Banner displays

Foreign-based and even local businesses are already spending thousands of dollars developing flashy company Web sites, but few businesses are using the Internet to generate income.

Ukrainian Banner Network is one of the most experienced companies doing just that. The company, which places banner ads on Web pages, is working hard to convince businessmen that if they know how to use the Internet, the high-tech tool can be extremely profitable. UBN itself is still waiting for those profits. Right now the company is just breaking even, but judging by the growth of e-commerce in the West and UBN's management expects fast growth soon.

The company has become the country's largest banner advertiser in terms of "banner displays" — loosely, the number of times a banner ad is displayed to Internet users. UBN is focused on the small but growing e-market in Ukraine and works only with Ukrainian-based or Ukrainian-related sites.

With few Ukrainians online, and even fewer possessing credit cards or other electronic payment systems to make purchase over the Web, e-commerce here is struggling to take off.

But there is another problem stunting the growth of the e-market here — a lack of information about the power of the Internet. Many users have learned to search the Net for information, but they don't realize they could use the Internet to place their own information.

To spread the world, UBN's Web site has a page of tips for budding e-businessmen. First of all, UBN disputes the popular notion that all you need to succeed is a Web site.

Internet non-professionals just think there's a bunch of people roaming the Net who'll see their site and enter it. In reality, nobody is likely to just stumble across your site in the vastness of the Web. A Web address is needed to access a site. No one will come to your Web site unless you advertise it.

That's where banner ads come in. The rectangular and square ads, with text and/or pictures, and shortcuts to specific sites. When you click on the ad, you're taken to the site — and you don't need to know its address beforehand. Banners are usually placed on popular sites, and lead Web surfers to less well known related sites.

UBN's main line of activity is to provide software to Web site owners that automatically places ads in banner slots on Web pages — the actual banner shown depends largely on who is viewing the Web page. UBN's complex software can track the electronic signature (IP address) of Internet users as they browse the Web. If the user belongs to the advertiser's target audience, the advertiser's ad appears in the banner slot — whatever page is being shown.

Although the advertiser has no direct way to access the target 's personal details or e-mail, the advertiser can build up a profile of the target's interests, based on the topics of the sites the target visits. With relevant ads appearing on the Web site slots, the target is effectively chased around the Net by ads. The payoff comes if the target actually clicks on the banner.

The power of the Internet allows advertiser to target their audience with more precision than in more traditional media. One book (on advertising) compares advertising in the mass media to throwing a bomb, while Internet advertising is like shooting with a sniper's rifle. You hit the target in both cases, but the expenses are not comparable.

UBN allocates ads to banner slots for its clients for free, but charges for banner shows or clicks on a banner ad.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-16