A very good way to engage internet users with your message is to insert mini-games in your banners. See the example below:

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Roll over.

Clearly above the average creative execution. It stirs up your curiosity…

Let’s view this chart:

Source: Eyeblaster Research Global Benchmark Report 2009

What does it tell us? Well, besides that Rich Media banners perform better that the classic static ones, pretty nothing. Sure, the full banner format 234×60px and the rectangle 180×150px are a bit of a surprise given their small dimensions.

But does that mean you should go for these formats? Not necessarily. What if you need to integrate a video for instance? Would a 180×150px help? I doubt that.

I tell you what. Format is the last thing you need to think of before starting a banner advertising campaign. Instead think of:

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They fail to give you a recipe for success.

You know why? Because there isn’t such thing.

So why do we read them? Why do we spend so much time reading All Marketers Are Liars, Predictably Irrational, The Irresistible Offer,  Buyology or even Buzzmarketing? The answer is: because we love stories. All these books contain dozens of stories about successful brands, interesting people and smart advertising. That’s the primary reason we buy them.

But why do we love stories and what do we learn from them? Well, stories give us inspiration. Stories make us find the right attitude. And, most importantly, stories help us shape our own story.

So there’s pretty much an abstract benefit of reading marketing books; they won’t tell you exactly what to do next. If you feel they do, then you’d better not read them at all, because most likely the “recipes” you find in them aren’t right for your business.

Flash Player on mobile devices!

Yep. No more limitations for web developers, no more limitations for advertisers, no more limitations for online applications builders. At least when it comes for Palm webOS, Google Android, Nokia Symbian, and Microsoft Windows Mobile operating systems. (Yes, iPhone is not included. I wonder why.)

Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch presents Flash for mobile devices

On all of these devices you will be able to install Adobe Flash Player and run any SWF movie clip in your browser, just like you do it on your desktop or laptop machine.

This is huge. This will change the users’ experience with mobile devices, but also the way marketers will converse with mobile users.

Read more about this launch here.

Jim started a little business, he’s selling dog collars, beds and treats. A friend told him to start a website, so he could sell his things online. “It’s easier to build a website than a brick and mortar store” he said.

Source: J. Star

Jim listened to her and made a nice little website, with great pictures of the products with his pets as the main characters. “Now what?” he said, “Nobody knows I have this website. How can I get to people who could be interested in collars and beds and treats for their playful friends?”

He searched the Internet and read about things like text ads, banners, blogs, email, forums and social media. Text ads work great if you want to reach for people who search for a specific product in a search engine, he read. “That could be a start” he said. Banner ads could be great to show off his beautiful dog supplies and get pet lovers to know about his new store.

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As I said in previous occasions, I’m not so convinced that banner advertising is dead or that at least it should be. The quick counter-argument to this is that banner ads serve well for branding purposes.

However there’s an often overlooked function of advertising which is to inform.

If you have something new to introduce to the market, something better or something that solves people’s problems in an innovative way, you must find a way to inform your audience about it! If your product is useful, you don’t need bells and whistles in your ad campaign; just inform correctly, and the product will sell by itself.

However, taking a short look over the creative output you find on general audience sites for instance, you can quickly come to the conclusion that most banner ads suck. No wonder why users install banner blockers or develop the so-called “banner blindness“?

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It doesn’t scale. Search marketing can’t create more demand, let alone new needs. Therefore, if you rely only on search advertising, you’ll have to settle for a market composed by a group of people who already have the need and know how to satisfy it.

But what happens if your product is so innovative that nobody thinks of searching it? E.g. a Twitter-like service back in 2006. What if your service solves a problem in a way no searcher can imagine? And what if your target audience isn’t that tech savvy and only uses new media for email and news?

In other words, what if the search market is too small for your business to grow and take wing?

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Here’s the story:

1. On August 4, Google Checkout stopped their recurrent payments, therefore your payments were not sent to us until yesterday, September 14.

2. It seems that all the subscriptions that were delayed were charged together on September 14. For instance, if you had to be billed on August 8 and September 8, both your recurrences arrived on September 14.

3. Our system is built in such a way that only when we receive payments from your payment processor we activate your license for the next billing cycle. Due to this architecture and Google’s Payment system delay issue, your license was paused from the moment we should have received payments for the next billing cycle and they were re-issued on September 14.

4. As a result, there are some of you that were charged twice on September 14.

5. We will process full manual refund for one of the 2 transactions charged on September 14 based on user’s request.

So if you were billed twice on September 14, please write us at support[at]bannersnack[dot]com.

Here’s how the process of subscription payments works on SnackTools.co:

1. Choose a subscription that you want;
2. Then choose your payment processor (PayPal, Amazon, Google);
3. You are being redirected to your payment processor account where you will confirm your order/subscription;
4. On your next billing cycle (1 month/1 year) your payment processor initiates a payment to us;
5. Right after the payment gone through we receive the IPN (instant payment notification) on our servers;
6. Our servers automatically renew your license based on your subscription payment.

Potential issues:

1. If you don’t have sufficient funds in your account it will not be able to initiate the payment. In this situation it will be delayed and the payment processor will try to initiate that payment asap.

2. If you cancel your subscription directly from your payment processor account, we will not receive your payments and will stop your license from working. When you choose to cancel the subscription from your SnackTools account, we actually send a merchant request to your processor to cancel your subscription.

3. If anything works wrong with the payment processor that you have chosen to use, and if we do not receive the due payment or IPN, we will not be able to renew your license.