Banners that work

[rcjordan]

Everyone screams about ultra-low banner CTR and the need to offer context-sensitive, targeted advertising. Every now and again, something comes along to remind me that good banners still work. Example: Bonzi [bonzi.com] is running a banner on my sites which hawks voice email (yuccch!). My sites have zero to do with technology, software, hardware, etc. (except that they use it to run and my traffic uses it to get there). Still, this company's banner is consistently pulling in 6%+ CTR!

[Brett_Tabke]

On the other end of the spectrum are the blitz of MSN cpc's that are pulling .01. We tried them on several sites and the worst was 1 click in 40k hits. We also do those really annoying Rocket Links cpm's that are doing 1 in 60. ("do you want this banner to go away" - I slays me that people click on those at that rate - scary)

Targeted advertising is nice work if you can get it, but it is pretty thin right now.

[rcjordan]

>do you want this banner to go away

Good point. That's one reason I chose Flycast, they gave me the ability to pre-filter or, later, kill some campaigns. I used it the kill "Punch the Monkey" --even though his CTR was running nearly 9%.

[Brett_Tabke]

Ya, Burst does too, but Flycast gives you more options for the default (redirects). I really like fc's setup better than Burst, but burst is far better at member relations than fc. There have been many email to memberservices at fc that have gone completely unanswered. Every question I've ever asked burst has been answered in detail, personal, and within a resonable time frame - just incredible cservice.

[rcjordan]

>is far better at member relations than fc.

While I generally rank FC as OK on the job they do in selling my inventory, contacting their publishers doesn't seem to be on their "to do" list --and I think that has hurt them quite a bit.

[Brett_Tabke]

Ya, they are just backwards at what they do best. FC has the computer and the website, where Burst is great at the PR work.

btw: true cpm's are up a great deal this last 3-4 days a Bursts with a bunch of new ads - lets hope it lasts.