Creative Advertising
by CJ, Purve.com and CelebrityBling.com
 Being a webmaster means your job description is changing by the day - and some days by the hour. You've chosen a career with no set job description, limits, or boundaries. Fortunately, that also applies to your revenue opportunities, and keeping that line ascending on the graph means adapting to the relentless evolution of the e-commerce model.
Banner advertising has completely saturated the Internet over the past few years, and a standard banner ad is not as effective as it used to be. A successful advertising strategy now requires a little more creativity to grab a surfer's attention.
There are many ways to sell a site to a surfer, or convert that surfer into a sale, without using a page full of flashing banners. Utilizing all of the tools available to you by your affiliate sponsor will allow you to create a custom advertisement for the site, product or service you are selling, maximizing your conversions and utilizing your precious traffic.
Research Your Product
Quickly surf the site you are planning to promote - yes, you heard me SURF IT YOURSELF! - this will allow you to get a feel for the type of tour you are sending your surfer to. Keeping a marketing flow from the site on which you are advertising to the surfer to the sponsor's site is an important part of the sales process you present to your surfer. Look for the ways the paysite owner has chosen to sell the product, or how they have established a standard of quality with the surfer. Ensure you follow this through in your own marketing.
Select an Element to Advertise
Take a look at the main points of the tour, finding the hard sell items within the site. You may find this is a specific niche, a specific type of video feed, or a combination of a large variety of content. Build an advertisement which effectively pre-sells all or a selection of these features. If you are confident with building your own graphics, design a full-page ad which highlights the main points of the site. Most sponsors will provide you with a selection of full- or half-page ads to use throughout your site, if you prefer to not design your own.
Make Your Sponsor a Part of Your Site
When designing your advertisement, make sure you consider the layout and content of your own site. If you have some picture galleries, divide them up into smaller categories with a half page ad on the same page. Build the layout so that your gallery is designed to tease the surfer into clicking on your advertising.
The trick here is to create your advertisement so it appears as if it is part of your site, encouraging the surfer to stop and read the material you are presenting to them, rather than surfing through galleries of free pics.
Promote Trial Periods
If your sponsor offers a free or reasonably priced trial, you can outline this in your advertisement. This technique is best used to improve the quality of traffic you are sending to the sponsor, ensuring only those who are aware of the cost will click through to the site you are advertising. This technique is especially effective if your sponsor offers a free trial - make sure you use this to market your sponsor, after all, it is the most valuable sales tool.
Mix Banners with Advertorial
Rather than designing a standard, template-style page with 10 thumbnails, and a banner top and bottom, opt to mix up standard banners with advertorial content. Advertorial can be a small paragraph of text which sells the site's good qualities, with a carefully selected banner built into the text. This works best with banners which are not standard sized, as they can be built into a page without looking like a standard advertising tool. Be careful not to mislead surfers with false information about your sponsor, or you will be undoing your careful marketing efforts.
Your goal must be to offer your surfer a pleasurable surfing experience, while ensuring their final goal is your sponsor's site. Prepare that surfer for the sponsor you are sending them to, don't hide the fact they are expected at some point to pay, and watch your conversions improve. The better you prepare your surfer, the less traffic you will waste on unwanted visits.
You should always start by reading the rules of your sponsor, and checking that they do not require you to use standard banners and text links. Check with your sponsor before undertaking any promotion which may not be approved. You will find most sponsors are happy to allow you to design your own advertisements, provided you keep within the boundaries outlined in the tour.
Don't be afraid to experiment with your promotional styles - learning requires trying new things, and you will not only improve your knowledge of your own traffic, you will increase your revenues in the process.
CJ started in the industry in '98, launching Purve.com, the first adult subscription site for women, over 6 years ago. Since then CJ launched and managed the affiliate program SexHit for 2 years, and has since used her affiliate management skills to crossover into promoting many products ... from Casino's to Paysites, Bra's to Vitamins. Most recently CJ launched CelebrityBling.com and a network of celebrity paysites designed to bridge the gap between adult and mainstream.
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