Banner Ads...

[Bubzeebub]

How does someone go about creating a banner ad? Also, what are your thoughts about banner ads in terms of recent rates, effectiveness, etc?

[growingdigital]

You can create a banner ad in any graphics editing program (e.g. Photoshop, Fireworxs etc.) For sizes and additional info visit the Internet Advertising Bureau's website.

Banner effectiveness varies widely. If you can get the right CPM it might be worth your time. However, people have developed banner blindness, which can hurt the click through rate.

[Bubzeebub]

I've heard that banner ad rates have been dropping steadily. From your experience, what are the most current going rates for banner ads?

[RobinL]

It really depends on your niche - area. A good "formula" if you will, is the closer to the buy you are the higher the rate - and, the more expensive the product the higher the rate - and the more affluent your audience the higher the rate. I know that is a little broad, but review sites for example get good rates. Financial info sites get great rates cause they have a wealthy audience. I would start with a base CPM of $1.00. That is, I believe, either using a CPC solution and calcuating out your effective CPM or going with some of the more legit but not high tier ad networks, you can get a $1.00 CPM. Of course, you also need to think about the fill rate, is it gonna be 30%, 40%?

I mean, we run some "mass-traffic" sites which aren't spam and have quality content, but they cycle through a lot of page views and the campaigns they get are $.50 - $1.50 and with the fill rates I would say their effective CPM for the sites as a whole are maybe $1.00. On the other hand, we have some high profile large high quality sites which have very targeted advertising by many Fortune 500 companies (not affiliates for them mind you) and those sites get effectives upwards of $5 to $10.

[RobinL]

And of course I should add what unit are you using matters. Go to the Internet Advertising Bureau to find out what the standard ad units. Rule of thumb is the bigger, more intrusivie it is the more it pays.

[RobinL]

And of course I should add what unit are you using matters. Go to the Internet Advertising Bureau to find out what the standard ad units. Rule of thumb is the bigger, more intrusivie it is the more it pays.