2 replies to this topic

[ghergich]

I am writing an article about text link ads. I would love some input. I know they that they can raise your rankings for keywords and are very successful if the links are placed on sites relevant to your topic. However, compared with banner ads...could people chime in on the average CTR for your banner ads and then text links. Do text links hold up to image ads? I know they are cheaper because They take up less space and boost your ranks but what about CTR do you all find it to be comparable to banner or image ads. Feel free to chime in on any part of the subject as I may have left it out.

[Scottie]

My personal feeling:

Whether they are banners or links, the key to doing well is relevance. I have a niche industry forum that is very popular and my banner ads on it convert like crazy. However, if I started adding banner or text ads from anyone and everyone, I imagine they wouldn't be nearly as successful.

I advertise things this specific audience wants and needs. They see the banner, and they buy.

This site also runs Google Adsense. I don't see nearly as many clickthroughs on the more random but somewhat relevant Google ads as I see on the banner ads.

I'm afraid most "text ads" these days on individual sites are less about conversions and more about link popularity. Banners usually have tracking URL's, making them less useful for link popularity.

I guess the bottom line, is what are you buying? An ad to to convert to sales or a link to give you a minute boost in search rankings?

[ghergich]

Well I was kind of wanting to do a cost benifits. (Lets assume both or relevant)Banners do not always help link pop, but we know text links do especially from relevant sites. Banners should cost more in most cases because they take up more space, they question is do they tend to convert more than a well placed relevant text link suggesting your site? I know its a case by case but we might could get enought people to chime in and get a nice idea. Because if text link CTR's are close to the same CTR of banners it may be a better bet since you might be able to afford several small text links for every one banner ad (plus the added rank boost but we won't really worry about that). Any help would be great and I know this will not be an exact science but we might could put our head together and come up with some trends from adwords, and adsense and all that.