And The Award For The Best-Pulling Ad Goes To...

Question: Does your advertising pull the way you want it to? Or does it fall short...way, way short?

As people get more accustomed to
online advertising, they are becoming
more vocal as to why one ad appeals,
while others are earning the cold shoulder.

According to a survey conducted by
Jupiter, a globally recognized resource
on ecommerce, most winners and losers
have a number of things in common.

And The Winners Are...

According to the survey, winning ads:

*Include targeted information. A vast
majority (40%) of those surveyed stated
that they continue to use the Internet as an information resource.

Consider packaging your ad within free
information, perhaps by presenting your
ad as a resource box at the end of a free report. Or weaving examples throughout, encouraging readers to refer to your website for more detail.

*Include statistics. Numbers work, as long as they are realistic. A claim, backed by statistics, tends to be more believable.

*Keep their length appropriate for the offer being presented. More information must be provided for higher ticket items, or items that require a great deal of consideration (buying a house, for example). While other ads, that focus on more simple products or services, can be shorter.

*Provide a number of benefits. There's
that word again, benefits. It's the key to success online, and you'll see it again and again.

Benefits answering the 'what's in it for
me?' question are far more persuasive
than features. Benefits speak to emotions. And the vast majority of sales have an emotional element involved.

Make sure you address in your ad how
your product or service will fulfill a need, a want, sooth a concern or fear, solve their problem, etc.

*Have supporting information available
at other locations. Does your site include information that back up your ads? If a person clicks through from a link, will the web information continue to build on what was already presented?

So, these are some of the good ad
elements. For ads that didn't fare so well, the Juniper survey found that many included the following.

And The Raspberry Award Goes To Ads
That...

*Presented the information as a pop-up
box. Now, pop-up effectiveness continues
to be debated. In the survey, 69%
considered pop-ups a negative, calling
them annoying and intrusive; just too
aggressive.

Within this 69%, 25% stated that they
would avoid sites they knew featured
pop-ups in the future.

Yet, on the flip side, there are those
successful marketers who firmly insist that pop-ups are an effective way to present an offer; that people respond to them.

The only way to determine if pop-ups work for you is to track how your prospects and customers respond to them. If people don't sign up for free information offered on pop-up pages, if traffic goes down, reconsider their use.

If, however, people sign up for the
information displayed, and traffic numbers remain stable, then the pop-ups aren't hurting business.

Always test and customize based on your
own situation.

*Combined many products in an offer,
leading to information overload and
confusion.

*Forgot their target audience. If you're marketing to corporate business owners, presenting an ad in a 'fun' contest format won't work. However, if your target is younger, a contest or game-type ad might be very effective.

Keeping the above tips in mind will help ensure that your ads are readily received...not automatically deleted!