Well let me articulate it better since my question was kinda vague. I want to go long on this because its a good idea to explain a few terms, the methods and the scope in order to garner attitude on the subject. So I'll ask the question again at the bottom of this post to again see if anyone is willing to share input, ideas, objections, good, bad or indifferent ideas on the subject of banner ads on their sites.
To start, today I posted
sample stats for the
3 1/2 weeks that the example Forum Sponsors ad has been on this site. Its only a test per se to examine some ratios and numbers by comparing known traffic, members and clicks among other things. So that being said I'll explain the whole concept of banner ads and how it plays into this project.
First lets look at some terms we will use as I'll be bold highlighting them herein.
Advertiser: This is a person or company running an online advertising campaign with an assortment of graphical banners and or text links. It could be one or many ads naturally, but will be for a single advertiser. Advertisers could for example have many campaigns.
Campaign: Advertisers may have several different banner sizes yet serve a single motive or campaign. For instance the Dish Network may have many different banners and sizes yet all advertise the same offer and call to action even across many domains. So an advertiser can essentially have a campaign to market lending services for example and want to publish across ONLY real estate sites and not forums, or it could include forums, this would be one example of a campaign.
Publisher: The site owner that publishes ads on his/her site for advertisers running the campaigns are publishers. The publisher can select the criteria and scope of banners being positioned on his/her site based on their own criteria. Only ads that meet that criteria are published to the available zones.
Publisher Zones: The site owner (publisher) may want 468x60 banners on the bottom of the site, three 180x150 spots or positions on the right side and one position for a 125x125 banner on the left. These are referred to as
Publisher Zones. Here is how it all works for "BANNER ADS".
So now we explain banner advertising management in summary by examining the basic idea behind the TBE Advertising Management in
this example scenario below.
########## Example Scenario ##########
A furniture moving company (the
advertiser) wants to offer a spectacular service to those who need movers for relocations and formulates an offer geared for an internet based advertising
campaign directed at real estate broker web sites. Naturally the
advertiser must find sites willing to
publish the ads; So, the
advertiser creates a series of banner ads based on IAB size standards so he has the broadest range of potential
publisher zones in which to show the ads. A broad inventory of banner sizes would obviously help. With an assortment of banner ads in hand the
advertiser needs to locate
publishers willing to
publish them.
A
publisher decides to make some extra money with his site by offering specific
publishing zones for advertisements which will show ads based on his
selection and criteria. The
publisher then decides that the moving company ad being offered meets his criteria of the type of ads the
publisher is willing to display and then makes a particular size
publishing zone open for the
advertiser. Naturally the
publisher would like to rotate several banners in that zone as his site has only one spot available for advertising but desires a broad selection of services beneficial to his site visitors. The publisher would like services being advertised that would benefit clients and visitors so moving services and pre-qualification lenders among others are ideal so the
publishing zone is open to those types of ads.
Catch 22: As a Realtor he / she doesn't want competitor ads but is willing to link exchange in a similar manor with associate or other sites so that clicks and impressions of the link exchange can be tracked successfully. Although not technically a
publisher zone the link exchange link being sold or traded has the potential to qualify as a one-way or exchanged link to help page rank and SEO of the sites. Advertising generally does NOT qualify as a one-way link for this reason and is usually not considered a good way to increase SEO. Ads are ads nothing more. However the TBE program can distinguish between the two so search engines would behave accordingly.
So, the
publisher decides that he will offer a single
advertising zone on the right side of his site with the dimensions of 180x150 and ads that meet the criteria and size requirements are thus automatically displayed and rotated. The
publisher receives a fee for the ads based on CPM or Cost Per Thousand which may vary. Some
publishers may want more dollars than others so the
advertisers have the right to accept or refuse the zone in their campaign.
Beautiful system isn't it?
########## END THE Example Scenario ##########
So when I asked the question I was curious in part because we have built a system based on a MySQL / PHP program that brings the advertisers and publishers together across many domains and across many campaigns. There could be 500 advertisers each with 1 or more campaigns that wish to advertise where publishers are willing to publish which could be thousands of sites and its all handled in one place with weekly emailed stats to publisher, advertisers, and administrators etc...
This system and service exists RIGHT NOW.
We have been working very hard, VegasMack, Myself, San Diego Realestate, and others to bring The UltimateIDX, This forum, TBE and other services to bare and we are so close its really just launching them at this point which where my energy is focused right now. PREN, TBE, UIDX.
Please feel free to share and or tell me what you think about having Banner Advertising on Real Estate sites?
~ Jared