Whenever I encounter someone who thinks that banner advertising doesn’t work very well, the person has either never done banner advertising, or did it poorly.

There aren’t very many people who know how to do this type of thing right. Good media planners for display advertising are in very short supply. In my opinion… There is a huge opportunity with display advertising for people in the search marketing industry. I think it’s time for a lot of people to come out of their shell and learn something new.  

Thanks Wilhelmus,

I agree… The first step is to have a goal in mind. I see a lot of banner ads that seem to be designed to get a generic brand message out there. (Pretty picture, logo & company slogan) Often times I see these people purchase a “Run of network” buy with very little or no targeting.

In my opinion… Most banner ads, like the example above are not designed to generate clicks.
And then… They wonder why no one is clicking. (Blame the medium)

If you are trying to get people to click the banner, it’s sometimes best to design different ads for different websites. What is the main problem the visitor is trying to solve on the publisher website? How can you design a banner ad that promises to solve that problem by clicking through to your landing page? Does the landing page deliver on that promise?  

Everyone seems to want a pretty banner ad but some of my ugliest designs have proven to be the best performing.(As measured by click-through rates and conversions)

I see a lot of search marketing cheerleaders out there but no such enthusiasm for banner advertising. It works quite well if you know what you’re doing and there is a wealth of information out there about the various ad networks and direct-response design techniques. I believe most of the people who visit this site are only seeing half the picture and are operating with an incomplete set of online advertising tools & skills.

Judging from the lack of interest in this thread, I guess the opportunities for people who do possess those types of skills will continue to have a big advantage over those who do not.

Number 11) The wife is getting jealous of all the attention you pay to social media websites. “Can you PLEASE put that damn iPhone away for just 5 minutes?!”

I don't understand the problem. Why don't you simply stop following him?  (Quit Whining)

The ironic thing was that I wasn’t trying to impress Andy Beal… His wife Shiela who has a Hawaii travel blog.

http://www.govisithawaii.com/2008/04/15/an-outstanding-waikiki-beach-hotel-deal/

She is the one who did the fact checking one of our special offers on Trip Advisor to see if it was a good hotel or not and noticed how the general manager personally responds to the reviews.  BTW - It's a great deal. ;^)

I call it “Scare Tactic Marketing”.

You don’t need to spell everything out in the Terms & Conditions… All you need is some sort of boilerplate statement where "Affiliates are forbidden from representing [company name] and/or products in a negative manor." Then… Follow up and police your network, especially any new top performers

However… If scare tactics work… and… you don’t care about the brand equity of your get-rich-quick e-book, sugar pill or whatever… Why not be like the Rich Jerk and encourage your affiliates to use scare tactics?

It's not what you say, it's the way you say it. Some people seem to be more humble than others.

In my opinion... The way you present yourself just makes me feel like you have some sort of superiority complex. (Gods gift to link building)

I guess it somewhat depends on how you define "Giving". Everyone mentioned is very giving but they all give us something different. I assume that people voted differently based on personal need.