Using your website as an advertising tool - part 3/6

Banner ads on certain smaller search engines and e-mail service providers.

Here you enter into an agreement with the specific company or service provider and pay them a certain fixed amount for a banner ad for your business. Whilst these ads are for the most part linked to a specific keyword of your choosing, our biggest problem with this form of advertising is that browsers simply do not want to click on these banners when using a search engine or when they want to view their e-mails. Even if banner ads are very visible!

Rather, they use a search engine or e-mail facility for a very specific reason, which normally has nothing to do with viewing your banner ad. Thus the return on investment may well be very low, notwithstanding the amazing figures with regard to hits to the "parent" site or service as those hits are for another purpose than searching for your type of business. We have heard too many stories of unsatisfied customers who forked out sometimes large amounts and got nothing in return.

Typically, a browser searches for a product or type of service on the specific search engine, or you go to your email facility to view your emails. As the relevant page opens - normally the "homepage" of the relevant service, you get all these banner ads that start flashing somewhere on your screen. It flashes for a couple of seconds, then changes to the next ad etc.

The problem with this is that it tends to put browsers off rather than attract them, as it is irritating to have this thing pop up when you only want to view your emails.