Hello,

Marlon here.

In the past, when tracking was scarce, few people paid attention
to the returns they made on their banner ads. Since they had
almost no way to separate out the returns they made from banner
ads from the returns they made from other advertising campaigns,
they often ignored the difference, rather than trying to figure it
out.

Today, things are quite different. Tracking returns on different
advertising methods is trivial. It usually amounts to copying-and-
pasting a small piece of code; and then monitoring traffic and
sales statistics that that code tracks over time.

Shortly after web masters smartened up and started using tracking
systems, many found that their banner ads – which they were paying
for by the impression – were underperforming. Thus, there was a
great departure from using banner ads. While almost every
Internet-based business used to use banner ads, many left in
search of different forms of advertising.

‘Pay for performance’ and ‘pay per click’ advertising media–such
as Google Adwords–sprung up, allowing advertisers to pay only for
the clicks they got–not for the impressions. Most advertisers saw
this attractive and made the switch. As a result, most Internet
marketers don’t use banner ads and will generally tell you that
they’ve had their day, but are no longer a good way to spend
advertising dollars.

For a short period of time, that was true. But it’s no longer the
case. Today, you can purchase banner ads that are ‘pay for
performance’ or ‘pay per click’–just like Adwords. This means
that you only have to pay when someone actually clicks through
your banner and goes to your site. And since the herds of
advertisers are now flocking to Adwords and other textual ads,
this is the best time to take advantage of depressed prices for
banner ads.

Now, there are a number of things you should look at whenever you
purchase banner ads. Principally, you will want to check out
things such as CPC (cost per click), CPM (cost per 1000 views),
and expected views/day (i.e. how fast the traffic will actually
come). In addition to this – and more importantly – you will want
to actually physically locate the banner network. The absolute
LAST thing you want to do is purchase banners through an ad agency
- and then have no idea where they’re actually appearing. Some ad
agencies don’t even really rotate the banners. They simply pay
people, say, 10 or 25 cents to click on them, so that the click is
registered on your statistics. Others will place banners on
low-quality sites or sites that force people to accidentally
click, adulterating the quality of clicks you receive. With that
said, you can purchase banner ads from a number of different
places, such as http://www.submitpro.us/banner-impressions.htm,

http://www.webhitsdirect.com/.

Once you verify the quality of the banner impressions you’re
receiving, you can then start to look at the other items I
mentioned. This will entail determining whether you want to pay
for impressions or for clicks. If you pay for clicks, you’ll look
for PPC banner advertising – and you’ll look at CPC stats. If you
pay for impressions, you’ll look for PPI banner advertising – and
you’ll look at CPM stats. To some extent, your choice will depend
on the advertising media available. If most PPI ad publishers look
pretty scrappy, you may want to try your luck with PPC
advertisers; and vice versa. All things equal, you’ll want to
mitigate PPC and PPI costs.

Additionally, even though this is somewhat unorthodox, ask the
publisher for references if you can get them. If you get them,
actually email the advertisers and ask about their campaigns and
their satisfaction with the ad publisher. You’re better off
putting yourself in a socially-awkward situation than purchasing
impressions or clicks that turn out to be garbage.

Once you’ve selected some advertisers, there are only two phases
left. The first phase is creating or purchasing a banner. You can
get this done for free or you can pay anywhere up to $1000. If
you’re using CPM advertising, you’ll want to get the best
converting banner you can possibly find or make. The more
clickers, the better – since you’re paying per impression, not per
click.

One place you can create free banners is at the following URL:
http://members.tripod.com/atomicarts/. All you have to do is
select a number of input options. By the time you’re finished,
you’ll have a completed banner that you can use to advertise.
Alternatively, you can use the service at the following URL, which
also does the same thing: http://www.abcbanners.com/.

If you’re not satisfied with your own artistic ability, you can
always start a contest at http://www.sitepoint.com and give some
award to the person who creates the best banner. Usually, you’ll
have to offer somewhere between $50 and $100, but the selection of
banners you’ll receive will be excellent. Additionally, you could
opt for a cheaper banner at a place such as
http://www.20dollarbanners.com/. You may also be able to find
people on http://www.namepros.com who are willing to sell you
banners for as little as $5.

When it comes down to it, your banner should be designed to either
deter curiosity or promote curiosity, depending on whether you’re
paying by the impression or by the click. If you’re paying by the
click, don’t buy or make anything fancy. Avoid the tire-kickers
because they’ll waste your money. If you’re paying by the
impression, create a banner that is fancy and tries to pull in as
many clickers as is possible.

Your success as a banner advertiser will basically be a function
of your ability to a) determine whether you should pay for
impressions or clicks; b) select the right ad publishers; and
then c) select the right banner to fight whatever it is you’re
promoting – in the medium in which you are promoting it.

Best Wishes,

Marlon Sanders

Hello,

Marlon here.

You’ve undoubtedly heard about ‘article marketing.’ In fact, you
might think that calling article marketing a ‘trick’ is an
overstatement. Most marketers use article marketing to generate
relevant backlinks to their sites. While this process (getting
links) could normally take months or years, article marketing
makes it possible in a short period of time. All marketers have to
do is write (or purchase) articles; and then submit them to
article directories. In a matter of days, they’ll receive
backlinks from P5, P6, and P7 directories. Additionally, the
people who read the articles will click through their links and
make purchases.

While this sounds like a great idea, the results are often
considerably less magical than some gurus might like to you think.
For instance, you will indeed receive backlinks for your efforts –
and these backlinks will be from high PR sites – but it doesn’t
necessarily follow that you will then rank well in search engines;
and then turn all of that traffic into sales. In fact, for most
article marketers, things start to break down prior to the traffic
generation phase. And, as for those who do receive the traffic –
few seem to be able to convert it into sales.

Luckily, I’ve got a new perspective for you. While I still
recommend that you use article marketing to sell your affiliate
products, I will give you a different set of guidelines. This
fresh perspective should help you change how you use article
marketing, so that you actually make sales, rather than writing
and submitting articles for no reason.

I personally suggest using article marketing in one of two ways:

1.Ignore everything you’ve heard about article marketing. Ignore
the procedures that gurus and experts tell you to follow. Instead,
try this: rather than writing a sub-standard article, putting a
link to your site in it, and then submitting it to a bunch of
directories, start off by coming up with a clear plan for your
article.

Ask yourself: what do I hope to accomplish with this article? What
do I want my reader to think about? And how will that make him
eventually purchase a product through my affiliate link?
Oftentimes, the best way to answer these questions is to select a
product first – and then write an article that is tailored to that
particular product. You can select a product at

http://www.clickbank.com.

Once you’ve selected a product, try this: think about something
that actually works really well for you and write about that,
rather than writing about something everyone else writes about.
Write about that topic, even if it worries you that someone might
be able to take your secret and compete against you. If you’re
writing about something that is niche-specific, you can always use
examples that are just as real and useful, but you can do so using
another niche is an example.

Whatever you do, write a useful, high-quality article; and do your
best to connect it to your site or a product or service you are
selling as an affiliate. Include an affiliate link to the product
either in the article or in your resource box. Now, you might
think the next step is to fire this article off to every article
directory in sight, but not this time.

Here’s what I want you to do: take your new article and start
looking for places that don’t normally or easily publish articles.
Don’t look at places that are specifically called ‘article
directories’ and that virtually allow any person to publish
without review. Instead, look for exclusive, niche-specific
places.

If you’re selling an Internet marketing product, you might look at
the following directory of sites:
http://www.smithfam.com/search.html. Pick one site out that is
both high PR and high-traffic. Once you’ve done that, send the
site owner an email asking her if she is interested in your
article. If the site is good enough, offer to give the site
exclusive rights to your article. That will help you seal the
deal.

The major benefit to this approach is that you get your article on
a site with massive amounts of traffic; and you improve your
chances of having it featured in a place that will actually
capture some of that traffic.

2. This approach is different from the first and similar to what
you might normally think of as article marketing. Here’s what’s
involved: start by scanning your HD for affiliate products you’ve
actually purchased. If you’re anything like the average Internet
marketer, you probably own hundreds.

Now, for each product, write a detailed review of the its
features. After you’ve done that, insert affiliate links to the
product into the review – and then continue the process for every
other affiliate product you can find saved on your computer.

As you finish these reviews, start optimizing them for relevant
keywords. Next, send them out to sites that accept articles. But
rather than targeting big, high-traffic sites, settle for article
directories. You can find an exhaustive list of directories at the
following URL:

http://www.arcanaweb.com/resources/article-directories.html.

Your goal with this approach should simply be to drive traffic to
your affiliate links. Don’t worry about trying to send that
traffic to any intermediary site, where you can collect email
addresses or make upsales. Instead, simply send them to the
affiliate link and try to make a direct sale.

So pick your approach, think everything over carefully; and then
get started a new article marketing campaign. Depending on how you
choose to do it, it could be the cornerstone of your affiliate
marketing efforts; or it could be a simple, supplemental trick you
use to generate some extra traffic without much effort.

That’s all for today. Look out for more issues in the future.

Best Wishes,

Marlon Sanders