AdToll reviewed on JohnChow.com
November 7th, 2007 by Dan
Today our review on JohnChow.com was published! The review by John was always something we wanted to do due to the reach John has with his large subscriber base. We welcome everyone who found us through JohnChow.com and hope we can enjoy a prosperous relationship with you.
For those that have not read the review click on the image below.
AdToll reviewed on The WWW Observer
November 7th, 2007 by Dan
Today a review on The WWW Observer was published. Have a read of the review by clicking the image below.
AdToll.com CEO interviewed by CEOWorld.biz
November 6th, 2007 by Dan
This week I was approached by CEOWorld.biz for an interview which I kindly accepted.
It gave me the opportunity to tell the world a bit about myself and answer some really good questions about AdToll. There are about 15 questions in all and they cover topics such as our founding story, our point of differences, our new video ads and a whole lot more.
I do recommend reading it as it might answer some of your own questions about AdToll and give you a further insight into our service.
Create your own Video Ad
November 6th, 2007 by Dan
Video Ads are quite new to the industry and many Advertisers simply do not have a video ad they can use. The misconception is that they are too expensive or too hard to create. That could not be further from the truth!
Our friends at LeadsByVideo.com have put together a step by step guide to creating your very own video ad using Windows Moviemaker, which comes standard on any Windows installation.
These are the 8 simple steps used…
Step One
Click start > run > type moviemk, then press the OK button.
If you do not have Windows Movie Maker 2 you can download it for free here
Step Two
A story board outlining the unique value proposition was created and recorded as a voice narration audio (Tools > Narrate Timeline > Start Narration).
Step Three
Two images and the background music file were imported into the collections area.
Step Four
Drag and drop the images and audio files into the timeline pane.
Step Five
Insert the title screens between the image clips. (Tools > Titles & Credits). You can add text effects and choose your colours)
Step Six
Adjust the start and end points of clips to synchronise with impact points of your music and narration.
Step Seven
Add transion effects (Tools > Video Transitions) by dragging any of the available transitions to the timeline.
Step Eight
After previewing and adjusting your video to your liking, create a wmv file which you can submit to LBV (file > save movie file > My Computer/Next > Select location/Next > default best quality for my computer/Next)
Tip: you can overlap images as well as audio by dragging one clip on top of another. This is how the voice narration and music are played at the same time.
To enhance your experience and to learn more about Windows Movie Maker check out the following;
Education and Forums:
Software Transitions and Add-ons:
An alternative to Windows Movie Maker
If you don’t require voice narration and would like some unique transitions, OneTrueMedia.com simplifies the making of online slideshows or video presentations by effortlessly combining photos with words and music to personalize your story.
This 15 minute process is free, quick and easy with no software downloads and immediate results. Just follow the 4 step process that’s described below;
- Upload your images
- Add in any special transitions and effects you desire
- Use text slides and captions if applicable
- Add music from their catalog or upload your own
- Publish your video, and submit the video link to LBV
Once you have created your video ad you can easily book ads on AdToll! You will need to host your video on a video sharing site like YouTube. We do provide instructions for doing this here
Search Engine friendly URLs for Rate Cards
November 4th, 2007 by Dan
This afternoon we enhanced the site Rate Card URLs to be more Search Engine friendly (SEO Friendly).
We were using dynamic URLs to the Rate Cards such as http://www.adtoll.com/rate_card.php?sid=941. Search engines recognise this as a dynamic URL and place less importance on it therefore impacting on Search Engine ranks (SERPS).
The new URL structure to Rate Cards means Search Engines consider them static pages giving them more importance. The new URL looks like this - http://www.adtoll.com/rate-card-for-razzling-arcade-941/
The new URL structure also includes the name of the site giving Search Engines extra information for indexing purposes, which will also help the SERPS.
If you are a Publisher this also gives your Rate Card a more professional feel when prospective Advertisers view it.
Case Study: Banner Effectiveness
November 2nd, 2007 by Dan
There are those out there who question the effectiveness of banner advertising so I thought I would put together a little experiment. The idea was to prove that banners can be effective and especially effective when targeted correctly and the banner itself is enticing to the viewer.
I booked three 160×600 banner ads on MyGameSpace. To offer some background, MyGameSpace is a gaming related web site, being a flash arcade.
The three campaigns I booked were:
1. www.lerx7.com -> An automotive related web site, completely off topic to games. (LERX7)
2. www.pimpineuro.com -> A MMORPG, which is well targeted. (PEU)
3. www.razzling.com -> Another flash arcade, which is targeted perfectly. (RAZZ)
Here are the banners I used for each booking (resized):
Each banner is very different, obviously! The LERX7 banner is focused on the car, appealing to car enthusiasts. The RAZZ and PEU banners are “sexed” up to really attract the viewers eyes. In my experience banners like this aimed at this market (gamers) outperform any other banner by far.
Below you can see a snapshot of the campaigns from the account area. The columns represent campaign name, site the ad appears on, duration, views today, clicks today, CTR and CPC.
Looking at the statistics you can clearly see the RAZZ campaign is outperforming the other two by a significant amount with a 12.97% CTR.
Below I have included screen shots of the more detailed stats for each campaign so you can see how consistent these results actually are.
By clicking on each image above you can see the statistics for each campaign. It’s actually quite interesting to see the consistency in the CTR for the RAZZ and PEU campaigns. Considering they are well targeted it’s no big surprise although the RAZZ campaign is really performing well with a consistent 11%+ CTR every day! This shows how important the actual ad media is. In this case we would assume the ad media for the RAZZ campaign is far more appealing to the target audience.
The LERX7 campaign, being not targeted at all isn’t doing nearly as well as the other two. Of course it’s not surprising! This does prove how important it is that your advertising be well targeted.
Overall the results were quite expected although I personally found it useful spending the time doing this because it really did reinforce the basic concepts of banner advertising. I hope my little experiment has helped you in some way as well, after all that’s what this is all about; helping each other!
Good luck with your banner campaigns, I hope you can achieve success!