most common mistakes when it comes to failed board campaigns. Dont use a frame breaking script or pop-up windows. Your ad wont be of any use when its just going to be deleted by the board administrator.
2. Never use deceptive titles or subject lines. I see this all the time and I have to laugh at the sheer ignorance of these posters. As the administrator of a few boards myself, I simply delete these post as soon as I find them. As a fellow site owner looking for ways to promote and make a profit, when I find these same ads I would never give them the time of day. Why would anyone They just lied to you to get you to look at their ad. If any one thing screams, Amateur, it has to be these types of childish and deceptive tactics.
3. If its allowed, try to post several ads using different wording on each board and watch which one gets the most attention. On the boards I run, you can post as many times as you like as long as you use a separate email address for each post.
4. Deception is wrong but theres nothing wrong with being a little creative. Dont get me wrong, the line should be clear and Im referring to creative attention getters rather than the actual verbiage used. Heres a few examples but if your not sure if your allowed to use these then always check with the board administrator first. These are actual examples that caught my eye:
--> This ebook is completely free! <--
**W@W!!
L@@K
=====> Psst!
F R E E S I T E T R A F F I C
Heres my favorite:(`.(`. Your ad title! .).)
Wow, look at this one:`.,, Your Ad ,,.`
What types of boards are there There are several types we are testing and newer ones are sure to pop-up soon.
The most popular type seems to also be the most effective. These are boards that you can post a text ad free for a pre-determined period of time, usually 5 to 10 days. Then your ad expires and you are emailed the option to re-post your ad free for another cycle and you can simply keep re-posting to keep your ad on the board indefinitely.
Of course, its still a better deal to for the owners and administrators. That shouldnt stop you from posting on any of the but it should make you take a look at owning your own board. Heres why:
The list:. As the owner, youll build an invaluable list. Be sure you dont violate their privacy and never spam and youll find many of these contacts will be the people youll be working with on future ventures.
The banners and ads:. As the owner, youll also have you ads and sometimes even your banners in front of everyone that visits the board. This benefit alone can pay for the board many times over depending on what and how youre promoting..
The emails:. And finally as the owner, youre the one sending out those confirmation emails and the the expiration emails. And guess whats included in these emails. Thats right, your perfectly worded advertisements. And theyll see it over and over as long as they continue to post. Thats why as a board owner you want to make your board as effective as possible. Always promote your boards to keep fresh traffic coming in.
Brian Hawkins - Entrepreneur, Internet Marketer, Online business consultant, Author. Site owner and administrator of several sites including: and
Banner advertising can dramatically help you increase traffic to your web site. Banner advertising can be a very cost effective marketing solution and can help you to gain access to millions of internet users. It can also prove to be a huge waste of time, even creating a net loss rather than increasing your bottom line. So well try to guide you onto the path to true results and a very successful Internet Marketing campaign using banner ads.
First things first: Whats it going to cost you Assuming youre going to design and building your own banners, you can still loose money on the cost of advertising if youre not careful. Work out the estimated cost of each banner advertising campaign:
Cost-per-Visitor: If you pay $10 per thousand impressions ($10/CPM), and you get a 2.0% click-through (20 visitors), your cost-per-visitor is $.50 ($10 per 20 visitors).
Cost-per-Sale: Now you know about what youre going to pay per visitor. So what does that amount to per sale Well, if 1 in every 20 visitors buys your product, your cost per sale is $10.00.
Total Sale Amount : $9.95 USD Paypals Fee Amount : -$0.59 USD Net Profit Amount : $9.36 USD
So if each sale of your product produces a gross profit of $9.36, then your net profit per-sale will be -$.64 ($9.36 gross profit - $10 cost-per-sale). This campaign is not profitable!
As you can see, something has to change in order to make a profit. Thats why its important to track and calculate every campaign. So what went wrong with this example
-Paying too much for the banner space
-Need a better click-through rate
-Need to charge more for your product
The truth is that only you have the information required to decide but at least at this point youre in a better position to make a qualified decision.
Return on Investment Ratios: Your return-on-investment (ROI), before non-marketing expenses, is 0.0% ($0.00 total net profits with a $10 investment).
Experiment by advertising on multiple sites or using different banners if your budget will allow it. Find the perfect campaigns that yield the highest ROI.
A few terms to know:
CPM - Cost Per Impressions (The M comes from the Roman numeral for 1,000). So $20 CPM represents $20 per 1,000 displays of a banner). An Impressions is simply each time your banner is shown.
CPC - Cost Per Click. You pay an agreed amount for each click-through to your site.
Click-Through (CT) - A click on an ad which takes the viewer to another site.
Click-Through Rate (CTR) - This is the number of people who click on an ad (banner or text link) divided by the number of displays of the ad, represented in percentages. Example: 500 people click on an ad that has been shown 10,000 times, which works out at: 500/10,000 X 100% = 5%.
Run Of Site (ROS) - This means your banner will be displayed on all or most pages of the site.
Buying or Creating your own banners: You can find a graphic designer to create your banner or you can simply learn to design and build you own. We have done both on this site and our research shows almost equal results when using identical conditions. Were not going to give tutorials on banner design but we will offer a few tips to help get you started.
If you decide to purchase your banners: Do your research. There are many so called graphic designers that have very little training or experience with any type of graphics much less internet marketing or banner advertising.
Get any promises or guarantees in writing. Keep in mind that anyone can setup shop online and many have no idea what theyre doing to say the least.
Do it yourself banners: There are several options when it comes to creating your own banners. Again, were not here to teach you how to design and build your own, just to guide you in the right direction.
Here are a few things to consider:
Think through your design.
Decide on a format.
Flash or Animated.
Image or HTML.
The best banner size.
Image load times.
Image or HTML Well, most of the banners we see are image based, whether .gif, .jpg of flash. But there is another very simple alternative. The HTML banner. You can even combine images and HTML to create incredible banners. A couple benefits of using a HTML banner are:
HTML banner will normally load faster.
On a HTML banner, you can promote many links.
Banners sizes:
468 x 60.....Full banner
234 x 60.....Half banner
392 x 72.....Full banner with vertical navigation bar
120 x 240...Vertical banner
125 x 125...Square button
120 x 90.....Button #1
120 x 60.....Button #2
88 x 31.......Micro button
A few tips:
Use attractive and attention grabbing images. Keep your text short and simple.
Use proven key words like free and now. Free is a very powerful incentive for the viewer to click on the button. Even the words Click Here can increase your click-through rate. Use a large font size for your message text. Create different versions of the banner. Test different banners to improve your click-through rate.
Animate your banner, but use as few frames as possible to keep the file size to a quick loading minimum. Test new banners with a Pay Per Click network, before you use them in Pay Per Impression campaigns. Many sites display two different banners on each page, while others display the same banner at the top top fold and bottom bottom fold of each page. When given a choice, its usually best to choose the top fold of page because the viewer is more likely to see your banner. You can expect to pay a lot less for bottom fold of page banner spaces.
Brian Hawkins - Entrepreneur, Internet Marketer, Online business consultant, Author. Site owner and administrator of several sites including: http://www.extremesitepromotions.com/ and http://www.csc4u.com/
Brian Hawkins - Entrepreneur, Internet Marketer, Online business consultant, Author. Site owner and administrator of several sites including: and