What type of advertisement is best for your site

Are text ads better for you than rich media display ads? CPM or CPC payment models? Join an ad network or deal direct with host websites? Important questions all, as you start to put together your web advertising plan. There are lots of options, and your budget, regardless of its size, is limited. Just what should you do?

Let's consider the ad type first. Both text ads and display ads have their places. Text ads PPC text ads, to be specific are more effective than display ads in driving network marketing. Display ads, on the other hand, are better at generating product or brand awareness. So while it's possible that both kinds of ads will fit into your plans, it's more likely that you'll pick an advertisement type based on your marketing goals for any given year or quarter.

As to payment model, that kind of goes along with the ad type you select. CPC payment is the great pay for play bargain; you pay just for customers delivered from those text ads positioned on search results pages. CPM payment is more closely tied to image-based display advertising, where you're not necessarily tracking network marketing results.

The ad network options are, perhaps, less obvious. If you're doing PPC text ads, of course, you'll be tied to ad networks from the big three search engines Google, Yahoo!, and Bing. But banner advertising doesn't have to be network-supported, especially if you be aware of websites you want to work with and have the wherewithal to barter directly with them. If you can eliminate the middleman, why not?

In general terms, then, if you're selling directly online, go to PPC text ads through one from the big ad networks. If you're using the Web for image awareness, go with CPM display ads and bypass the ad networks if you can. That's a broad and simple generalization, of course; as always, you need to pick the combination of activities that make the most sense for your business.

Pay-per-Click Advertising

Typically the most popular type of web advertising today is pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. The normal PPC ad is a small text ad, placed contextually on the search results page or website concentrating on the same content. There are other kinds of PPC ads, obviously; PPC merely explains the payment method, not the appearance or feel of the ad itself.

PPC ads are so prevalent because they're fairly effective and definitely costeffective, as you only pay when they're clicked. As a result, let's take an in-depth take a look at PPC advertising, having a focus on the largest PPC ad networks.

Pay-per-Click and Contextual Advertising

If you're in business selling baby clothing, you'd probably like your ads placed alongside content about babies; potential prospects will be more inclined to take an interest in your offerings if they just got done reading an article about baby care on a baby-related website. That's bound to be considered a more sympathetic audience than if your baby clothing ads were positioned on a site about hydroponic farming methods or perhaps a general-interest news site. You need to do better when the people reading your ads are predisposed to the subject matter.

You also get a good bang for your buck when your ad for baby clothing appears for people searching baby clothing. Someone queries Google or Bing about "baby clothing" or "baby jumpers" or "toddler clothes" or something like that similar, and your ad appears among the organic search results. That's the best thing; you know the searcher has already been interested in what you're selling, and today your ad is appropriate in front of her to click if she likes.

Well, this is just what you get when you purchase a PPC ad. The ad is delivered contextually that is, it's placed on search results pages and web pages that have similar content. If you're selling baby clothing, it will appear on Google, Yahoo!, or Bing when people are searching for baby clothing; it won't appear when individuals are searching for tractor tires or baseball gloves. It will also appear on websites that discuss babies and baby clothing; it won't appear on websites that focus on reading glasses or cocktail mixes. It's a sympathetic placement.

Even better, you simply pay for the ad when someone clicks it. That's the payper- click thing; you pay for the click, not for that ad placement. It's a very efficient payment method that doesn't waste your budget. But exactly how do these PPC ads get placed on the right pages? And just how exactly does that per-click payment thing work? Read on to learn more.

1. PPC ads are highly relevant to the content of the pages on which they appear
Advertising starts with one little (key) word PPC ads aren't the same as traditional ads in that they're highly relevant to the pages on which they appear. That i...

2. Good ad placement is of crucial importance
Maximizing ad placement As an advertiser, it's important that you pick the most effective keywords for your PPC ads. Pick keywords that no one is interested in, a...

3. How much you should bid on keywords associated with PPC ads
Bidding the best price Once you assemble a list of keywords you need to associate with your PPC ads, you need to determine how much you should bid on those keywor...

4. Ways to reduce your maximum CPC bid
Reduce your maximum bid Whether you utilize manual or automatic bidding, you still must enter a maximum CPC bid. This is actually the maximum you're willing to pa...

5. Think about how much you want to spend on an ad campaign
Selecting a Payment Model The low CTR explains why most display ads can be purchased on a CPM basis rather than the CPC model used for most text advertising. Payi...