Anyone who runs affiliate programs on their website or who advertises on
other sites, knows the importance of click through traffic. The higher your
click through percentage, the higher your profits. Whether your income is
generated by the hit, lead or sale, or any combination thereof, maximizing
click through traffic is crucial in successfully marketing on the web.
The term click through is synonymous with the term hit - when a site visitor
clicks a banner or text link taking them to another site or webpage.
In this article I will focus on the vast difference between banner ads and
text links.
Banner Ads vs. Text Links:
If you're only promoting your affiliate programs or advertising your own
business using banner ads, you're losing the vast majority of your click
through traffic, which translates into lost income.
Banner ads tend to have a much lower click through percentage than text
links. They also slow the speed at which your page loads and can be
distracting - even annoying, to your site visitors. We're all very familiar
with banner ads, as they are everywhere, which may partially explain their
low click through or hit percentage. A lesser used and vastly more successful
tactic is the text link.
A text link is a very short description of the merchant's program, product,
or service with a hyperlink to their website.
Example:
Learn how to start and promote an online business - FREE. Click Here
The words CLICK HERE are a hyperlink connecting to the merchant's site -
http://www.taddgroup.com
The advantage of using text links over banner ads are numerous. The most
important is they have a much higher click through or hit percentage than do
banner ads.
The following example is actual statistics from one page on our website using
one hour of traffic.
Product 1:
Banner Ad: 109 impressions / 5 hits Text Link: 109 impressions / 54 hits
As you can see, the text link for the same product has a far higher hit to
impression ratio, than does the banner ad. Program 1 banner ad has a 5% hit
to impression ratio, while the text link for the same product has a 50% hit
to impression ratio. This means the text link is generating ten times more
traffic than the banner ad for the same product.
Using Product 1 as an example, this has a hit to sale conversion ratio of 40%
(Ten hits would generate four sales.) Using a profit of only $1 from each
sale, this converts to the following:
Product 1:
Banner Ad: Products Sold: 2 Profit: $ 2. Text Link: Products Sold: 22 Profit:
$22.
If the above was representative of the average traffic/sales generated in an
hour, this would equate to the following daily income:
Daily Banner Ad Income: $ 48. Daily Text Link Income : $528.
This example is used for illustrative purposes only. Your actual statistics
may vary. However, one thing will remain constant, almost without exception,
text links will far surpass banner ads for generating hits.
Examples for using text links and the various wording and presentation of
text links can be found on our website: http://www.taddgroup.com and on our
sister site http://www.mysticbeagle.com
I strongly encourage anyone who isn't already using text links, to give it a
try. Post a text link on the same page as a banner (for the same product),
and track the click through percentages for each over a couple of weeks. I
think you'll be amazed by the difference, and pleased by the increase in your
profits.
As a side note, if you insist on using banners, try using interactive banners
- those which provide a function such as a search box, etc. These generally
get twice the hits as do regular banner ads, but still cannot compare the
what a text link will generate.
About the Author
Todd W. Winslow is the co-owner of TADD Marketing Group, L.L.C. He is also
the founder of TADD Publishing Group which publishes a variety of e-mail
newsletters http://www.taddgroup.com, and is co-creator of The Mystic Beagle
- a romance and relationship advice web site http://www.mysticbeagle.com