Alright, yesterday I promised I would reveal the “magic, secret, ultra-unique, never-before-been-used formula” on how to use banner ads to drive traffic to your website.

Ok, so it’s not magic.

And it’s not secret (although most people don’t use it).

And it really isn’t that unique.

And it has been seen before, just not really recently.

But… it is a formula! And you all know how much I like formulas! (If you don’t take a look at The Affiliate Marketing Formula to get an idea)

Alright, without further ado, here are the simple steps that you can follow to use banner advertising to drive more traffic to your website for even cheaper rates.

Ready?

The Banner Ad “How-To” Formula

Step #1 - Create your banners

The first step of course is to create your banners. You should not focus on creating the typical image ads, but instead create what I like to call “text-banner ads.”

I don’t want to go into too much detail so I’ll just give you an example. You can see one here.

You’ll notice that it just looks like text - that is key in making “clickable” banner ads.

Also, focus only on banner ad sizes that are not 486×60, such as 120×600, 160×600, 125×125, and 300×250.

Step #2 - Find websites to advertise on

Go to Google and type in keyword phrases related to your website.

Find websites that are ranking high for that keyword phrase, and then see if they have banner ads in the top fold of their pages (the top fold is the part of the website that you see without having to scroll down).

If they do, look for an “Advertise with Us” link somewhere on their home page (usually at the bottom of the page).

Step #3 - Request Advertising Information

Send an email (or fill out a form) to request more information. Ask for a “rate card” (a document showing prices) as well as any information that is necessary to advertise with them.

Keep it brief. Don’t give them your website information or anything else (except your name and email of course).

Step #4 - Negotiate Better Rates

At the Big Seminar Ryan made us repeat “Rate Cards Are For Suckers!” several times.

What he was trying to say was this - you can easily negotiate lower rates than what they tell you.

Step #5 - Test The Ad For One Month

Next, test the banner ad for one month to see what results you get. You will need to track the traffic from that specific source in order to do this.

Step #6 - Wash, rinse, and repeat…

Now the hard part - if you make money, do it again with the same site. If you don’t, cross that site off and move on to the next.

Of course there are more complex things you could do to try to make more money, such as:

-testing to see what banner ad does the best
-negotiating lower rates (try asking for “package deals”)
-modifying your landing page (use a Squeeze Page!)
-modify your offer (make sure it is a less-expensive front-end product)

Repeat this with more and more websites and soon you’ll have a portfolio of dozens of sites that send you highly-qualified traffic.

Finally…

I don’t usually give advice on matters that I have little experience with (such as banner ads), but I trust Ryan Deiss and his marketing in this matter.

However, I am a fanatical tester, and this will be treated no differently. I had a meeting with my intern this morning and trained him on banner advertising. He will be testing it out for the next few months.

You can expect to see (or hear) a report back from me in a month or so on how it went, so stay tuned!

Matthew Glanfield

P.S. Post your comments!