4 ways to make Banner Ads work for you in Affiliate Marketing

Since the 1990’s, banner ads have come a long way.  Looky at this 1997 retro ad from apple we found:

There has been a lot of research since then as to how to make effective banners.  Let your advertiser worry about the ad design, but as far as making them work for you on your site, as an Affiliate, here are 3+1 tips:

1. Don’t clutter your site with ads.  This can come off as looking unprofessional and turn your visitor away.  Instead, space your ads and include quality content to balance the look of the site (and keep the reader on your page).

2. Choose 3-4 banners max for your page.  This number has been shown to be the most effective.  Statistics show that the first few banners get the most attention.  As the order of placement increases, the click-through rate decreases, meaning your first few ads will get the most clicks while anything above and beyond receives less clicks. Choose wisely among the ads you wish to promote  (greedy me would choose the ads that are the most effective with the highest payout).

3. Consider user experience with ad placement.  You will capture the most attention from your user with anything placed “above the fold.”  Above the fold just means the space at the top of your site before your user has to scroll. So place your banner ads above the fold. History lesson – “above the fold” originates with newspapers.  Anything that was on the front page before the fold in the middle of the paper.

4. Repetition.  It seems counter-intuitive, right?  A 2011 study by Casale Media  (http://casalemedia.com/files/Casale-Ad-Visibility-Report-FINAL.pdf) shows the magic number being five.  Showing an ad at least five times resulted in an increase of 175 times in the number of clicks.  Wowza!

The basic goal for any affiliate is to get the most clicks/conversions possible for the most commission possible.   If you are using banner advertising, we hope you find these suggestions useful!

Let us know if you’d like to see information on any other affiliate related topics: affiliates@name.com

This article heavily influenced by: http://www.minonline.com/news/Banner-Ad-Effectiveness-Strike-Early-Visibly-and-Often_18652.html and the statistics presented in: http://casalemedia.com/files/Casale-Ad-Visibility-Report-FINAL.pdf)