If you’ve done any research on display advertising or banner advertising online, you’ll probably have run into the Display Lumascape:

What I would like to do through a series of blog posts is to breakdown this Lumascape and explain the different types of businesses in the display landscape and what they (generally speaking) do and why you need to know.

Let’s start at the beginning with an easy one; agencies.  Most people have heard of agencies and even work with agencies on a daily basis.

An advertising agency is a company that provides a service to consumers such as planning your advertising campaigns; whether that’s your entire marketing strategy, your online strategy or just a specific aspect of your advertising, like display.  An agency will likely create your campaigns for you or work with a company who can create your campaigns for you; they will buy your advertising from other companies for you and track your performance for you.

Agencies cost money and it is likely that you will save money by going direct; but before you do try going direct there are a few questions you will need to ask yourself.  The first is quite simply; do you have the expertise to do this yourself?  If you don’t know where to begin, I suggest that you find someone who does have the knowledge and expertise – because you could spend a lot of time and money getting it wrong.  The second question is; do you have time to do this yourself?  To plan, build, run, optimize and analyze your campaign?

The IAB recommends asking these questions of any supplier:

• What unique inventory can you give me so that I am not duplicating spend?

• What unique data can you give me so that you can target my customers better?

• What technology are you using and how are they different from other companies?

• How will you protect my data so that it does not get used to benefit my competitors?

• How will you ensure the protection of my brand online?

• What transparency can you offer me on where my advertising is running?

• How are you going to optimise my campaign?

• What different creative formats can you offer me to improve my campaigns?

• What reporting will you give me so I can measure performance against other channels?

• What reporting will you give me so I can improve my last campaign?

• What are you doing to innovate?

These are excellent questions to ask and a good supplier should have no problem answering them.  Make sure that they are fully aware of your main goals and they are working specifically to these by looking at your campaigns holistically, as well as individually.

I was talking to someone the other day and explaining exactly what my job entails and as soon as I got round to explaining display advertising I was met with a barrage of questions about whether banner advertising was a dying medium and whether people even looked at the banner adverts online and so I felt inspired to write this blog post.

Let’s start with how online advertising is doing today.  The IAB has released the Full Year 2011 Internet Advertising Spend report which highlights some really interesting points.  Did you know that 2011 saw a record online adspend of £4.8 billion, which is a 14.4% growth.

So, how does display fit in to this landscape?  Display advertising accounted for 24% of this market, compared to paid for search with 58% and classified at 16%.  Display advertising surpassed the £1 billion barrier for the first time and it looks like it’s set to continue this trend.

To address the question of whether banner adverts work, I can assure you that they do.  Banner advertising is not usually what drives the final conversion though, it helps other, direct response campaigns you may have running.  Think of it a little bit like passing the ball to your team mate in a football match, so they can score the goal.  Display advertising passes the lead to your search campaign to score the conversion.

A study by Yahoo! and Comscore showed that search campaigns saw an uplift of 22% on average, when combined with a display campaign.  This means that people are not only looking at the display advertising, it is having the desired impact.

Hopefully display advertising is set to continue to grow and as a part of that, pop-up are set to become extinct in favour of higher quality, more relevant, richer forms of non-intrusive display advertising.

What I want to start with is 1,000 impressions ≠ 1,000 impressions.  Impressions are not of the same value – an impression on Facebook is not the same value as an impression on eBay, which is not the same as an impression on Linked In, which is not the same as an impression for a text advert on an affiliate site.

There are many reasons that the impressions may be worth more or less.  The first reason is placement.  Remember your end goal is to increase lead generation and display advertising helps to do this by increasing brand awareness, so the placement of your advert is very important.  The top of the home page of AOL is a better placement than the bottom of the search results on eBay and the side of a ‘sticky page’ (something with a lot of content that you’ll linger on) is a better placement than the top of a page with no content that you’ll click away from in seconds.

Next up is, well, placement again – but in a different sense of the word.  Is your advert the only advert in the competition for the consumer’s eye or are you sharing the space?  If there are 5 adverts on one page, is that as valuable as being the only advertiser on the page?  No, it’s not.  The less advertisers; the better for you.

Finally, the advert.  If you have an animated banner advert with clear branding, that impression will mean more to the consumer than a static advert with no logo or a text advert with a logo.  If it means that people will pay more attention to it and remember it (in a positive light) then it is worth more to you.  Good branding is worth more than poor branding.

So, does this mean that you shouldn’t advertise on sites like Facebook because they have lots of ads, with no animation and little branding?  No, it means you should understand what you’re paying for!  If you pay 5 times less for 1,000 Facebook impressions or affiliate text ad impressions and you determine that the impression is worth 5 times less – then that makes perfect sense!

Each medium of advertising has it’s value, just make sure that you know what the impression value is to you and don’t pay more than that!

Your banner advert is the same; you need to create a banner that is alluring and makes the consumer want to find out more; here’s how to do just that:

DO use a clear and concise message

-         Make your point simple; this is what I’m selling and this is why you should buy it from me.

DO state your location if you’re a local business

-        Local business is what it’s all about right now, use your banner advert to your full advantage and let people know you’re just around the corner

DO use bold and vibrant colours

-        Make your banner stand out from the crowd, attract the customer’s eye

DO make your branding obvious

-        Use a logo, state your company name, use your brand colours – they’ll help people remember you

DO use a strong call to action

-        Tell people what you want them to do next, ‘apply for a free quote’, ‘click here’, ‘call today’

DON’T use strobing, flashing images

-        Anything that puts the customer off is bad!

DON’T stretch the truth

-        If you’re not the cheapest, don’t say you are.  If you don’t have a special offer, don’t say you do.  It may get people to click, but they’ll remember that you lied and won’t come back.

DON’T link to a poor quality site

-        If you have a great banner and a bad website, people will bounce pretty quickly.  No-one wants to spend hours figuring out how to navigate the site when they could go elsewhere.

DON’T be too risqué

-        Your risky sense of humour may appeal to some of your target audience, but it may offend other people – be careful not to alienate your audience.

DON’T change your advert too regularly

-        You may think it’s a good idea to keep your advert fresh, and it is, but don’t change it too often.  People need time to get the message.  Depending on your business, I’d say once a month is plenty.

So those are my banner advert hints and tips!  Follow these and you’ll be more likely to see the response you’re looking for!

The tide has turned and the UK is looking locally, we want to shop at our local butchers, we want organic veg from our local greengrocer, we want our clothes from local boutiques and our records from independent local record shops!

It is now easier than ever for small, local businesses to advertise online and compete against the larger national brands.  Advanced geographical targeting means that you can target just your local area and things like retargeting and behavioural targeting means that it’s worth it!  You can use an intermediary company, like Yell or a sales warehouse, who buy huge amounts of inventory on the top sites and buy whatever you can afford.  Then you can sit there smugly as your advert appears on the home page of MSN or AOL, right next to Marks and Spencer’s or eBay’s advert.

You do need to invest in banner advertising, it takes time and money but the results will be worthwhile.  You need to plan your campaign carefully so you don’t waste your money and know what your end game is and when you know this and have planned your campaign well – go for it!

You must know who your target audience is and how best to reach them and you need to know your product and design your banner campaign accordingly.  If you’re selling houses – there’s no point running a campaign for a month because people take longer than that to go from ‘thinking about buying a house’ to ‘researching opportunities’ to ‘buying’.  If you’re a florist and want to do a bit of short term advertising in the line up to Valentines Day – that makes sense.

The real difference between large brands and small companies in this space, is that large brands employ people who specifically know all about the digital space and know what to do with the advertising, whereas small businesses need to take some time to figure out what they should be doing and how they should do it.  My advice is always do your research first and speak to a professional.

Small businesses need to get online and start competing with the big fish – now’s the time to do it, so what are you waiting for?

In a nutshell – that’s why you should use banner advertising.  Don’t think of increasing brand awareness as a pointless exercise, because although it’s not direct response, it will help you to achieve response.

Think of banner advertising as the rising agent in your cupcakes or the Miracle Grow in your garden – you could bake cakes or grow plants without them but with them, you’ll do much better; your cakes will rise, your garden will flourish and your advertising portfolio will achieve new heights.

When consumers know your brand or recognize your brand it instils a level of confidence and trust (unless they know your brand from ‘Rogue Traders’ or ‘Watchdog’) and this means that when they search for your product or services in Google or Bing or Yell.com; they’ll click on your advert and not someone else’s.

In addition to this, you need to think about where your new consumers come from.  If you limit your advertising portfolio to purely direct response campaigns such as search advertising – you will only ever advertise to people who are looking for you.  In order to expand and grow your client base, you need to attract customers from a variety of sources and inspire people who wouldn’t have spent their hard earned money on your product or service to do just that.

What do you sell?  If your product or service costs a lot of money, then you can expect the sales to be fewer and later.

Let’s look at two examples in the same field.  Company A is a car dealer, they specialize in second hand cars and their prices range from £1,000 to £10,000.  Company B is a car dealer and they specialize in luxury cars; their prices are in excess of £50,000.  Few people decide to buy a car on the spot and drive it away the same day.  Usually, the idea starts to surface months in advance – this is a commitment and it’s a lot of money.  You start thinking about it, you start browsing online for the type of car that you want, you check your finances, you do a bit more research, and then you start looking at specific dealers and decide who to buy with.

For Company A, this decision process is usually much shorter than for Company B because the amount of expenditure is much less.  You are committing to much less and you probably plan to keep this car for a few years and then move on to the next one.  The second company, company B, is selling you a car that you hope is going to be around for a long time, which means that you need to be certain that you’ve bought the right car.

There’s something else in this example which is worth looking at.  Company A is selling a car that you’re likely buying out of necessity, Company B is selling a luxury item.  When you need a car, you may not have the luxury of thinking about it for a very long time.  When you chose to buy a luxury car, you have plenty of time to think about it – it’s not essential.

So, how long will it take?  It depends on how long it takes someone to buy your product or service.  As a general rule of thumb, high value products take a long time, low value products take less time.

The reason it is important that you know this is because people tend to dabble in advertising and you just can’t do that.  You can’t dip your toe in the water and see how it feels.  If you are going to run an online display campaign you need to commit to it wholeheartedly, otherwise you will end up wasting your money on what could have been an exceptionally valuable advertising campaign.

Banner adverts come in different shapes and sizes.

Banner adverts are a popular way to advertise your business online. With a banner advert you can attract visitors to your website from elsewhere, either by advertising your products and services or by promoting a special offer.

What is a banner ad?

A banner advert is just a type of hyperlink, using a graphic instead of text. In its simplest form, a person looking at a website sees a graphic advert (which can include images and/or text), running above, below or to the side of the main content.

When that person clicks on the banner ad, just like a text hyperlink, they’re taken to the advertiser’s website.

More complex banner ads can use sound, moving .gif or Flash animation or video content to be more eye-catching.

Banner adverts can be:

• very wide and short, running along the top or bottom of a page – these are the traditional ‘banner’ shape
• an even bigger version or the banner called a ‘leaderboard’
• very long and thin, down the side of page – these are also called ‘skyscrapers’.

How do I get my banner ads seen?

Banner adverts are displayed on other websites. There are three basic ways to make this happen.

1. dealing with websites directly
2. joining a banner ad network – these work like a ‘broker’ between advertisers and websites that want to show adverts
3. joining a banner advert exchange program – where you agree to show adverts on your website in return for your ads being shown elsewhere

How do I pay for banner advertising?

Banner advertising usually works on a ‘cost per click’ (CPC) basis. This means you have to pay the website displaying your advert a small fee for every person that clicks on it.

Otherwise, you might pay for each time the banner ad is shown, whether or not someone clicks on it. This is called ‘cost per impression’ (CPI).

In a banner exchange program you don’t pay – you have to show other people’s banner adverts on your own website for free instead.

How do I know if it’s working?

To work out how successfully your banner ads are performing, you can look at:

• the number of times your advert is displayed
• the percentage of people seeing your banner ad that click on it
• the percentage of visitors that convert to being customers as a result

By looking at these measures and comparing how much you spend on banner advertising to the value of business you get as a result, you can work out your return on investment.

If you go to your profile page and take a little look down your Facebook Timeline, you’ll see that it tells you when you joined Facebook.  I know it was a while ago for most of us, but do you remember what you did when you joined?  You probably set up your profile.

When you set up your profile, you tell Facebook;

•  Where you work
• Your Job Title
• What you studied and where
• Where you’re from
• Where you live now
• Your date of birth
• Your gender
• Your sexual preference
• Your relationship status
• Your religious views

Over time you start to add things, you start to like certain things and these build up and in Facebook are known as your ‘Likes’.  These include your favourite:

• Music
• Books
• Movies
• Television
• Sports Teams
• Activities
• Inspirational People
• Games
• Athletes
• Interests

What happens next is advertisers can use all of that information to target you with adverts that are actually relevant to you.  The benefit to the advertiser is that you are more likely to engage with their advert and the benefit to you is that you see adverts for things you may actually be interested in.

If you see an advert on the right hand side of your screen that you don’t much care for or is even offensive to you (like the many adverts I see which tell me to lose weight!) then you can chose to hide it.  Just hover over it, click the x in the corner and then tell Facebook why you want to hide it and you won’t be shown it again.

Facebook will show you adverts that you’ve either expressed an interest in, by liking a company’s page or because of the favourites you’ve selected or it will show you things that your friends have liked.

Take a look at the ads I’ve been targeted with.  I’ve told Facebook that I’m into yoga and I like to bake – I get adverts from Holistic Silk (a yoga accessories shop) and Tate and Lyle.  I’ve also hidden a story because it wasn’t interesting to me and now I won’t see that ad again.

So, what’s so great about Facebook advertising?  For a starter, the targeting is pretty good – for both advertisers and the advertisee.

You may have heard about the EU Privacy Directive and if you have, you’ve probably heard a few variations on what it is and what it means for you; the advertiser and you; the consumer.  Well, let’s take a look through the directive and hopefully give you a flavour of how it will shape your browsing experience in the UK.

In 2003 a European Directive was introduced which was all about the protection of privacy in the electronic communications sector and in 2009 this was amended and now requires website owners to ensure that users visiting their website: (i) be given clear and comprehensive information about the use and purpose of cookies and similar technologies being dropped on their computer/tablet/mobile; and (ii) give their consent to such cookies being dropped. The aim of this directive is primarily to highlight to people where cookies are being used to increase the knowledge and awareness of them.

This directive had a deadline to be implemented into national law, and that was the 25^th May 2011.  Now, you may notice that it’s actually 2012 already and not a great deal has changed just yet, but it’s starting to.  The new law was implemented into UK law on 25^th May 2011, however, the Information Commissioners Office (ICO), who are responsible for the enforcement of this new UK law, have given UK businesses 12 months (until 25 May 2012) to comply. This means, assuming companies are actively working toward compliance, they will not be penalised before this date.

So what is compliance going to look like?  Some sites have started doing this already; the ICO for example has put a small banner at the top of their page, requesting that you accept cookies from this site.  Everyone will be responsible for telling their users that the cookies are being used and why and of course, obtain their consent.  How they do this will not necessarily be the same; it could be a header banner, a footer banner, a pop up box or by settings or function led settings. For more guidance issued by the ICO on cookies and how to comply please visit the ICO’s website http://www.ico.gov.uk/for_organisations/privacy_and_electronic_communications/the_guide/cookies.aspx.

What you should remember as a user is that there are different types of cookies, some are considered essential for the running of the site, and others can be related to things like offline analytics or online behavioural advertising.  When you are asked for your consent from website owners to drop cookies relating to online behavioural advertising, remember that it doesn’t mean you’re opting out of seeing adverts, you’re just opting out of adverts that are targeted to you through the use of cookies, so your internet session will be less tailored to you and in my personal opinion, will be a much less user friendly experience.