Written by Ted Dhanik
How well you analyze the performance of an ad will determine how much money you will spend on testing figuring out whether it works or not. Learning what to track is the difference between an amateur and a professional. You will need to use a combination of your own analytics, and any analytics provided to you through your banner advertising network.
Time of Conversion
The first thing you should be aware of is the times of day you are most likely to get a conversion. This is a huge money-making tactic that many newbies overlook. It’s common to think your ads will perform just as well overnight as they did throughout the day. Unfortunately, this may not always be the case. You should review your conversion data and create a spreadsheet that tracks time of day with number of conversions.
Once you’ve run the campaign for a few weeks, you will know which hours of the day will yield the most profits. Up the traffic coming to your placements during those times, and you will stand to gain more conversions.
Source
The more you know about the traffic source, the better. So it’s important that you spend time properly targeting your audience. You should use parameters on your URL to track the campaigns you run, and view your Analytics routinely to see if the traffic numbers from your backend tracking match the numbers reported by your traffic source. Work with your traffic provider to determine the optimal targeting for your campaign, and test these settings in their own ad groups.
Creative
Testing creative for a display advertising campaign can be difficult because it’s hard to find banner ads with data that shows whether they convert well. If you need help hunting for a banner, start with affiliate networks. They host ads in all genres, so you’re bound to find one that will work for you. You can also check some of the potential placements for your ads to see what banners those websites host. Remember, these are not placements from the network itself, only the kinds of placements you would expect to do well on.
Pay attention to which sizes are most prominent, and whether different banners advertising a similar product are competing for space. Look for commonalities like keyword usage and calls to action, then build your own ads from there.
Bio: Ted Dhanik has over fifteen years experience in the direct marketing space. Ted Dhanik routinely offers tips for businesses to expand their leads through display advertising. To sign up for engage:BDR, visit Ted Dhanik online.