Bannerads by lovelyclaw15

Banner Ads are Back!

Banner Ads Are Back How You Can Drive Loads of New Traffic With Banner Ad Re-Marketing

Banner Ads are Back!

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 WHAT IS RE-MARKETING?.................................... 4 THE WEB AND MARKETING ................................................4 ISN’T THIS ANNOYING TO CUSTOMERS? ...........................7 WHY BANNER ADS AREN’T DEAD .......................................9 THE DOWNSIDES OF RE-MARKETING ...............................11 CHOOSING MARKETING TACTICS FOR TODAY’S CUSTOMERS..................................................................12

2 THE BEST PLACES TO BUY ADS ........................... 14 BUYING AD LOCATIONS THAT GET RESULTS ....................14 WHERE TO BE SO YOUR CUSTOMERS SHOW UP ...............28 THE COSTS OF BUYING ADS .............................................31

3 HAVING YOUR AD CREATED ............................... 33 THE BASICS OF CREATING A SUCCESSFUL AD .................34 FINDING AD PROFESSIONALS .........................................42 WHEN TO CHANGE THINGS UP .........................................46

4 AD WRITING SECRETS FOR BANNERS ................ 48 HOOK THEM .....................................................................49 PROVE IT TO THEM ..........................................................60 CALL TO ACTION ..............................................................62 EXAMPLES OF BANNER AD COPY ......................................64 SPECIAL BANNER AD STRATEGIES FOR MAXIMUM CONVERSION................................................................66 2

Banner Ads are Back!

5 ADVANCED “RE-MARKETING” IDEAS .................. 68 RE-MARKETING FOR BEGINNERS .....................................69 HOW TO SET UP RE-MARKETING ......................................70 RE-MARKETING STRATEGIES TO USE NOW ......................74

6 MAKING SURE YOUR ADS ARE WORKING ........... 77 HOW TO CHECK UP ON ADS .............................................78 SERVICES TO WATCH YOUR NUMBERS .............................79 WHEN YOUR NUMBERS AREN’T ADDING UP .....................81

7 CONVERSION TACTICS AFTER THE CLICK ........... 84 THE FREEBIE OFFER .........................................................85 THE EMAIL LISTS .............................................................86 NEWSLETTERS AND INFORMATIVE MAILINGS .................89 VALUABLE BOOKS AND RESOURCES ................................90 MEMBERSHIPS .................................................................91 TESTIMONIALS ................................................................92 ABOUT US ........................................................................94 CLEAR INSTRUCTIONS .....................................................95

CONCLUSION....................................................... 100

Banner Ads are Back!

WHAT IS RE-MARKETING?

Once upon a time, marketing was simple. You placed an advertisement in a newspaper or on TV and you waited for people to respond. If those things didn’t work, you would try other methods of marketing – phone calls, door- to-door sales, etc. Advertising used to be simpler because people were simpler. They expected to find advertisements in certain places, so they went there. And, over time, a person understands that if they want to find out more about something, they go to a certain plan. The Internet changed the entire game of advertising.

THE WEB AND MARKETING The Internet is a bit more difficult to navigate when it comes to marketing since it’s a mutable and moving target. The search engines that people use to find certain items are changing their parameters as quickly as people can figure them out. Many search engines used to operate under one set of keyword rules, but now they do things differently as they realizes people were 4

Banner Ads are Back! circumventing these rules and getting higher in the search engine results. Though this was playing within the rules, this doesn’t mean it was the best possible way to handle the search engine results. So, search engines made things more difficult.

CHANGES ABOUND ONLINE When it comes to marketing, the Internet is a helpful tool, but it can also create troubles in terms of helping a customer find what they’re looking for. As an example, you might have seen a banner ad on one website, but when you go back to that website, it might not be there again. Or you might completely forget where you found that initial website, so you’re stuck with remembering a really great product, though you have no idea how to find it again. This happens all the time. And let’s not forget that banner advertisements were often considered to be a nuisance more than they were considered to be a help to customers. Those flashing bright signs on popular websites began to be ignored as customers became savvier. In short, the Internet has made things more difficult, but not impossible. Once you learn how the Internet works and how you can make it work for you, it’s possible to ensure that you are bringing customers to your site again and again, even if you’re marketing the same product more than once. Don’t believe it?

Banner Ads are Back!

RE-MARKETING Re-marketing is a practice that truly works to encourage a person to click on the banner ad. Think of this scenario: You’re on a website and you see a banner ad for a free eBook about being more environmentally friendly. This is something, which appeals to you so you click on the link, get the eBook and you move on with your life. Then you decide to go to another website for another reason, only to find that same banner or a banner from the same company. That advertisement stays on your mind a bit more. And you’re seriously considering clicking on it again to see what it might have to offer you. But, again, you move onto what you were doing and you don’t click. You go to another website and you see the banner again. You’re thinking about clicking it this time and you do so. You read the site and you end up making a purchase. At first, this can sound like a banner ad that is stalking its customers, and to a certain extent, this is the case. But in reality, this is a form of marketing that helps customers who want to find out more information, but they don’t necessarily want to learn that information right now. They want to make the purchase, but they might be too busy to do it at the moment. So, they wait, but the banner ad will still be around when they are indeed ready to make that purchase. Re-marketing – the practice of marketing again and again to a customer, increasing your chances that they will make the purchase and you will earn profits. And once this system is setup and in place, you can walk away and watch it work for you. 6

Banner Ads are Back! Don’t believe it? Keep reading this book to find out more about banners and how to use them with the re-marketing boom that’s starting to begin.

ISN’T THIS ANNOYING TO CUSTOMERS? A lot of people who first hear of re-marketing are a bit skeptical because this doesn’t sound any different than the annoying banner ads of the past. This just sounds like a situation in which a person will become so irritated that the ad is ‘following’ them that they will avoid the company from that point on. Not so. Here’s what usually happens. You go to a site for something and you find a banner ad that intrigues you. You click it or you don’t click it, but either way, it’s intrigued you and it’s made you want to learn more. You don’t bookmark it, but you think that if it’s really important you will remember it later. Most of us don’t remember what we’ve seen, though. We might remember the item, but in a few weeks or days, we’ve completely forgotten where we saw it and how we could get back to it. That’s frustrating, especially when it was a good deal. In order to go back to that item, you might spend countless hours or days trying to relive the initial surfing that brought you to the site in the first place. With re-marketing, you don’t have to do this. You will click on a site, see the ad, and then if you express interest in the ad, you will see it again. Note that this is a system that only occurs when a person has expressed interest.

Banner Ads are Back! This makes sense too. If a person is interested in learning more, they want to come back to the site. If they donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t, then they will not click and the banner ad will â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;stayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; there, waiting for a customer to express interest. Customers have troubles shopping on the Internet sometimes because there are SO many choices available. With re-marketing and banner ads, you can make things simpler and less time intensive for a smart Internet shopper.

Banner Ads are Back!

WHY BANNER ADS AREN’T DEAD Yes, banner ads were thought to be the scourge of Internet marketing. And they were created at first just to get attention, any attention. While this might have worked when the Internet was bright and shiny, as people have become more educated about the Internet and how to use it, it’s become smarter to use advertising in a smarter way – as in re-marketing. Instead of simply creating the boldest banner ads possible, smart marketers are looking to create banner ads that are enticing with smart copy and a call to action. In doing this, people will begin to take notice, without even realizing it’s marketing at work. Banner ads are now seen as shortcuts to good offers. Though there are certainly some banner ads that are just as frightening to watch as ever, you may have already noticed that many of these advertisements are now perfectly tailored to your needs and to your shopping history. For example, you might have been at a site for golf shoes and then noticed a banner for golfing supplies a few hours later. Seems like magic, but it’s actually re-marketing at work. Banner ads actually offer a few benefits that other advertising tactics do not: 

They’re more descriptive When you’re looking to create a banner ad, you only have so much space, so you need to be as descriptive as possible in that space. With the right writer or ad creator, you will be able to grab the interest of someone viewing the ad immediately.

Banner Ads are Back! 

They’re more enticing Banner ads look better than a simple PPC advertisement. They can be full color, have movement in them, etc.

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They’re shortcuts Instead of having to read a long list of search engine listings, you can already be on a website and see relevant banner ads off to the side. This will help you to get to where you want to go more quickly.

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They’re NOT spam While newsletters and email lists are still being used; they often get tossed in the spam pile, even if they’re offering something really special.

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They’re creative You can be as creative as you like in a banner ad, depending on your skills or the skills of the professional you have hired.

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They can be targeted to an audience With many online tools, you can ensure that your banner ads are targeted to a specific audience who has already expressed an interest in the content of the advertisement.

Banner ads may have been on a path to becoming obsolete a few years ago, but this doesn’t mean they’re gone from the market, not by any stretch of the imagination. Banner ads area just as useful, effective, and now they’re even more reasonably priced than they once were.

Banner Ads are Back!

THE DOWNSIDES OF RE-MARKETING But we want to be honest here with the things you can what the things you can’t expect from re-marketing with banner ads. While you can expect to see more profits and see more traffic coming to your site, there are limitations to everything in terms of what happens once you begin a re-marketing campaign. Advertising just isn’t perfect yet, even if banner ads are pretty darn close. Here are the downsides to re-marketing to keep in mind. When you think about these downsides, it’s also easy to see why your ads need to be top notch and that you need to go through this entire program before you start your marketing. 

People don’t have to click As much as you might want them to, in the end, no one has to click on your advertisement at any point. So, it’s completely in the customer's hands as to whether you are going to be profitable or not.

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You might get a bad reputation with some customers Since some people really don’t like to have ads follow them around, you might lose your chance with those people who are just unwilling to click on an ad they’ve already seen a few times, even if they expressed an interest at first. 

Mac users might not see the

re-marketing Safari users can have the re-marketing campaigns blocked, so if you’re targeting 11

Banner Ads are Back! Apple lovers, they might not even see your ads unless they’re using another browser.

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Popup ads can be blocked Some computers can block popup ads entirely, so if the banner ad is linked with a popup ad, this might not work.

While this isn’t a long list, you will want to keep these ideas and limitations in mind as you continue with your re-marketing plans. Though these shouldn’t be deal breakers, they are going to limit you in some ways.

CHOOSING MARKETING TACTICS FOR TODAY’S CUSTOMERS Today’s customers require different marketing and advertising techniques, why? They’re smarter. Though not every single one of your customers is an avid Internet marketer, they are certainly more likely to know how the Internet tries to sell to them, even if they’re unable to explain it. Customers know that advertisements are meant to sell, but what they can’t always put their finger on is the way in which they are being sold to. The mind is something that can be used, again and again, to persuade a person to buy something they may or may not need.

Banner Ads are Back! With re-marketing and banner ads, you not only encourage a person to remember what you have to sell, but you will also remind their brains again and again of what you are offering, where it is located, and how it can be effective for their needs. But in order to use these tools effectively, you need to learn how to get started. And thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s where we will begin.

Banner Ads are Back!

2 THE BEST PLACES TO BUY ADS

When youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve created some great ads, you canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t just put them on your desk or in a dusty corner of the Internet and expect them to get results. No, you need to know where to go to get the help you need to buy ads and to place them in the best possible spots, using the remarketing strategy. Just as with any business idea, having the best resources will garner you the best results.

BUYING AD LOCATIONS THAT GET RESULTS About 98% of all people who come to a website or who click on an ad leave without buying anything. That means that only 2% are going to make up the profits you want to see from your web business. Instead of looking at this number as a sign that you should give up and stay away from the Internet, you need to look at this disparity as an opportunity for you to do more and to improve your odds. After all, with these sorts of odds, you can only go up.

Banner Ads are Back! To begin your quest for re-marketing and banner ad success, you need to go to ad companies who can help you get the best locations possible. Though it’s true you could also do this legwork on your own, your success is going to be a lot higher if you head to the professionals for support as quickly as possible.

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION What’s in a location on the Internet? For those who aren’t quite sure how the Internet works, you need to keep in mind a few things because you probably already intuitively know what happens online. When you’re on a sporting goods website and you see ads for other related items, then you realize that the ad companies are targeting those who are already interested in what they have to sell. The same can be said for your banner ads. If you’re selling face cream on a soccer website, chances are good you’re not going to see a lot of return on investment. In fact, you might notice your sales plummet since the word will get out you have no idea who your market is. And that’s where you need to begin. You need to start thinking about the places where you assume that most of your customers are going to be. Because since they’re going to be there anyway, your banner ads should be there too. In doing this, you are going to boost your chances of seeing a higher return and a higher conversion rate. People who click these ads are already interested in clicking these ads; they just haven’t done so yet. But the more you can be in the places where others are, the more likely people are to click on the ads and begin to see what you have to offer them.

Banner Ads are Back! Location also helps to build up your brand awareness with customers. If those people on the sporting goods website realize that your ads are going to pop up each time they are there, they are going to remember your site, even if they donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t end up clicking your ad. They might just head over to your main site right away to begin to see what else you have to offer. Choosing the right locations can be tricky, however, since there any number of different sites when your customers might be. And while Google and other search engines can help, you might want to look into the services of companies who are better trained and equipped to handle the larger sort of campaigns that you want to manage. They will pick out your locations, make sure that your ad is there, and they can even work on the text of your ad if you want to give all of the work to someone else.

PLACES WHO CAN HELP While the list of people who can help you with your re-marketing campaign can change every day, there are a few companies in the market who are considered to be the ones to beat in the market.

Banner Ads are Back! Advertise.com

This site offers users the chance to custom design their own remarketing campaign. The site will work with you are text and display ad units. They offer services which will boost your traffic and they seem to get pretty good results from the ads they place for you. The prices start out at $100, making them reasonable in terms of cost for return on investment. Phone number: 818-285-6216, Irina.

Banner Ads are Back! AdBrite.com

Another marketing company to think about his AdBrite.com. This company will work to create sales for you through your banner ads, with a minimum price of $100. While the quality is not as high as with other advertising companies, it does offer fewer restrictions in terms of ads, so the traffic is cheaper overall. It’s always a good idea, however, to watch the advertisements after you’ve bought them to make sure you’re getting the most for your money. Phone number: 415-975-0916

Banner Ads are Back! AdBuyer.com

If you want to have access to Googleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s content network, Ad Buyer is a good resource for your advertising plans. While the minimum order is a little steeper than most ($200), this creates a strong connection in a market where customers truly will be. Phone number: 646-723-4081

Banner Ads are Back! AMPKeywords.com

At Ad Marketplace, you get to be a part of the search/ad network. With a minimum order of $100, you can get started on re-marketing to your customers, with CPC bidded advertisements. Though a lot of people have complained about the interface of this product, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not difficult to navigate once you get the hang of it. A unique hybrid ad tool helps to generate new leads. Phone number: 212-925-2022

Banner Ads are Back! AdReady.com

If you’re ready to put your ads up today, you can look into AdReady. With their banner ad builder, you are going to find this company to be one of the most versatile, in terms of helping you build content that actually produces the results you want to produce. The minimum order is $300, but it’s worth every penny. Since you don’t have to call in another banner ad builder, you can get started today and see results today. Phone number: 866-400-2160

Banner Ads are Back! ArcaMax.com

This advertising company will work with you to create a solo ad that will be seen by many of the 3.3 million double opt-in names. Again, you get what you pay for with this service, as the minimum order is $500. Those who are able to spend the money should do so, but this might not be the best fit for those who are just starting out. Phone number: 757-8=596-9731

Banner Ads are Back! Clicksor.com

When youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re looking for text, display, or pop up advertising, Clicksor can help. The lost minimum price of $100 helps smaller businesses get started, while the Tier One network offers you high quality clicks for your payments. You can use a variety of advertising with Clicksor, including rich media, text ads, interstitials, layer ads, pop-unders, display, and search boxes. Phone number: 905-763-9735

Banner Ads are Back! MediaTraffic.com

Using MediaTraffic is one of the best choices you can make when you want your advertisements to end up in good spots where your customers will actually be. This site does start out at $200 for the campaigns, but the extra money is worth the investment. Using pop ups is their specialty, but they can also work on your ads to ensure that your keywords are bringing in the customers you desire. Phone number: 514-448-4316

Banner Ads are Back! Pulse360.com

Those who used to use Kanoodle or thought to use them will want to head to Pulse 360. This Tier One network will help to create text and display ads that pull in paying customers. Phone number: 212-710-4260

Banner Ads are Back!

DOING IT ON YOUR OWN? But you might be one of those people who wants to handle their own advertising on their own. You want to get in with both hands and begin to create banner ads, negotiating with each site as to how they will be placed, when they will appear, etc. This is a lot of work. And when your time is so valuable, you might want to rethink this option. Instead, you really do want to look into services that can do the work for you. If you’re concerned about money, here are some ways to help you cut costs: 

Make your own ads Making your own ads will help to cut costs, though this can be just as time consuming if you’re not already familiar with this process. Hiring out a freelancer might be an effective way of handling this part of the process as well.

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Start with minimum orders By only paying for the minimum order, you will be able to test out the companies who say they can get your traffic, without a high investment to anyone involved. And if you are happy, then you can add on more advertising and know your money isn’t going to be wasted.

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Only continue paying if you get results Similar to the tip above, you need to make sure that you are only paying for more banner ads if you’re seeing results. Some of the lower cost advertising firms (many that weren’t listed here) will not promote you in a way that brings you money. They might promise to get you seen, but then not deliver on the promise.

Banner Ads are Back! Doing this advertising work on your own isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t necessary, but it can be cost effective. In the end, you need to be making money, not losing money, but your time is money too.

Banner Ads are Back!

WHERE TO BE SO YOUR CUSTOMERS SHOW UP Whenever you want to make sure that you are getting the most for your advertising dollars, you need to do the work to see who your customers are. Though the advertising companies may have an idea as to whether to place ads to be the most effective, this doesn’t mean they know your customers as well as you do. You want to search and advertise to certain customers, not just to any customer who will listen. Though you might get more traffic hits by advertising to the masses, this doesn’t mean they’re going to pay for the products or services you are selling. You want to find and target customers who are already interested in what you have to sell – and are this close to buying it.

RESEARCH YOUR MARKET Your market may be larger or it might be small, depending on your niche. To ensure you know who your best customer will be, you need to start with some basic research. This can take place in a variety of forms: 

Look at your loyal customers You need to spend some time looking at your past orders to see what has been selling, what hasn’t, and what customers have been asking for. If you’re new to the business, then you need to start looking at things that you have bought in the past and how you have been persuaded to buy one thing over another thing. Customers who come back again and again are the types of customers you want in your advertisements and in your virtual stores. Talking someone into an additional item is much easier than getting new people to buy. 28

Banner Ads are Back! 

Look at your traffic counts You already have a website, so check in on those traffic counts to see how your traffic is going. Has it had a downward trend? If so, it’s time to put on your investigator hat to see what happened and how you could have stopped it. This will help you to make sure that you aren’t missing some obvious event that made everyone run away.

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Look at your competition And you will want to see what your competitors are doing and what kinds of customers they’ve been able to bring in as a result.

Market research is not something that will happen overnight, but it is something you need to do in order to ensure you are able to create the right products and marketing campaigns that will make you money.

FIND OTHER AD CAMPAIGNS TO COPY Your competition, though you’d never tell them this, is far smarter than they seem to be. Those who are already successful in their campaigns have a lot to teach you, so it’s time to make sure you look at what they’re doing. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so long as it’s not plagiarism too. You will want to follow a few of your competition’s advertising campaigns to see how they work. Where are their ads ending up? Do they seem to be pulling in new customers? Though you may not be able to tell for certain whether the competition’s ads are working, you can look at their products and the succession in which they sell those products so that you can make adjustments to your product line and advertising as well. 29

Banner Ads are Back! You might also want to head to forums where the competition is being discussed so as to find out whether there are more successful marketing campaigns than others. It can also help to print the screen of any advertisement that your competition is doing so that you can take elements from it which will encourage their customers to look at you too. Now, this doesn’t mean you can copy what they’re doing – you can’t. But what you can do is create a similar ad, without being too similar, which might serve to confuse the other customer and get them to buy from you this time, as opposed to the other guy.

KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER DEMANDS Your customers are already telling you what you need to do, but you need to listen. Whether it’s through emails to you or through forums online, customers are clear about what they want – and what they don’t want. All you need to do is to listen. If you already have customers who are steadily buying new things, you need to encourage them to buy more. And that means you need to find out what ELSE they need in order to be happy with the services you provide. You can find out by: 

Looking at forums and message boards.

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Adding a survey to your sites.

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Offering a free report to see how people respond to its content.

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Offering a teaser product (i.e. an article about weight loss, but without the weight loss advice…) to see how many people respond. 30

Banner Ads are Back!

You need to test the waters in order to see what the customers are willing and interested in buying. If they are interested in what you have to offer, then they will show you. And if you’re still not sure, just ask. Customers like to know that a business is interested in what they have to say.

THE COSTS OF BUYING ADS When you’re ready to start buying ads, you will notice there is a wide range of prices from which to choose. And since most Internet marketers don’t like to spend any money, it can be tempting to choose the lowest price and wait while your millions of dollars rolls in. If only things were that easy. But though you’re going to have to pay money to see whether your banner ad is effective, it’s going to be money that’s well spent. In the past, you’ve been spending money on advertising that doesn’t work, so when you do actually use an advertising campaign that does work, the ROI (return on investment) is going to show up much more quickly than it did before. And that makes you glad you spend the money.

SHOULD MARKETING COST A LOT? The beautiful part of a down economy is that it’s an opportunity for those who want to get into the marketing field. The prices for banner ads are lower than ever, while the return is higher. Think about it – your product products probably haven’t’ changed that much, but since 31

Banner Ads are Back! the internet is filled with free advertising and social media marketing tools, many people are staying away from the paid ads. To make sure that people are still buying the ads, the advertising companies and banner ad sellers are dropping prices. Of course, those advertisements that are going to have more popular keywords and better placements are still going to cost a lot of money, the sort of advertising you are doing probably won’t be all that much. You will place the ads in relevant places, for as little as $100 and begin to see results from these campaigns. Though it might not be the overnight success you want, what you will notice is that you don’t have to spend a lot of time or a lot of money in order to get your company and its products or services noticed. You just need to get into the re-marketing practice and then the ads will work on their own to pull people in who might not have been pulled in otherwise. For those who equate paying a lot of money with making a lot of money, that certainly has its merit. But it never hurts to start out small and work your way up as opposed to paying a lot of money when you’re not sure how your advertising campaign works, only to see your money be wasted as a result of inexperience. In the end, spending a lot of money will generate a lot of traffic, but it might not be the sort of traffic you want to have to your website and to your business. The better idea is to dip your toes in the water, see what happens, and then build up your advertising as you earn more money and you become more familiar with what’s happening to your links and to the customers who are looking at your banner ads.

Banner Ads are Back!

3 HAVING YOUR AD CREATED

Your banner ads have the ability to create the traffic you want in order to drive up your profits. But when you want to pull people into your website and all of its offers, the banner ad needs to not just be good, it needs to be compelling, amazing, and enticing.

Banner Ads are Back! This is a tall order if you’re new to the advertising world. And while you know what doesn’t work in a banner ad, it can be more difficult to come up with a list of things that SHOULD be in your banner ad. So we’re going to make it a little easier for you. While you will continue to tweak your marketing as you go on, this is a process, which will help you get started, and you will begin to see what works for you and what does not. Everyone’s customers are different; obviously, so you might need to apply certain tactics others do not, and vice versa.

THE BASICS OF CREATING A SUCCESSFUL AD A banner ad looks like it’s a pretty simple thing to make when you’re looking at it online. After all, it’s just a little block with some colors and some words in it. This is something that makes a quick impression with a customer and then the customer clicks on the ad to find out more and to be directed to a new website. But things are a little trickier than this. You need to keep in mind the rules of ads before you get started and then you need to realize that the rules can change, depending on where the ads are, what they are, etc.

THE RULES OF BANNER ADS (SOMETIMES) When you’re thinking about banner ads, you need to start thinking of this ad space as ‘ad units.’

This is a standard way of looking at online 34

Banner Ads are Back! advertisements, helping to create a clear definition of what is and what isn’t an advertisement. This advertisement is a space that has been established by the Internet Advertising Bureau in order to make the playing field level in terms of the space that can be taken up. After all, if someone has a lot of money, they could buy full-page ads and take over the advertising market. With banner ads, the dimensions are standardized, which helps to make one size the standard area in which you can create an advertisement. However, with that in mind, those who publish the advertisements can change up the dimensions and the content regulations if they want to. You’ve probably already noticed those advertisements that can take up a lot of space more than just a traditional ad – that’s because the advertiser has an agreement with the publisher. Some newspapers which are posting stories online like to have larger ads which need to be clicked away, while other sites might only include the smaller top and bottom banner advertisements, as those are the rules they’ve chosen to follow. Again, like an advertisements, you will want to look into the different publishers to see what they are looking for so that you can create a banner ad within their recommendations.

THE ANATOMY OF A BANNER AD A banner advertisement is a piece of marketing which seems to be pretty straightforward. You have a certain space in which to convince a person to click the link. 35

Banner Ads are Back! Banner ads fall into the category of display ads. These are advertisements that fall within a certain range of sizes: 

728 x 90

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300 x 250

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160 x 600

Depending again on the publisher, you can increase or decrease your ad space. This can help you to get more noticed than you might in other ways. Even if you were just creating a small text ad, the words you use in your banner ad matter more than you might realize. Many times, a new advertiser thinks they need to shock the viewer or focus on images to help the reader be ‘tricked’ into clicking. People don’t like to be tricked. What they do want from a banner ad is this: 

To find out about the product.

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To find out what makes the product special.

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How they need to act in order to get the offer.

You don’t want to confuse your customers when they see your banner ad. They should know exactly why they should look at your ad and why they should take action. When you make things unclear, you will create confusion and a banner advertisement that doesn’t get the response you expected it might.

Banner Ads are Back! Here are some tips you need to keep in mind with a banner ad: 

Make your message brief Though you need to include words and explanations, this doesn’t mean you need to include every single detail about your product and why it’s so amazing. Remember that people on the Internet don’t want to spend more than a few moments looking at an ad. Choose the most effective words for your advertisement – and only those words – to ensure your customers know what you’re offering and why it’s important they click.

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Create a call to action A basic technique in sales is to put a little pressure on the person who is looking at the advertisement. Include something like a ‘Call Now’ or ‘Click Here in The Next Five Minutes’ to make sure the person viewing the ad takes action. Using a time limit, a quantity limit, or an emotional appeal will help to pull people into your advertisement more often.

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Give people a reason When someone sees your banner ad, they need to have a reason to click on your advertisement. This is why you see so many freebies on the banner ads. If you’re offering something they might want, they will need to click on the ad to get that item. Give people a reason to click and they will.

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Make sure the directions are clear There’s nothing more frustrating than a banner ad that isn’t clear about what you need to do in order to use it. Make sure it’s clear where the viewer needs to click and then they will be able to generate the traffic (and hopefully the sales) you want to see for your investment.

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Know your niche If your banner ad isn’t addressing the population you want to address, 37

Banner Ads are Back! it’s not going to be successful. You need to make sure your ad has been written with your main market in mind. 

Think about rich media techniques If you want to get noticed more often, you might want to think about using flash animation and other such devices. Some people will tell you these are gimmicky and that they might be a little annoying, but in a screen that’s filled with words, sometimes you need to do more in order to get more results.

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Make sure your URL is included The banner ad itself should include the URL of your site or it can be in the text, whenever possible. This will drive up numbers on your site and it will help to improve your ROI.

Following these rules alone is enough to increase your banner ad effectiveness, even without a re-marketing plan in place.

THE NITTY GRITTY OF BANNER AD WRITING When you’re writing an advertisement in any capacity, you want to be clear about what it includes and what it should not include. You need to look at the different parts of the banner ad to see how it can be most effective in terms of it popping up for the viewers, but also for encouraging people to click on it to find out more. You need to make sure you are including keywords in your banner ads, which is going to help you with getting your banner ads in the places where your customers will be. You can start to determine which keywords are going to be most effective with a free tool like Google Ad Words. Just go to the Google Ad Words Website.

Banner Ads are Back! This will help you see what words have been searched the most. And while you might have to pay more for advertisements with higher ranked keywords, you can also find that these advertisements pay for themselves. But letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s get to how you might create your own banner ad with the help of a basic problem like Adobe Photoshop, a program many computers have installed or that can be installed easily. 1. Start by opening up Adobe and opening up a new file in which to create the banner ad. Right now, you might want to save the file too under a certain name so that you can easily find this file on your computer and save it as needed. 2. You will be asked to define the parameters of your banner ad when you begin. The ideal parameters are 468 by 60 pixels wide for a logo, but you will want to look into the parameters of where you will be placing your banner ads to ensure you have the right dimensions. 3. You will then be asked to choose the resolution of the banner ad, which is a tricky subject for many people. While you want your banner ad to look great on the screen, you also donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to choose too high a resolution, as this will cause the ad to load too slowly. Choose something lower at first and then you can always change it at a later time. 4. You will also be asked to choose a background of black or white before you hit the OKAY button and you can begin creating your banner ad. 5. In order to begin, you will need to have the graphics in another file as well as the text saved in a file, probably creating in Adobe at an earlier time. 6. Go again to File and open up the picture you want to use in your banner ad. This will open up the image in your working area. You can then resize the image so that it fits in your banner area. 39 .

Banner Ads are Back! 7. You just need to go to the Tools section and to Edit. From there, you will be able to go to copy to put the image in the banner area. From there, you will then be about to go to Edit and then to Transform to make the image the size of the banner. 8. You can adjust the edges of the image to ensure that you are fitting it in as much as possible. 9. If you hold down the Shift key while doing this, it will make sure the ratio of the image stays the same and you don’t have a smashed image at the end. 10.Once you are happy with where the image is, then you can click the checkbox to set the design. 11.If things are fuzzy, you can go to Filter, then Sharpen, then Unsharp Mask to help make things clearer. 12.Repeat this process to add in the text to the banner ad.

For many people, creating a banner ad is going to be far past their experience level and much more work than they really want to do. And while you might want to try out this sort of work in the future, it’s not something you need to master in order to create a banner ad campaign. In fact, there are programs online and professionals who can do the work for you too. We’ll talk more about that in a bit.

TESTING THOSE ADS FOR EFFECTIVENESS If you already have banner ads you have used in the past, it might be a good idea to use those, especially when they have already proven to 40

Banner Ads are Back! be successful. This way, you can start off with a campaign that has the greatest chance of being successful and effective. But once you have your banner ads up and ready to do, it’s time to do some testing. This is important when you haven’t done this sort of marketing before – especially when it comes to re-marketing. You want to be sure that your banner ads are going to be able to pull people in from the moment they see them. And even small things and differences in your ads can mean the difference between a click and someone ignoring what you have to say. Here are a few ways you can begin to test your advertisements: 

Create a few different versions of your banner ads Ideally, you will want to create no more than three different banner ads to see how these will pull a person in. This way, you can rotate them around in your re-marketing plan, but then you can see which once gets a person to click most often. And when you determine which one is most successful, then you can make sure that’s the model you follow for the rest of your marketing campaigns.

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Choose different colors While it might not seem like colors matter all that much, they do. Sometimes, your customers might be swayed by colors you didn’t think mattered. By having the same advertisement in different places with different colors, you can begin to see what colors are resonating with your customers and which are not.

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Choose different messages Of course, the words you choose are going to matter the most. If you’re able to create a clear piece of copy which allows a person to understand what the values is in clicking your ad, you should make sure this copy is replicated or imitated in as many of your ads as

Banner Ads are Back! possible. By split testing your banner ads with different copy, you will be able to see what works and what doesn’t.

Testing can seem like a lot of work, but the more you can measure what works and what does not, the more you will be able to create banner ads which are going to be effective as soon as people see them online.

FINDING AD PROFESSIONALS Even with all of these instructions, you might think this banner ad creation is too much work and just not worth your time. That’s when you want to call in professionals. Though you might be able to create a ‘good enough’ advertisement, you might not be able to create one that really pulls in customers until you get more effective at design Why wait to be effective? There are plenty of banner ad professionals you can use to create a successful and profitable banner ad.

BANNER AD FIRMS If you’re looking to outsource your banner ad creation, it’s never a bad idea to look into companies who specifically work on banner ads for clients. They have the experience you need as they have done thousands of ads for other clients. That said, there are good firms and bad firms out there – and it can be difficult to tell the difference between the two. Here are a few that you might want to consider, but there are plenty of others readily 42

Banner Ads are Back! available online who can either do the work for you or they can give you access to tools to help you make your own banner ad. 

www.MyBannerMaker.com

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www.JustGoThere.com

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www.20DollarBanners.com

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www.BannersMall.com

Again, this is not a comprehensive list by any means. Here are some tips for choosing the best banner maker for your needs: 

You’re impressed with their designs When you go to the site of a banner designer, you should be wowed by what they do. They should create ads that you yourself would click on. And they get additional points if they create an ad that you click in order to find them.

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The price isn’t too low Though you might want to find as cheap a banner ad as possible, sometimes there’s a reason why they are cheap. They might be copying the advertisements of others or they might not be as high quality as you may want.

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You get a chance to be a part of the creation process A good banner company should be willing to work with you in order to make sure you are happy and that your message is getting through.

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They have experience The more experience the banner ad makers have, the better for you and for the end result. 43

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Take some time to review the different banner makers and companies online. Companies can be a more valuable resource as they often employ not only graphic designers, but also copywriters who can help you create the right message for your advertising needs. That said, make sure you investigate the ad company thoroughly to ensure they have a good reputation in the marketing world. If you pick someone who doesn’t, you might be sacrificing not only your money, but also your business’ reputation.

FREELANCE GRAPHIC DESIGNERS You might also want to go with independent contractors who work through freelancing sites. These professionals are often skilled in more than one area, or they can refer you to friends who can help you with things like writing and banner ad placement. You might want to do go to sites like: 

www.Elance.com

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www.Guru.com

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www.iFreelance.com

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www.oDesk.com

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www.FreelanceDesigners.com

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www.vWorker.com

Banner Ads are Back! When you use a freelancer, you will often have a person who is working for you and only for you. This can boost the quality of the end result, though you might need to seek out other professionals to handle the text if that is something that you can’t do on your own. Other things to think about when choosing a freelance designer: 

Experience You want to look for someone who has the experience to create a banner ad that can be effective and pleasing to the eye, preferably someone who has created banner ads before.

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Software used The freelancer needs to have at least Adobe Photoshop 7.0 and above to make your banner ad look professional for the Internet.

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Samples of past banner ads You will want to review at least five other banner ads to see whether they are in a style you like and if they are effective.

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Prices The prices for a freelancer are going to be a bit more than a firm might charge, as professionals need to consider their benefits as well as their costs for the work.

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Timeline Sometimes, the time lines for freelancers can be longer than firms, so it’s a good idea to make sure you are checking on the timeline for the project’s completion and getting that in writing before any contracts are signed.

Often, the use of a graphic designer can be helpful as they can work with you on other marketing tools as well in the future, keeping the

Banner Ads are Back! images consistent. And working with one person is always preferable to working with many different people.

WHEN TO CHANGE THINGS UP With all of this talk of creating banner ads, it’s not just that you can create a bunch of ads and then expect to never change them. Granted, if they are popular and they work, there probably isn’t a need to change them at all. But as time goes on, you want to convey that you are fresh and that you are someone who understands the changing needs of customers. Here are some signs you need to change your banner ad campaign: 

Your traffic counts are leveling off When you look at your numbers and you’re not happy with what you’re seeing, you will want to think about a new banner ad campaign. Sometimes re-marketing campaigns need to be spruced up.

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Some of your banners aren’t working as well or are dropping off At some point, some of your banners might not work as well as they once did. In these cases, you need to change them up to see how they work if you make those changes.

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You have a new product Whenever you have a new item or service to sell, it’s time to create a new ad that promotes it, advertises it, and reminds people who have already bought from you that they want to buy from you again.

Banner Ads are Back! Of course, if you had a structure to one of your banner ads that worked well, it’s a good idea to keep the structure and even the wording as much as possible. After all, if it works, why change it? At the same time, when things are too much the same, you might end up confusing people. So, you need to change things so what’s new looks like it’s actually new and not just a revamp of your old product. Your banner ads need to be high quality and they need to be placed in the right spots online so that they can be seen by the people that you want to see them. The more time you spend on your ads and on their placement, the more money and profits you will see from your efforts. And that’s what your goal is, isn’t it? Of course, there are many more secrets to writing successful banner ads.

Banner Ads are Back!

4 AD WRITING SECRETS FOR BANNERS

You know how create ads and you know how to hire someone else to do the work for you, but this doesn’t get you off the hook. You need to know what goes into ads just as much as your hired writer does. After all, if you don’t know if they’re writing a good ad, you might be paying them for something that doesn’t add up to profits for you. The ad writing secrets for banners aren’t always shared because, obviously, no one wants to let another person in on their secret recipe, their strategy for getting people to click the ads and make a purchase. But it’s really easier than it looks and even easier than it sounds. All you need to do is to think about creating ads as a three part process – hook them, prove it to them, and give them a call to action. In this section, we’re going to talk about all of these steps and how to make sure each and every one of your ads uses as many of these tips as possible. The more you can use, the better.

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HOOK THEM We’ve all seen banner ads, but we don’t typically remember them, do we? No, all we remember are the ones which really grab our eye or the already offer something we’ve been looking for. So, there are a few different things you want to keep in mind when you’re first creating the ad.

FIND THE NEED If you’ve already done some research into your market, you know that your product is a necessary product. That said, when you aren’t quite sure what to sell, it’s time to think about NEED first. People will always be talked into the things that they need – or the things they think they need. For example, if you offer someone trash bags, that doesn’t sound all that exciting. But they are necessary. They are something people use every day to help them remove waste from their home. If you were to offer these sorts of necessary items and you make them better somehow, not only are people going to be intrigued, but they’re already halfway to agreeing with you about buying them. Why? Because they can already name a need for what you’re offering. Once they think about it, they think they probably need to buy the bags anyway, but why are these bags so important… While you might not always be selling an item that has a particular need associated with it, you might be able to find a way to create a need for an item. Another example is to think about the newer halogen 49

Banner Ads are Back! light bulbs, the ones that last for seven years. People already have access to light bulbs and for low prices, so why would they reach out for a new light bulb? When people begin to market these, they thought of a few things that would not only address the need for light, but would also address other concerns: 

Adds light.

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Lasts for seven years.

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Is environmentally friendly.

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Is energy efficient.

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Are brighter.

It’s like an old sales trick. Get your audience to agree with you that your item is a need and then just present them with better ideas to back up this need so that they will agree with the idea that they should buy the product too. Create a list of needs that the customer could respond to. If you can’t come up with a need, then you need to come up with another product.

BENEFITS FIRST When you are selling anything, you want to make sure that you are point out the benefits of the product or the service that is being sold. 

What does it do? 50

Banner Ads are Back! 

What makes it better?

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What can it do that nothing else can?

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What will is provide?

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How will it make life easier?

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How will it make a person healthier?

You want to make sure that in your banner ads that you are focusing on the things that the customer wants to say about the item after they bought it. The person should bring the item home and think about how all of the benefits you listed were actually true. Make sure that each of your banner ads points out one of the many benefits and each subsequent banner ad includes another benefit. This way, the click conversion rate will go up each time the customer sees ANOTHER benefit to the product you are trying to sell to them.

RELEVANCY If you’re advertising something that doesn’t apply to the person who is looking at it, then you’re not going to see a lot of success. You might get a few curious clicks, but you’re probably not going to get any serious bites. Instead, you need to make sure that your banner ad is relevant to the text that is surrounding it. In the next section, we’re going to talk about more about how to use some advanced remarketing techniques to ensure you are able to get your banner ads to the people who want to see them the most. In the meantime, make sure that your ads have relevancy. 51

Banner Ads are Back! 

Does the product/service matter?

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Do people want to buy it?

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Is the item being used today?

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Will the item still be usable in the future?

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Is it up to date?

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Will it compete with other better products?

Customers can sense when a product isn’t relevant, so you need to ask yourself as many questions as possible to ensure you are advertising something that actually matters to the customer.

ADDRESS THE EMOTIONS When marketing and advertising first began to grow in the world, it was because people realized that a person’s emotions could be more easily swayed than one’s logic – and that these emotions could often overtake logic. People all have different reactions to different events. When they see a sad movie, some cry, some don’t. When you can find a way to engage the emotions of a customer, you will begin to turn off their ability to think logically. For example, when makeup is advertised, it’s not advertised for its ability to help the skin or to make the person have some sort of healthy benefit. Instead, you see pictures of beautiful people having fun and smiling. This encourages the person who is watching the ad

Banner Ads are Back! to begin to think the makeup has something to do with the resulting fun. Likewise, when a commercial about a sad moment and dealing with it in a positive way comes on the TV, a person might be swayed into buying the product associated with that sad moment if it was handled in a touching way.

Banner Ads are Back! Emotions are a door into the pocketbook of a customer. Customers are swayed by: 

Anger

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Sadness

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Pity

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Happiness

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Fear

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Anxiousness

And any other host of emotions. The more a person is triggered by something, the more likely they are to want to find out more. Or if the advertisement can trigger something that makes them feel one way and the product being sold is touted to make them feel another way, then that’s another way to use banner ads to help entice a person to buy something you have for sale. What you will want to do is find ways to make sure the copy can create an emotion in the person who is looking at it. Even if it’s just a sad picture of a simple message of hope, find a way to pull at the

Banner Ads are Back! heartstrings of the viewer so they can begin to feel they are going to be better for having bought your product.

WHAT PEOPLE WANT While you’ve already learned about handling the need of a customer, the wants of a customer are much more powerful. When a person WANTS something, they are going to get it no matter what they see. This requires a different sort of ad, an ad that might show people their dreams and their desires: 

A happy relationship

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Weight loss

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More money

You get the picture. By creating a connection with the customer and the things they really want to see in their life, you will pull them into your banner ad, as they will want to know if you can solve all of their problems or grant a few wishes they might have in their minds. Make a list of the things people want in relation to the product you are selling and find a way to address this in the copy. It might be something as simple as a question: Do You Want To Lose Ten Pounds Without Being Hungry? That highlights the desire of the customer, makes them wonder if you’re offering something that can answer that question. And they click your advertisement.

Banner Ads are Back!

PICTURES TELL A STORY

It’s true. While words are effective for helping to explain what you are trying to sell and why you’re trying to sell it, it’s the pictures that can make or break your banner ad. You need to create a banner ad that is going to suck the reader into the text and make them want to learn more. The picture might be something that shows what might happen as a result of using the product: i.e. weight loss before and after pictures. Or you might want to choose a picture that evokes a certain emotion, as described above. When the picture evokes the person’s emotions, it will encourage them to read the text, which will encourage them to click the ad… You need to choose a picture that is clear, simple, and instantly grabbing. It should be clear what’s happening in the picture, why it’s important, and what it means for the product or service you are trying to sell. You might want to choose pictures that include images that relate to the lives of your customers. For example, if you’re advertising a book on how to control clutter, the picture might be of a messy house or a place that’s spic and span.

Banner Ads are Back! Find a way to include pictures in order to enhance your text when possible. At the same time, the picture shouldn’t overwhelm the reader either. Some of the best banner ads only included a few words. If you’re not sure which will be best for your needs, try out a few different banner ads to see which ones are most effective.

WORDS MAKE AN IMPRESSION Even though pictures are helpful in advertising, they’re not the only things you need to worry about when creating your banner ad. Your words have power and they will begin to change the way your customers look at your products – and not always in a good way. When you’re creating a banner ad, you have to first realize that you don’t have a lot of space to use. Thus, your words need to be smart choices and you need to only use the words that are CRUCIAL for the text you need to convey. Better said – use as few words as possible, always. You want to try to use words that are able to create energy in your banner ad. Here are some tips for choosing the right words: 

Brainstorm All good writing begins with brainstorming about what you want to say. For a while now, just write down anything that you think needs to be said in the banner ad. This list can include anything from things you think you should include to things you want to include, to things that just pop in your head.

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Highlight the power words In those brainstorming notes, take a highlighter out and highlight all of 57

Banner Ads are Back! the words that really stand out. Those are the power words you need to include in your writing. 

Find that thesaurus Once you have a lot of ideas down on the paper, get out the thesaurus to find other words to take the place of your power words. You will begin to find newer words, words you didn’t think of, and maybe even some simpler words to help you condense your writing even further.

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Create action sentences When writing, you need to create sentences that are going to inspire people to take action. You want sentences that are going to make you feel like you are a part of something special. We’ll give some examples in a moment.

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Read your copy aloud After you’re done writing your copy, that’s when you need to read it aloud to see if this is something that makes you feel inspired to take action as well. If not, then you need to rewrite the text until it does.

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Try to remove what you love the most If you find that your banner ad doesn’t sound quite right, but you don’t know what to change, you will want to try taking out your favorite line. Sometimes, you just need to remove a few things to see what is actually working and what need to be removed.

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Switch up the order The order of the sentences sometimes needs to be reversed in order to make more sense and to pack a greater punch with your audiences.

Here are some ideas for writing a banner ad that can work well: 

Weight Loss Doesn’t Have To Be Difficult

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Ten Pounds Of Fat Can Be Gone Today 58

Banner Ads are Back! 

Make More Money Today With An Exciting Business Plan

You want to express exactly what the product can do, what the results are, or what the most exciting idea associated with the product is. Remember, this is the text that will pull the reader in and make them a customer.

SHORT AND SWEET It can’t be stated enough that in order to make sure you’re making a great first impression with your audience, you need to choose the right words, but don’t use too many of them. When you get too long winded in a banner ad, not only does that look cluttered, but it can also cause a person to become bored and go to another page of text to find something else. Try to keep your banner ads to no more than 100 words, whenever possible. This is just enough time for the person to be able to read it without taking up a lot of their day. And the faster they read, the less they will feel like you are trying to talk them into something they don’t want. The copy that you have in your banner ad is going to be exciting, clear, and effective for encouraging someone to think about clicking, if they haven’t done so already. But if you have something that sounds like it’s too good to be true. You need to prove it.

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PROVE IT TO THEM The next step to effective banner ad copy is to prove your claims to the person who is reading the copy in the first place. While you might have bold claims, if you can’t seem to back them up, no one is going to be interested in learning anything more. But how can you prove something in a small box?

USE IMAGES AND IMAGERY As you’ve already heard, pictures are an effective way of drawing in customers and making them want to do more than just look at the banner ad before them. Pictures tell a story. They tell a person what they can expect to see when they use or buy the product you’re selling. The best examples of this in banner ads are weight loss results pictures. A person who is already interested in losing weight is going to see these pictures and begin to picture himself or herself in this position. You want to choose a person who looks like the average customer that you might have and then show them slimmer and trimmer. You might also want to include a picture of a person before and after using a face cream. You see where this is going, right? The more you can show a person what they can expect from a product, the more likely they are to buy the product to see if the claims are valid.

Banner Ads are Back!

NUMBERS AND STATISTICS A person will also begin to believe what you’re trying to tell them when you can show them figures and facts associated with your product: 

25% of users will lose weight.

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95% of people earn $1000 per week.

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100% of people who try this product are successful.

You want to figure out ways you can show numbers to the customers so they are only interested in seeing whether these numbers will apply to them as well. You can do this by looking to see what results you have gotten from your product or hand out your item to a few people to try out. When you have the results of your study in, then you can put these numbers on the banner ads to begin to show others that you are selling something that is impressive and that is able to help them get the same results.

SCREENSHOTS Since you might be selling an item whose results might be seen via websites and other online forums, you can include screenshots in your banner ads as well. One of the most popular banner ad screenshots to use is the shot of the traffic of a website going up or to show the earnings from a website. This will make the person who is looking at the banner ad begin to think they could see the same results, or even better. But this proof is 61

Banner Ads are Back! clear and hard to turn away from one it’s on the screen in front of a person. Just to find out what they need to do to get these results is enough to get a person to click on the banner ad.

CALL TO ACTION The call to action is the part where you really pull your customer in. Up until this point, you’ve just been trying to sway them to make a decision, but now you’re basically going to tell them to act on that decision, even though they will still have a chance to not make a purchase when they come to your website.

CREATE URGENCY The best way to make sure that the customer takes action is to create a sense of urgency. You’ve seen these ads and you’ve probably been pulled in by the pleas. Here are some examples: 

Today only!

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A limited time offer

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While supplies last

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Discount for the first 100 customers

Banner Ads are Back! When you create the sense that the customer might not get the deal unless they act right now, they’re going to think about clicking more often than if you don’t create this urgency. After all, if the customer thinks the deal is going to still be there tomorrow, then they’re going to wait until tomorrow for the next day. And why wouldn’t they? You need to create a banner ad that makes a person think they need to act sooner rather than later.

A PASSIONATE PLEA You’ve seen how political advertisements work to pull on the emotions of those who read them. With passionate pleas to the voters, it makes sense that these are ads that are remembered, read, and acted upon. Making a passionate plea in your banner ads will help to create just the right amount of energy to push a person who is on the edge of clicking through to actually click. You might want to include lines like: 

This might be your final chance.

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Your health is important. Take action today!

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You can’t wait any longer to be happy.

You want to really give the customer one more chance to feel pulled into the advertisement and what you have to sell them.

Banner Ads are Back!

FREEBIES AND GUARANTEES A call to action might be something that’s a little softer too. You might also want to pull the customer into your website by getting them to agree to download the free eBook that you are promoting. Then, they will give you their email address and you can re-market to them in the future. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. You want to offer some freebies and guarantees that will make the customer looking at the banner ad feel as though you are going to take care of them. 

100% guarantee of satisfaction

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100% money back guarantee

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Free special report

These sorts of deals will show that you are a person of good faith and one who will offer them something for free because you believe in what you have to share with others. And if you offer them something of value, they’re going to be even more likely to help you with the products you are trying to sell to them.

EXAMPLES OF BANNER AD COPY If you want to have some ideas about what banner ad copy might look like, this is the section that will give you a few ideas. Let’s use an imaginary product called Dirty Laundry, a new stain removing soap. 64

Banner Ads are Back! Here’s the best structure to follow:

STRONG OPENING You want to begin with something that makes the person want to continue reading, if not take immediate action on what you have to share with them. 

Ruining Your Clothes With Everyday Detergents And Stain Removers?

ENTICING OFFER Now you need to tell the person what can solve their problems. 

Dirty Laundry is an eco-friendly stain fighting detergent that will remove all of your stains and get your clothes clean – GUARANTEED.

This would be a great place for a picture of a shirt that was dirty and what it looks like after someone uses the detergent.

CALL TO ACTION/PASSIONATE PLEA 

Try a FREE sample of Dirty Laundry when you click here. Your clothes will thank you.

Banner Ads are Back! As you can see, the ad started with a simple question to the customer, then it talked about what the product was and what it could do and then it offered a free sample—simple, quick, and to the point. This ad also offers something that people need which is relevant to the everyday chores everyone needs to do. There are many other ways to create an advertisement, but this is a good example to get your brainstorming process started.

SPECIAL BANNER AD STRATEGIES FOR MAXIMUM CONVERSION Right from the start it’s going to be a good idea to make sure that you’re doing all that you can to ensure your banner ads aren’t just pretty to look at, but they’re also including smart secrets the pros use to ensure that those clicks turn into profits. Here are some of the secrets: 

Be specific Just like when you’re writing a cover letter to get a new job, you don’t want to create just any banner ad in the hopes that it attracts attention. You need to create a banner ad with a specific audience in mind, because that’s where the ad is going to go when you use the Google re-marketing tools.

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Try animation If you have the skills or you can instruct a graphics professional to do this sort of work, why not add a little animation to your banner ad? True, too much is going to annoy some viewers, but if you’re trying to entice a younger crowd, you might find that the fun graphics are the 66

Banner Ads are Back! best way to encourage someone to click on your site and to find out more about what you have to offer. 

Key words to use When you have a banner ad, there are certain words that everyone likes to see and that nearly anyone will be drawn to learning more about: Free, Click Now, Click Here, Today Only, Act Today, etc. Use these words and you’re likely to see a boost in your overall traffic as well as conversion.

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Go with the professionals If at all possible, try to use a professional banner ad service or graphics design firm. They know what to do, how to do it, and what works. Though you can certainly be involved in the process, sometimes it’s just best to leave this to the pros.

Are these the only secrets? Absolutely not. But what you will notice is that they are simple and common sense ways to look at the way that you’re creating your banner ads. These tips work. And if you look around at the banner ads online right now, chances are good that the effective ones have all of the items listed above.

Banner Ads are Back!

5 ADVANCED “RE-MARKETING” IDEAS

Re-marketing is a concept that can be a little confusing for most people. And it’s confusing because of the many different definitions of it. In this book, we’re going to approach re-marketing and its relationship with the use of banner ads. Thankfully, this is much more simple than it sounds. When you want to create an impression with your customers, you need to make sure you are instilling them with your company message again and again. And you need Google’s help to get started. 68

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RE-MARKETING FOR BEGINNERS A lot of people understand what re-marketing is and what progressive ads are, but they might not know exactly how it works. After all, it seems like magic to move from screen to screen and still see the same or similar advertising campaigns online. It can seem as though someone is following them around, trying to create a connection with them and the other person isn’t even there in the room with them. Or are they? Re-marketing is a process that works to narrow the market of people who might buy from you. With each progressive ad, people will either be talked into buying from you or they will never want to see your ads again and they will stop looking at anything you try to sell. In either case, you are narrowing your field and increasing your chances of making money from those who do click the ads. What happens when you re-market is ingenious though. 

Brand awareness increases With each additional advertisement on the Web about your product, the more your brand will be recognized. And the more your brand is recognized, the more likely you are to sell the items you want to sell to your customers. Even if they don’t buy today, the brand will be stuck in their minds and they will be more likely to buy from you in the future.

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Streamlined process Since re-marketing is a process that takes control of your marketing for you, it will save you time and money. Once you have put in the parameters into Google, then you will be able to walk away, knowing 69

Banner Ads are Back! that your customers will see the ads (again and again) which most affect and apply to them. But you don’t have to be a part of this process at every step. 

Higher conversion rates Early and more recent research has shown that re-marketing works to help engage customers and to ensure they come back to make a purchase, even if it’s not the same day.

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Positive reception from customers and businesses Though there will always be those who are not interested in being marketed to again and again, most of the feedback on re-marketing has been positive and it does seem to be an accepted form of advertising.

With these ideas in mind, you can see how re-marketing is not only able to create a strong connection with your customers, but it’s also going to help you reach your profit goals. But enough about the benefits, let’s talk about how you can set this up.

HOW TO SET UP RE-MARKETING There are a number of different ways the re-marketing idea can be used to help you drive up your profits. While the simplest way to do it is to arrange for your banner ads to drive a person to your ordering page, this is not the only way that you can pull them in and make them want to learn more about your products – and hopefully buy them. You can also use re-marketing to: 70

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Drive traffic from affiliate pages to your pages.

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Drive customers back to the ordering page if they try to click away from their shopping cart.

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Drive visitors to your opt-in email page to gather their email addresses.

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Drive customers to a webinar page or a free video to help engage the customer even more.

You can also do things that will encourage people to rethink their decision to not buy or at least to not buy as much as they are buying on this particular day. Savvy marketers will set up their re-marketing to do things like: 

Offer freebies and bonus packages at the end of a sale.

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Show a limited time offer on a progressive ad: While the first ads might have encouraged a person to buy certain things, subsequent ads on other pages might increase in their tone of urgency.

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Show a customer another sales page, with a slightly different angle or approach.

GET RE-MARKETING SETUP TODAY When you’re in your Google Ad Words account, you will want to head to audience in order to start setting up your re-marketing campaign. This will help you to create the movement you want to see when it comes to your ads and to the actions that happen after a person does or does not click the ads. 71

Banner Ads are Back! Now, this process can only begin when you already have an Ad Words account to start the process. You will need to either already be advertising or be ready to advertise via Google in order to create an effective Ad Words campaign. You can access the Ad Words section of Google by going here: https://adwords.google.com Once you have your account setup, you will be guided through the creation of your first ad. But while this process is certain valuable, you already have the concepts of how to create an effective ad, so weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re not going to review that information. What you want to know is how to create a re-marketing campaign.

YOUR FIRST RE-MARKETING CAMPAIGN You need to start by setting up at least five advertising campaigns in Google. This will allow you to have different directions in which the remarketing can take place. Once you have setup these five banner ads, then you will be able to establish the proper re-marketing directions. You will want to go to the Audiences Tab that you can find at the top of the area where you are creating your advertisements. This tab will help you select the audiences who will see certain ads or not. What this tab will help you to do is to tag certain customers when they come to your advertisements and click. Google basically puts a label on these customers so that you can decide where they need to be directed when they return to your ads or

Banner Ads are Back! when they return to a Google page. With their history in mind, they can be shuffled to another site that might boost their conversion rates. For those who want to make sure get to go to a certain page, you will need to add in a new set of remarketing code for each tag that you have setup. This does require that you have a code readily available for each of your banner ads or the landing pages where the customers will end up. You can then add in this code for all of the tags or have specific codes for each of the audiences you are targeting. You can also go to the New Custom Combination area to set up specific tags so that the process can be streamlined and automatic. What you will do is create a new combination name (i.e. clicked, but didn’t buy) and then you can set up the parameters in which these folks will be placed. You will then see a new menu of options for adding them into re-marketing lists, based on the lists you’ve already built. You can then ‘Add’ these groups to as many of the lists as you like in order to direct them to taking action on your websites. You can also make sure that certain advertisements aren’t seen by certain groups (i.e. those who have made a purchase recently or who are currently making a purchase). This will ensure customers don’t feel you are trying to sell to them, even as they’re already convinced. The Audiences tab is where you’re going to start off customizing your re-marketing campaigns. Though it is going to take some time to setup, once things are arranged, adding in new customers and new lists is simple and quick. Google also makes it easy to create compelling ad copy that will pull a reader into the ad and ensure that your re-marketing strategy has the best chance of success. By using the Google Ad Display Builder, you 73

Banner Ads are Back! can create strong advertisements which sell the items you need them to sell as well as direct customers to other banner ads, as needed. Though this process can sound complicated when you’re new to the Google Ad Words campaigns, the more you work with it, the more you can custom tailor it to your needs. Some good advice is to start out with just a few campaigns to see what happens when a person like yourself clicks on one of your banners. Check to see what happens and whether you’re convinced this will be a good use of their time. If not, then try to adjust the flow of the customer movement to see if you can create a system that is more effective and possibly more profitable.

RE-MARKETING STRATEGIES TO USE NOW When you’re ready to go in Ad Words, there are other ways you can create even more effective ads and re-marketing campaigns. Here are some of the more popular strategies that professional marketers use today: 

Try upselling This is a standard practice at nearly every site online, so it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary to add this to your Google Ad Words campaign. Once you have created a converted users list in your Ad Words campaign, then you will want to make sure that you are adding in new banner ads or other advertisements that will then bring these customers back to a new option for their purchase. They will see

Banner Ads are Back! something that might complement their current purchase or purchases from the past. 

Grab those with abandoned shopping carts Everyone goes to an online store, fills up a cart, and then doesn’t follow through with the purchase, but you can encourage them to. By placing a tag on the View Shopping Cart page, you can have an additional tag on the Order Confirmation page so that you only encourage those who haven’t made a purchase to buy what they have put in the cart.

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Add users who don’t buy Once you have a list of customers in your Ad Words campaign, you will notice there are those who haven’t bought anything. You can add these customers to your re-marketing, showing them additional messages about making a purchase or thanking them for stopping by.

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Add users to a specific category By noticing where your customers are shopping, you can create specific re-marketing campaigns. For example, those who shop in the children’s section might want to be led to the toys section as well.

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Target people at specific times Perhaps you might set up your re-marketing to begin a week or a month after a customer has made a purchase. This will encourage them to come back to stock up or to simply buy something else.

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Add everyone Or you might just want to add everyone on your customer lists to your re-marketing campaign, in the hopes of getting someone to buy from you. This can come across as spreading the net a little too wide, but it’s also been shown to be highly effective for increasing sales. In time, however, specialization of one’s re-marketing actually seems to work better since it targets the specific needs of people when they’re shopping with you. 75

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Creating a re-marketing campaign does require you have some familiarity with the Ad Words program, but even if you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t yet, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s simple enough to set up so you can get started today. Something to keep in mind too, since there are some customers who might not want to be a part of this re-marketing cycle, it can help to have this address on hand so customers can opt out at any time: http://www.google.com/ads/preferences

Banner Ads are Back!

6 MAKING SURE YOUR ADS ARE WORKING

If your ads aren’t working, then they’re not making the money you want them to be making. Even if you have the best re-marketing place possible, if your ads aren’t attracting attention, they’re not going to make you any money. But aside from being able to look at the advertisements as they are being clicked, is there any other way to make sure your advertisements are working? Just like a traditional website or another online location, you can check up on the traffic to your site, helping you to craft not only a great remarketing campaign, but also to help you see what banner ads work and which do not. Those that are working for you should be spread far 77

Banner Ads are Back! and wide while those which are not working for you need to be removed from your campaign as quickly as possible.

HOW TO CHECK UP ON ADS Your advertisements are out there right now creating an impression with those who see them. But is it the right impression? While you might be getting a lot of clicks, if you’re not getting conversion for those clicks, it doesn’t really matter if you’re doing something right. You need to have more than just clicks. You need more. And even then, some say that many people are intrigued by banner ads, but there’s just something about them that prevents a person from clicking on the ad. You need to know this as quickly as possible in order to ensure your banner ads are working all of the time – not just once in a while. You deserve all of the profits of your banner ads.

LEARN THE RIGHT NUMBERS TO WATCH Sure, you already know how to manage those other numbers, but is that all you need to know? If you want to be a successful and a profitable marketer, you need to do more. You need to look at the numbers that none of the other newbies are looking at. 

Clicks, impressions If you want to see how an ad is doing, you need to check in on the clicks that the ad generated, even if it didn’t result in a payment or a purchase. Chances are good, for example, that if person clicked on

Banner Ads are Back! the ad, they were interested in what you had to say, but they didn’t like the price or something they saw on the website. 

Popup If you’re using popups, you might want to track how many times a person clicks these. While this can also identify those who just click them to get them out of the way, knowing how much they’re being seen is helpful too.

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Emails You want to see how many of your emails get opened, just from the subject line. If the emails aren’t being opened, then that means you need to rewrite them to be more enticing.

You can check the numbers of your advertisements when you’ve used the Google system for setting up your re-marketing campaign. In that system, you will be able to see the numbers go up and down as your banner ads are placed in the Internet landscape. If you notice that things aren’t moving the way you want them to, it might be a good idea to try out a new banner ad to see if the new one works better. And if not, you might have bigger troubles than just your banner ads.

SERVICES TO WATCH YOUR NUMBERS This might sound like a lot of work for you to manage all of these numbers, so you might want to hand this task off to someone else. For some businesses, it makes sense to hire on a third party to help watch the numbers.

Banner Ads are Back! These companies know what to look for when they collect the numbers. They know that you want to learn about the conversion rate, not just about how many people are clicking on your links. Google Analytics is a free program you can use to get you started, but there are other companies out there that can help too (ClickTale.com, AltaVista.com, these are just a few to keep in mind). There are a few benefits to having someone else watch the numbers: 

They know what the numbers mean A service that has been tracking traffic and conversion numbers knows when to alert you of troubles and when to tell you things are going fine.

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They can track them more often You have other things to do in your life besides watch the numbers of your banner ads, in most cases. But since you need to watch the numbers as much as possible, passing off this task to someone else is the best way to create a solid foundation for your campaigns.

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It’s worth every penny When you pay someone else to observe your banner ad rates, you will be able to change your ads when they begin to lose interest, not over a period of a week when you might have lost all interest in your product – and you will have lost a lot of money at that point as well.

At the same time, there are some troubles with having someone else watch your numbers. 

You don’t have complete control If your service is on the other side of the world, you might not know about a dip in your numbers until the next day.

Banner Ads are Back! 

You won’t understand your campaign completely While you might decide to outsource your writing, you may want to know what’s going on behind the scenes so that you can create future campaigns with the numbers in mind.

Using a tool like Google Analytics is free and simple, so you should really be checking up on your banner ads with this service as often as possible. It’s completely worth your time and effort.

WHEN YOUR NUMBERS AREN’T ADDING UP But here’s the trick when you’re noticing your numbers aren’t adding up, what do you do? A newer Internet marketer would think they need to change their banner ad immediately, but this isn’t always warranted.

WHEN YOU SEE NUMBERS FALL Sometimes you will see dips in your numbers, but this can be due to any number of factors and not just your banner ads. People might not click because: 

The stock market took a dive

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The product has been recalled

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There’s been a health report about your product

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The holiday season is happening

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The competition came out with a similar product

Banner Ads are Back! The truth is that there also might be a glitch in the systems once in a while that might keep people from clicking on your advertisement. But when your numbers fall after these events, that’s when you need to think about taking action: 

A new advertisement is released.

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You have changed your wording.

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You have a new audience level set.

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Nothing has changed.

If you’re seeing numbers drop and you truly can’t think of any other reason for the change, then you might want to think about adjusting things, slightly, to see if this has any impact on the way that your numbers move in the future.

WHEN TO CHANGE YOUR BANNER ADS Every now and again, you do want to change your banner ads because people really do get bored with the same old messages and the same old ads, even if they don’t realize they are bored with them. You should change your banner ads: 

If numbers are slowly going down.

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Every month or so, more if you run a lot of ads.

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Each time you get a new product or your products have new features.

Banner Ads are Back! You need to change things up from time to time, and that means you’ll need to create a new banner ad or hire someone else to do it.

THE TRUTH ABOUT NUMBERS In all fairness, number changes aren’t always the worst news in the world. If you notice that ALL of your numbers area shrinking down to nothing, then yes, you need to take action and you need to take it now. But since numbers will go up as much as they go down, it might not be a bad idea to avoid watching the numbers every day. Just check in once a week to see the general trend in your numbers. If it’s going up, then you're good. If it’s leveling off, it might be time to think about change. And if things aren’t looking good, it’s time to make some adjustments.

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7 CONVERSION TACTICS AFTER THE CLICK

It’s not just about getting the person to click, is it? No, once you have the person on your website, you need to make sure that click is converting into money for you – and that means you need to do some additional work once someone is on your website. You need to make sure there are plenty of opportunities for the person to make the purchase you want them to make. If they’re not pulled in by the banner ad or they’ve clicked it but they haven’t taken any other steps, you might want to entice them by offering them more, eventually wearing them down to say yes to your offers.

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THE FREEBIE OFFER Freebies are always a good way to help encourage a person to buy from you. This is especially the case when it comes to informational products. When you’re selling an eBook, for example, you might want to sell a trial form of the book, like as special report. This piece of writing can be a few pages long, filled with valuable information. And when the person downloads this (for free), they will get a taste of what a larger eBook might be like. As a result, they might be more willing to pay for a larger product.

IDEAS FOR FREE GOODIES Here are some ides you might want to add to your list of possible freebies that you can include on your landing page or as a part of your banner ad content: 

Free samples If you can offer a free sample to your customers, they will be able to see what you have to offer before they spend any money. This is an attractive way to enhance your business. You will have them pay the shipping and handling and they will have the item in their hand to try out as soon as possible.

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Free information products Again, special reports and other similar products can be helpful. Have a freelance writer create one of these for you and then you can have the customer download the item when they give you their email address.

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Free newsletters If you collect the email address of the customer who clicked on the 85

Banner Ads are Back! banner ad, you can offer to send them a regular newsletter which will help them to keep informed of related ideas and products. You can also fill the newsletter with valuable information so it’s not just a sales letter in disguise. 

Free videos and audio If your product is related to audio or video items, you can also include links to these sorts of advertising tools. You might include, for example, a free video of a workout for your diet plan’s program. This will give your customer a taste of what they can expect or they can use the free workout as a starting point.

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Free memberships You might want to offer those who come to your site and sign up for the mailing list a chance to be a part of a member’s only area. Just by sighing up, they can be a part of an exclusive club where they can hear about specials ahead of time, plus be privy to a host of informational articles, videos, audio, etc.

The more free things you can give to a customer, things which don’t cost you much to produce, the more likely it is that a person will be convinced to buy something bigger.

THE EMAIL LISTS Another way to slowly encourage a customer to think about buying what you have to sell is to have them sign up for email lists. This will encourage them to listen to what you have to say. At the same time, you will be able to make those on the list feel like they are part of an exclusive club that has the insider information others do not.

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DEALS FOR EMAIL LISTS One of the best ways to make your customers feel like they’re special is to offer them deals, but only when they’re on the email list. These deals might be free shipping on order or it might be a percentage off of any order. You might also encourage your email list members to pass the email on to someone else and they could get an additional discount. Since so many people are dealing in emails these days, it’s to your advantage to create an email list that is actually worth reading. Only include items that are true deals and worth someone’s time to read. These deals should be on items that they have not already bought or the deals might be on things they have bought in the past and a deal which will encourage them to make another purchase. Other possible ideas for emails include: 

Announcements for upcoming new items.

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Announcements of upcoming events, deals, sales, etc.

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New website announcements.

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Short reminders of order deadlines.

You want the emails to include information the email list member is expecting or that they believe they have signed up for.

DON’T BE SPAMMY Since most of us have a sensitive ‘spam’ filter in our minds now because of the plethora which can come in one’s email today, it makes 87

Banner Ads are Back! sense that most emails from a business might be immediately tossed or filed into the junk mail folder. Even if the customer has requested the email, it might still end up in the spam folder. To make sure this doesn’t happen, you might want to follow a few simple rules: 

Have a simple unsubscribe feature Have the button to get off of your mailing list be simple to find and to use. This prevents any sort of reputation for being a spammer.

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Make it clear what will happen when a person signs up When a person hands over their email address, let them know they can expect X amount of mails per week, which can include things like…

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Limit your emails When you send out emails to your mailing list each day, that’s going to get a little old, even if the deals you’re including are great. Try to limit your emails to no more than once a week, on Fridays. Fridays tend to be the day when people are more likely to read their email, while Mondays are when junky emails are more likely to be deleted.

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Keep your emails short No one wants to spend hours reading an email, so keep those mails short and to the point.

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Use clear subject headings Your subject lines should be clear about what the email is, who it’s from, etc. This way, the person who receives the email will know who you are and why they’re getting an email from you.

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Don’t sell While it’s going to be tempting to sell to your customers when you write these mass emails, it’s best to just inform them of deals and of new events or products. Gently inform and your mailing list will grow 88

Banner Ads are Back! instead of decline.

NEWSLETTERS AND INFORMATIVE MAILINGS Many people are finding their customers want more than just an email every now and then. If you’re able to produce a high quality newsletter on a regular basis, you’re going to work on building credibility with your customers and with your mailing list members. This is going to help you boost the odds that your clicks are going to turn into purchases, even if it doesn’t happen at the same time.

NEWSLETTER IDEAS Your product should give you enough ideas about related things you could talk about when it comes to your newsletter. Think about topics that your customers might be concerned about. This way, they can read the newsletter and feel like you are taking care of them. You might want to include: 

Tips on how to use the item.

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Benefits to the item.

For example if you’re trying to sell a health related product, your newsletters should address some of the same conditions that your product might address. If you’re selling a product for migraines, then your newsletters can talk about other ways to reduce the pain or prevent the migraines entirely.

Banner Ads are Back! You want to create some sort of regular informational mailing that will ADD to the experience of the customer, not just give them worthless information. If you just send out any information, it’s going to create a sense that you’re only going to help your customers out if they pay you money. Though your customers might not think this consciously, it’s something that can reduce the size of your mailing list and it will cause you to have troubles selling your products. The newsletter doesn’t need to be any more than a page, but it should be well done and created with value in mind.

VALUABLE BOOKS AND RESOURCES If you’re interested in helping your customer feel as though they are the most important part of your business, it’s a good idea to have valuable books and resources available for them, resources that will enhance their experience of the things you want them to buy. For example, you might want to add on a workout planner if you’re selling a diet and exercise plan. Or you might want to point out a free phone application if that’s available for those who use your other products.

SELLING A LITTLE TO SELL A LOT You might even be able to create more profits if you sell a few smaller items, working your customer up to the more expensive sales. 

Sell a small journal. 90

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Sell a small book.

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Sell a small video.

These items can be delivered wirelessly and they can be sold for only $5 as a way to get a person used to the experience of buying items from you. When they have these items, they will be encouraged to try something else out when they are next considering whether they think the items you have for sale are worth their time and their money.

MEMBERSHIPS Another way to pull the customer into the experience of shopping with you and to help them feel more at ease with the products you have for sale is to encourage them to be a part of a special club. This can be like a mailing list or it can also be something like a Ning.com group where only certain people can get into the group in order to learn more about ideas related to the products you want to sell. These memberships can be free for a certain period of time, which is going to help you boost profits and have some time to persuade the members to buy items from you if they decide to do so. You can create membership clubs easily. Here are some ideas: 

Membership forums These might be places where only members can post ideas they have about your products or where people can go to share their ideas and their experiences.

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Membership websites By password protecting a site, you can invite people to certain areas of 91

Banner Ads are Back! the Web to share their thoughts and to get inside information about things which are happening or which are going to happen.

The good thing about the idea of creating a membership is that this tends to help a person feel even more special. They feel like the company who invited them to be a member is someone with whom they might feel they could do business.

TESTIMONIALS Once a person gets to your site, they’re thinking about buying something that you have to offer. But since many people are still a little wary of websites, their security, etc., you might need to talk your customers into their decision a bit more. This is where testimonials can be helpful. You can create a clear sense of community with these sorts of pieces. You will show the customers when they arrive that they’re not the only ones who have bought from you and that are happy. Here are some simple testimonial tips to ensure they’re as effective as possible: 

Use real people You want to make sure that the testimonials you use are real people who can vouch for what they’re saying. If you’re ever found to have posted false testimonials, that’s not going to be good for your reputation. And if you can’t find real people yet, make sure that you write realistic testimonials and supplement them with the real things as compliments come to you.

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Don’t have perfect claims You never want to post testimonials that sound too good to be true. People will think they are too good to be true and they won’t believe them. Make sure the testimonials sound real; even if the person is real who is writing them wrote that everything was perfect. You don’t want to oversell things either.

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Include pictures Pictures of the people who have written the testimonials is always a good idea when you want to create sense of realism. Include a small picture whenever possible alongside the testimonial piece.

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Keep them brief The testimonials don’t have to be long in order to be persuasive.

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Have them be specific These testimonial pieces shouldn’t just be that things were great, they should be specific details about what the product did which impressed the person writing the testimonial.

You can use testimonials in a number of ways once you have some to share. These can not only be on your website to entice people to come buy your product, but they can also be on your banner ads, in your newsletters and emails, etc. When people see that they’re not the only ones who have purchased an item, they will feel more secure in making that same decision for themselves.

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ABOUT US Another great way to encourage people who make it to your site to make a purchase is to have an About Us section. In the world of virtual commerce, it can seem as though the people who are selling to others are often too mysterious or they are invisible altogether, just there to collect the money. Instead, try to create a stronger connection with your audience by creating a story about who you are, what you have to offer to the customer, etc. You might want to include things like: 

Background story Write up the background story of how you came to do what you do today. This will help customers get to know you in a deeper way, in a way which will endear them to you and make them feel like part of a family.

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Your own personal testimonial If you have a personal story that relates to using your own product, this is the time to include it. You will show that you are a person who has the same thoughts as the site visitor, which makes you all the more trustworthy.

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Bios of the staff When you have people working for you with your business, make sure you are including small stories about them too. The appearance of a family unit or a community is a very appealing sign to customers.

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Pictures of you and your staff members Whenever possible, have pictures of the staff too so that you can show you are real people who are supporting the business.

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The more you can personalize the website, the higher the rate of conversion. People need to know that you are real and that you are not trying to swindle them.

CLEAR INSTRUCTIONS What’s interesting is that many people who are running a website don’t realize the value of having clear instructions on their site. When the instructions aren’t clear or they’re muddled, not only will they create confusion, but they can also cause a customer to leave the site and never return. Just as you want to have a clear call to action on your banner ad, you need to have this clear call to action on your website but in a different manner.

CLICK HERE It should be very clear as to where the customer needs to go when they want to place their order. They should know within a matter of moments where they can find the item that was on the banner ads. You might want to have a very clear set of instructions that guide them and then clear instructions on what to do next. If you don’t have the item listed specifically on the landing page, it can seem as though you’re trying to encourage a person to buy other things before they’ve even committed to the first item – not a good selling tactic. Use phrases like: 95

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Click here.

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Buy here.

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Order now.

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Order your _________.

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Choose Your Color and Size Here.

As you can see, these phrases immediately direct the person to the item they want and tell them to buy it.

ORDER INSTRUCTIONS Once the person has found where they need to go to get the item, it should be clear what they need to do to place the order. Many of these systems are standardized, so most customers already know what will be expected of them, but it never hurts to pretend that your customers are not computer savvy. 

Review the shopping cart This should be the first thing people see so they can be certain they only are buying what they came to buy.

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The personal information The customer will fill out their address and other information here. There can also be an option to store this information for future purchases and to receive newsletter or be on the email list.

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The payment information In this secure page, you will want to make sure the payment information is encrypted and the customer knows that you are being safe with their information. Use SSL or a PayPal system to be certain. 96

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Review Cart and Checkout The customer should then have another opportunity to check out and then place their order.

These steps are simple and they will ensure the customer knows what is happening at every stage. At the end, you might want to have a message that states the order has been placed as well to confirm the process, in addition to a confirmation email.

FAQ AND POLICIES Having sections on your website where a person can get their questions answered is a good idea as well. Your site should include a list of the most frequently asked questions that a customer could pose: 

What is the shipping policy?

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What is the return policy?

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How long until I receive my order?

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Etc.

This will not only help to inform the customer, but it will also allow the customer to answer their questions immediately instead of having to wait for an email response. Returns should be easy, shipping should be fast, and shipping prices should be reasonable. This all adds up to a higher conversion rate. 97

Banner Ads are Back! The policies should also be listed on your site, including any warranties, guarantees, etc. The details of the policies should be included so that they can be reviewed later, as needed.

CONTACT INFORMATION Having your contact information on there is also going to encourage a person to be more excited to make a purchase from you. Some companies will make it difficult for a customer to complain or to make a return. This is bad form and will eventually lead to a bad reputation for the company. Instead, have a few different email addresses where you can be reached as well as an emergency number. Here’s an example of possible addresses: 

info@yourwebsite.com: When people have questions.

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help@yourwebsite.com: When people need help.

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mailto:orders@yourwebsite.com: When people have questions about an order.

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mailto:suggestions@yourwebsite.com: When people have suggestions.

You can also sign up with Google Voice (http://www.google.com/googlevoice/about.html) to get a free phone number which can then be forwarded to your cell or home phone. Voice mails are transcribed and you can keep your personal number private this way. Google will also allow you to call from this number when you have access to the online account. 98

Banner Ads are Back! You have options to make sure your customer never feels like theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re just another order. And this is going to increase your chances of conversion.

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CONCLUSION

In the end, banner ads and re-marketing can work together to seamlessly encourage a customer to click on a link as well as to take action as a result of the link. With simple tools like those from Google Analytics and Google Ad Words, your banner ad effectiveness can be enhanced and your profits will increase.

No matter if you are a new

marketer or someone who has been marketing online for a while, the more control you have over your advertising campaigns and the flow of your customers, the more likely you are to see success as a result and profits. Re-marketing is a way to bring your customers back to you until they are convinced you have something to offer them. And since you have a good product, it only makes sense that you do everything you can to ensure they are walking away with that product.

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Internet marketing resources

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