Starting Your Own Banner Ad Business
Approximately 6 years ago when I did my very first banner ad; I had no idea what I was doing.
Approximately 9 years ago when I did my very first banner ad; I had no idea what I was doing.
A business partner of mine who was doing some media buying for a client, needed someone to make banners, so while we ate breakfast at a restaurant, in literally 10 minutes, he showed me a few things on Photoshop and Image Ready, and off I went.
The very first banner I made was a 720x300 for a weight loss supplement client, which was going to be placed into rotation with some other banners that my business partner made as an exit pop on a site called Lucky Surf.
To my partners amazement, and mine the pop I made converted at about 4 or 5%.
We were both shocked.
At this point I realized that I might have found my calling.
Soon it became apparent that I had a knack for creating banners and writing copy.
As time went on, the demand for my services increased and finally I was able to leave my dead end job and make a pretty good living just doing banners.
It may be a little difficult to believe that one can make a decent living from doing just banners, but if you are willing to work at it, sooner or later you can command as much as $100 per banner, if not more! For me, banner ads were the perfect entry-level job, for what has been a successful 6-year career.
Creating banners was a great "low pressure" way for me to learn graphics, HTML, and copy writing, all of which are essential for creating a successful e-commerce solution either for you or a client.
Now the purpose of this article is to give you some insight on the ins and outs of the following: 1.
Creating banners 2.
Prepping banners for the web 3.
Packaging banners for clients 4.
Pricing and revisions 5.
Finding image resources for your banners The first banner project did was with a company that sold cable boxes online.
The lady that hired me needed a ton of creative and was shrewd with the money.
She needed many different sizes and ultimately I ended up making $15 per banner.
Creating Banners Creating banners can be tricky if you're not familiar with the product, market or audience.
A few simple and quick techniques can help you create better banners.
The first thing I asked her for was images of the cable boxes (as many as she could get me) and whatever research she had and copy that worked.
The next thing I did was go to the website to see what colors and copy they were using.
The next step was to find other sites and check out the copy on the PPCSE's that were selling cable boxes and see what they were doing.
With some simple research I was now armed with all the copy, images and strategy I needed to get this first banner project off the ground.
Prepping banners for the web Prepping banners for the web is based upon the publisher specs.
Many publishers have specs based on file size (according to banner dimensions), risqué or non risqué, and animation.
Let's take one of the stricter publishers and use them as an example.
This particular publisher has very tough guidelines to follow, but traditionally they have high conversion rates, so getting your banners there is well worth the trouble.
Most publishers use the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) standards as guidelines for the ad unit sizes they publish on their sites.
A typical unit is a "medium rectangle" (in pixels that's 300x250).
Many publishers will not let you exceed more then 20k in file size.
One of my first clients was a women's weight loss company.
Image wise one of the best strategies to use for weight loss is to use a sexy woman in a skimpy bikini.
The problem with this, is many publishers are very picky about using imagery that might be to risqué.
Most pubs will want to see the creative you're going to use before they actually publish it.
Generally pubs will assign a rep to the media account and will be responsible for the approval process.
Optimizing your banners is something that you will most likely do in the same software program where you animate.
I use the industry standard Adobe Image Ready, and if you can get your hands on it, so should you.
When it comes to creating imagery, Adobe Image Ready gives you a lot of tools, but for banner ads you need to just a few of those options.
Adjusting the colors and the lossy can significantly reduce your file sizes to get your banners inline with publisher specs.
Adobe Image Ready is the place where you will get your animation done.
Most pubs will not allow you to use continuous nor heavy flashing animation.
Generally you will not be able to animate (loop) longer than 15 seconds and you will need to use no less than.
5 seconds in your loop transitions.
Another point about animation is you always want to have the animation stop on the "call to action" (CTA).
Packaging banners for clients The first time I did a serious banner project for a client I had no idea how to send the banners to the client via email.
Oblivious to any zip programs I simply attached them to an email and sent.
Quickly I was made aware of programs such as Winzip and WinRAR, and was shown how to use them.
I have been using either one of those programs to send creative since.
If you are just starting out as an entry-level creative artist, you can probably get around $10 - 20 per ad (possibly more if you know flash).
Volume has a lot to do with the amount you may charge.
If the client is looking for a lot of banners or is willing to give you consistent work, then you may want to give then a break on price.
While you gain more experience this is a good way to go.
Pricing and revisions More likely then not, your client is gong to want revisions to some of the creative you make.
Revisions are something you should negotiate before you start the project.
Most of the time the creative coordinator will review all the creative and send you back the required revisions by line item.
Most of the time you can knock out all revisions in 1 shot.
After you make the creative send them to the creative coordinator.
The CC will send you back the revisions.
Complete the revisions and send them back.
Generally that's the end of it.
You should always have a consistent naming convention in your banners.
If I make a 300x250 in a series of 10, I will make the first banner in this series ad 1.
Here is an example of how I would do this for a particular client.
Let's say the client wants 40 banners made for their cable box program.
My naming convention would be something like this: cb_300x250ad1 cb_300x250ad2 So and so fourth.
If I need to make 10 300x250's and 10 728x90's then I would make the 300x250's first and then take the same concepts and resize them into the 728x90's.
So you would want to make the first 728x90 (just like the first 300x250) and call that cb_728x90ad1.
Finding image resources for your banners When I first started out the one of the more difficult pieces of the creative puzzle for me was finding images.
Most image sites were very expensive with little variety.
Now, you can find hundreds of thousand of high quality images inn any category at iStockphoto.
com.
You can get images as little as $1, that absolutely perfect for banners.
I recommend iStock exclusively.
Don't waste your time going anywhere else.
If you would like to find out more about starting your own banner business, please visit http://www.
zooii.
com and use the contact to get hold of me.
Approximately 9 years ago when I did my very first banner ad; I had no idea what I was doing.
A business partner of mine who was doing some media buying for a client, needed someone to make banners, so while we ate breakfast at a restaurant, in literally 10 minutes, he showed me a few things on Photoshop and Image Ready, and off I went.
The very first banner I made was a 720x300 for a weight loss supplement client, which was going to be placed into rotation with some other banners that my business partner made as an exit pop on a site called Lucky Surf.
To my partners amazement, and mine the pop I made converted at about 4 or 5%.
We were both shocked.
At this point I realized that I might have found my calling.
Soon it became apparent that I had a knack for creating banners and writing copy.
As time went on, the demand for my services increased and finally I was able to leave my dead end job and make a pretty good living just doing banners.
It may be a little difficult to believe that one can make a decent living from doing just banners, but if you are willing to work at it, sooner or later you can command as much as $100 per banner, if not more! For me, banner ads were the perfect entry-level job, for what has been a successful 6-year career.
Creating banners was a great "low pressure" way for me to learn graphics, HTML, and copy writing, all of which are essential for creating a successful e-commerce solution either for you or a client.
Now the purpose of this article is to give you some insight on the ins and outs of the following: 1.
Creating banners 2.
Prepping banners for the web 3.
Packaging banners for clients 4.
Pricing and revisions 5.
Finding image resources for your banners The first banner project did was with a company that sold cable boxes online.
The lady that hired me needed a ton of creative and was shrewd with the money.
She needed many different sizes and ultimately I ended up making $15 per banner.
Creating Banners Creating banners can be tricky if you're not familiar with the product, market or audience.
A few simple and quick techniques can help you create better banners.
The first thing I asked her for was images of the cable boxes (as many as she could get me) and whatever research she had and copy that worked.
The next thing I did was go to the website to see what colors and copy they were using.
The next step was to find other sites and check out the copy on the PPCSE's that were selling cable boxes and see what they were doing.
With some simple research I was now armed with all the copy, images and strategy I needed to get this first banner project off the ground.
Prepping banners for the web Prepping banners for the web is based upon the publisher specs.
Many publishers have specs based on file size (according to banner dimensions), risqué or non risqué, and animation.
Let's take one of the stricter publishers and use them as an example.
This particular publisher has very tough guidelines to follow, but traditionally they have high conversion rates, so getting your banners there is well worth the trouble.
Most publishers use the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) standards as guidelines for the ad unit sizes they publish on their sites.
A typical unit is a "medium rectangle" (in pixels that's 300x250).
Many publishers will not let you exceed more then 20k in file size.
One of my first clients was a women's weight loss company.
Image wise one of the best strategies to use for weight loss is to use a sexy woman in a skimpy bikini.
The problem with this, is many publishers are very picky about using imagery that might be to risqué.
Most pubs will want to see the creative you're going to use before they actually publish it.
Generally pubs will assign a rep to the media account and will be responsible for the approval process.
Optimizing your banners is something that you will most likely do in the same software program where you animate.
I use the industry standard Adobe Image Ready, and if you can get your hands on it, so should you.
When it comes to creating imagery, Adobe Image Ready gives you a lot of tools, but for banner ads you need to just a few of those options.
Adjusting the colors and the lossy can significantly reduce your file sizes to get your banners inline with publisher specs.
Adobe Image Ready is the place where you will get your animation done.
Most pubs will not allow you to use continuous nor heavy flashing animation.
Generally you will not be able to animate (loop) longer than 15 seconds and you will need to use no less than.
5 seconds in your loop transitions.
Another point about animation is you always want to have the animation stop on the "call to action" (CTA).
Packaging banners for clients The first time I did a serious banner project for a client I had no idea how to send the banners to the client via email.
Oblivious to any zip programs I simply attached them to an email and sent.
Quickly I was made aware of programs such as Winzip and WinRAR, and was shown how to use them.
I have been using either one of those programs to send creative since.
If you are just starting out as an entry-level creative artist, you can probably get around $10 - 20 per ad (possibly more if you know flash).
Volume has a lot to do with the amount you may charge.
If the client is looking for a lot of banners or is willing to give you consistent work, then you may want to give then a break on price.
While you gain more experience this is a good way to go.
Pricing and revisions More likely then not, your client is gong to want revisions to some of the creative you make.
Revisions are something you should negotiate before you start the project.
Most of the time the creative coordinator will review all the creative and send you back the required revisions by line item.
Most of the time you can knock out all revisions in 1 shot.
After you make the creative send them to the creative coordinator.
The CC will send you back the revisions.
Complete the revisions and send them back.
Generally that's the end of it.
You should always have a consistent naming convention in your banners.
If I make a 300x250 in a series of 10, I will make the first banner in this series ad 1.
Here is an example of how I would do this for a particular client.
Let's say the client wants 40 banners made for their cable box program.
My naming convention would be something like this: cb_300x250ad1 cb_300x250ad2 So and so fourth.
If I need to make 10 300x250's and 10 728x90's then I would make the 300x250's first and then take the same concepts and resize them into the 728x90's.
So you would want to make the first 728x90 (just like the first 300x250) and call that cb_728x90ad1.
Finding image resources for your banners When I first started out the one of the more difficult pieces of the creative puzzle for me was finding images.
Most image sites were very expensive with little variety.
Now, you can find hundreds of thousand of high quality images inn any category at iStockphoto.
com.
You can get images as little as $1, that absolutely perfect for banners.
I recommend iStock exclusively.
Don't waste your time going anywhere else.
If you would like to find out more about starting your own banner business, please visit http://www.
zooii.
com and use the contact to get hold of me.
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