Is banner advertising dead??
 

I run a small LL and I setup a banner management script to rotate and keep track of all my banners. Been checking the stats and the click thru ratio's suck ass. Out of 33,246 shows I get 589 clicks for my teen category alone. So I put in some text links in there and that was doing alot better. I think the surfer knows that once he clicks that banner he is going to be paying. Is anyone else pulling back banner ads and just going with text links? I started to just pile on my own sites and have them at the top of the list. This way I can use them as advertising.

</two cents>

:thumbsup

these numbers are not bad at all. when I am doing a CPM deal I do my calculations based on 0.1% - 0.01%! sooo I would be banking on anywhere from 3-30 clicks from 32246 impressions (*yes, this is very conservative, but prudent). So 589 is a ton! almost 2% click through.

just my 0.01 per cent

I stick to text links on free sites and link lists.

Users are growing smarter today. Sites are stoping adds all together and relying on word of mouth (Ofcourse the site has to be uber popular to keep running that way). I have to agree that Text Links are the way to go now'a days. Most users see the banners and run for the hills. But, keep in mind, TGP's still get the hits, even though majority leads to other sites and so on. Unfortunately thats not beeing loyal to your users, tricking them into blind links.

Quite a predicament you present here. How to get people to click on your adds, the age old question.

Something I've seen a lot are sites that advertise other sites providing the user with content. The user gets what he wants and you get your traffic for the affiliates.

To give ya an example, just check out the boom in Sex Blogs lately. Most Porn Webmasters have gone the Blog route and made even more money with that angle. A user feels confortable in a blog, it's a bit more personal, and ofcourse has all the good shit people are looking for. When a user is happy, they come back for more, and thats where the hits start rolling in.

Make a user feel NOT SCARED, and see your hits go from hundreds to thousands in only days.

I have seen alot of big LL pull or even tone down banner ads and go with text links instead. Plus with text links you make the site load alot faster and that really makes surfers happy. A happy surfer is a bookmark!