The oldest mass used website promotion tool of them all is probably banner advertising. Once the darling of most Webmasters, overuse has led some to claim the "banner advertising is dead!" But look around you: does banner advertising look dead to you? Even Google uses banner style ads in its AdWords program. Perhaps the fantastic results that could once be obtained with banners have had to give way to more realistic revenues and profits, but used correctly, banner impressions can still yield excellent results, provided you stick to a few dos and don'ts.

Let's start with some don'ts:

Don't use free "banner exchange programs": at best you're simply trading traffic with others, not actually gaining traffic. Banner exchanges also use an exchange rate, usually 2:1. That means you will deliver two impressions for each impression delivered to you. Where does the "missing impression" go? The banner exchange program will sell these on to advertisers. In reality "free" banner exchanges aren't free: you're supplying the what the exchange will sell on to their paying customers. Banner exchanges are usually also extremely untargeted: your banner for, say "buy flowers online" will be displayed anywhere, regardless. Without contextual targeting any form of advertising is basically and waste of time (and/or money).

You may be tempted to run a "site to site" exchange, cutting out the middle man. Again you're only trading traffic, not gaining any. But if the site you're exchanging with receives less traffic than yours, you're most likely to lose out. Our advice: don't do it.

Or you may want to buy banner space from a single, related site. Bear in mind that banner clickthrough rates are low: typically 0.01 to 0.5%; unless the site you've selected receives a lot of traffic you won't get many clickthroughs. Advertising with a banner on a single site can be a lot of hassle for relatively small returns.

So what should you do?

Use a banner advertising network. Most banners you see on the net are served up by large networks of highly trafficked sites.

These networks can deliver high amounts of impressions (millions per month in some cases), at low Cost per Thousand (CPM) and in a targeted way. A banner advertising agency will go to great lengths to increase both delivery of impressions and clickthrough rates because it's in both their own and their Clients' interest. Some will also provide Conversion Tracking. By inserting an invisible tracking pixel on your "Thank you" page, the network server will register every time a clickthrough buys or completes a form. For greater piece of mind use a link tracker (see Toolbox left) to independently measure clickthroughs.

Use the right type of banner: Flash or animated banners still attract more attention than static ones. Keep it eye catching without making it downright annoying.

But size and orientation also really matter. Banner ads come in many sizes but the most important are definitely the 468x60 pixel and the 120x600 vertical skyscraper. Apart from the fact that the skyscraper is about 2.5 times larger in size, it also remains visible for much of the page view, during down scrolling. A Flash or animated skyscraper is practically a sales letter, not just a banner.

We offer both 468x60 and 120x600 skyscraper banners on a high traffic, high clickthrough network. CTR optimisation, complete reporting, including conversion tracking come as standard. CPM starts at $0.60. Delivery rate is typically 1,000,000 impressions per month or more. For more info, incuding detailed price points, please contact us or search below.