Different types of online advertising
There are different types of online advertising that try to get our attention on the Internet. While some prove to be effective, others tend to annoy visitors. What type of advertising should you follow to drive more traffic to your website or increase sales?
1. Text Ads:
Text ads are ads that are displayed in a simple, text-based hyperlink format. According to Business 2.0, text ads are the best form of online advertising. People tend to click more on text ads than banner ads. Since no graphics are used, text ads use catchy phrases to grab the attention of visitors. The ad does not exceed 5 sentences, which generates curiosity in visitors and the clicks are more as they want to read more. Pay-per-click ads are usually text ads.
2. Banner ads:
Banner ads have been around for a long time. Banners are usually 468×60 pixel and linked animated graphics (link to your website) highlighting your product / services / offering that appear at the top of commercial websites. Banner ads are generally sold by CPM (cost per thousand visits) or by click, meaning you pay only when they have been clicked. There are different ways to run banner ads. One way is banner exchange where you can show someone’s banner in exchange for their own. You can also pay a publisher to display your banner or you can pay a banner network to serve your banner on multiple sites. With the increasingly popular and common banner ads these days, people are trying different methods to grab the attention of visitors. The more creative you are, the greater the chances that your banner will be clicked.
3. Pop-up ads:
This could be the most annoying and avoided form of online advertising. It works when a certain website opens a new browser window displaying the ad. Pop-up ads don’t get much of a preference with so many pop-up blockers available. Therefore, they are not highly favored by marketers or visitors.
4. Sidebar Ads:
Sidebar ads are also known as skyscraper ads and are similar to banner ads, but they are placed vertically rather than horizontally. The height of an ad in the sidebar can be up to 600 pixels or more and is typically 160 pixels wide. Sidebar ads have advantages over banner ads in that they are larger and you cannot scroll through a sidebar ad like a banner ad. A sidebar ad has a 1 percent click-through rate (10 clicks per 1,000 impressions), or roughly two to three times higher than a banner ad.
5. Floating ads:
Floating ads are ads that appear when you first enter a web page and fly or float on the page for 5 to 30 seconds. When they appear on the screen, they generally obscure your view of the page. Floating ads appear every time the page is refreshed. One of the main reasons for the popularity of floating ads is their ability to attract attention. The other reason is that they are unavoidable and prove to be more powerful than banner ads or sidebar ads. Floating ads have a high click-through rate that averages around 3 percent (meaning 30 people will click for every 1000 impressions of a floating ad). However, the downside of floating ads is that they can really annoy your visitors. The point is that the more they get used to it, the more common it will be.
6. Unicast announcements:
Unicast ads are very much appreciated and adopted a lot these days. A Unicast ad is a television commercial that runs in a pop-up window. Enriched with audio / video content, they can be 10-30 seconds long. Unicast ads have a 5% click-through rate (50 clicks per 1,000 impressions). The ability to click on the ad for more information makes this form of advertising much better than television commercials.
7. Interstitial Ads:
The interstitial ad (which means “in the middle”) is a page that is inserted between the current and landing pages. These are also known as transition announcements. Visitors’ reaction often depends on how entertaining the message is. Typically, an interstitial ad is designed to automatically move to the page that the user requested after allowing enough time for the message to register or the ads to be read.
The type of advertising to follow generally depends on the type of business and your marketing budget. The goal is to grab the attention of your visitors and drive more traffic to your website.