Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
Slow Changes
If you
ve ever had to change anything online, you know how nice it
is to have direct access to the files you need to alter. But imagine
for a minute if you didn
'
t have access to those files. If you have
any ads being site served, you
'
ll run into this problem if your ban-
ner needs to be changed or replaced. There is a big difference
between using an ad server or running site-served ads when it
comes to easily making those changes, and that difference is time.
Because of the channels you
'
ll most likely have to go through to
change a site-served banner, it could possibly take up to a week
before the change is actually made. However, while hosting your
banners on an ad server, the same changes could be done in an
hour.
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Less Tracking
Along with not knowing for sure if your ad has actually been
placed when and where it should be, your ability to track how well
your ad is performing is reduced. Of course that means less ability
to look at costs, clicks, conversions, profitability, and anything else
that falls under the tracking umbrella. With less tracking, you
ll
have a harder time knowing how well that particular banner con-
tributed to the campaign or if you should even spend money in the
future to run more ads in that same spot.
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Conclusion
To wrap up this chapter, let
s take a quick walk back through it.
One of the very first steps in any banner project is the media buy,
which, as I hope I
'
'
ve shown, involves much more than simply pick-
ingupthephoneandplacinganorder.Makingsureyou
'
re pur-
chasing the correct placements for ads means not only knowing
who your target audience are but also what they do, what sites
they visit, what they
re interested in, and much, much more. Once
you have that information, you can better decide where, when, and
how often to run your ads. That is, of course, dependent on those
times and placements being available.
Also covered in this chapter were the general steps involved in
setting up your banners in an ad-server tool. Just as a quick recap
on those steps, they were to first enter your media plan, then load
your banner files and landing page URL. The next step is to test
your banners. Once tested, you assign each banner to its placement
to get the tag and finally you send the tag to the site that is running
your ad.
Once your banners are live online, you can track their perfor-
mance and figure out how much each individual ad (and even
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