Real Estate Forums

Jared · 04-30-2007, 06:53 AM

Banner Advertising on Real Estate sites?

Advertising for Realtors takes many forms but its interesting to see that most of the real estate sites I visit that DO have advertising tend to use Google Adsense almost exclusively and mortgage ads secondarily.

About a year ago I assembled a website for a cosmetics magazine that sold advertising space on their site quite successfully because they not only published links for inquiry but also information about rates, positions and frequency right on the site.

Some campaigns simply don't produce enough interest and I'm considering any ideas in which to change that.

I have some off the top of my head in terms of placement and sponsoring of articles within a website but I'm really interested in what you think about the entire idea of banner advertising.

~ Jared

glenng · 04-30-2007, 12:50 PM

Jared - I think banner advertising may have become passe'. I will be curious to read what others have to say.

Missouri Real Estate Pro · 05-01-2007, 04:06 PM

I'm not sure that I fully understand what banner advertising consists of...

Jared · 05-02-2007, 07:49 AM

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

Missouri Real Estate Pro · 05-03-2007, 06:00 PM

Jared, thanks for the detailed reply. I appreciate the time you took to break it down barney style. If I understand what I read correctly you are saying that you are kicking around the idea of using banner ads on a few select sites that you are working with. I don't know much about this type of thing but it sounds like it's a good thing. If I'm not mistaken the publisher will not only recieve payments for advertising on his/her site, but also will benefit b/c the backlinks will help with SEO. I think it sounds like a good and profitable idea.

Jared · 05-03-2007, 06:58 PM

Actually its a system that puts advertisers with publishers in a managed solution. Google adsense works fine for the most part but you can't select who gets to advertise only who cant.

We came up with the idea after I worked on the production and development of Vine Media Group over a year ago. They own and or operate about 50 or so sites and forums and needed a way to provide advertising to clients that would span the entire gauntlet of sites they operate. The key was to manage it from one location and have ads dynamically publish on all sites. Then when they purchased a hosting company and offered hosting to existing clients, ad management seemed like a natural adjunct. When I came up with a modified version of an advertising management solution to do the job they had the new hosting company and one client.

Then I came up with the idea that "what if we could do this for ANY real estate site" not just those owned or operated (managed) by the owner of this forum and TBE?! Therein was the birth of the idea, to give Realtors a way to publish specific advertising to their site and give advertisers a vehicle to point ads at targeted audiences instead of toss it out and see what happens.

I'm lucky or should I say privileged to have had an honorary role of moderator or administrator in about 15 different forums over the past few years, most of which apply to coding, design and web related industries. Real Estate is really where we bring it all together with PREN and TBE which greatly simplifies my workload.

If we get several hundred advertisers and several hundred site owners each wanting to participate, I think this will be a good thing because it gives EVERYONE more CONTROL over the type, scope, colors, size and other features of the types of ads being published. When you toss in the free blogs the need compounds itself exponentially and the single location for managing this by all involved saves time and MAKES MONEY! That way I can get off the government cheese program. (thats a joke)

~ Jared

Las Vegas Real Estate · 06-28-2007, 12:52 PM

I think that the marketing options you chose should be money vs results based. I mean, if it is an inexpensive way to possibly produce business, then why not? On the other hand, if a large part of your marketing budget will be spent on the banners, then you have to way the costs!

Landwatch.com · 01-03-2008, 01:43 AM

I think banner ads are inexpensive marketing strategies. It helps to build your brand in your local areas. The returns from the banner ads are much greater than the investment.