I received an email from a good friend who is handling consumer brands of a snack food company, telling me what they usually look for in a website to display their banner ads. He mentioned that some banner ads are to maximize on impressions. But for them, a simple display will do.

Here is what I found out:

1) they usually place their ads on top of the page where traffic on that website is highest. It doesn't have to be the home page because part of the factor they look at, is the relevance of the brand to the traffic profile and the activities being done by the visitors on that particular page.

2) the banner ad message is always simple - in fact the dominant brand color and logo will suffice

3) the banner ad size will depend on how fast the website page loads up. It is important because studies show that a slow loading page, somehow has a high exit experience.

He also mentioned that the more traffic - unique visitors - a page has, the better exposure the brand will have. In this case, it is the way the brand is exposed to the target visitors that makes the difference. They measure the banner ad with a link to their system - not to their website like a Click Through banner ad - but by placing a code into the ad box that catches the visits it is imbedded on. The average impressions are measured this way for non-click throughs.

Since this is the way they measure value on a particular placement, I may adjust the media marketing efforts to appeal to them. I have to know the profile of their target market, so I could align the media efforts to attract the right visitors.

It also gives me an insight on how much budget or cost targets these advertisers have, based on the number of visitors. Since they monitor the impressions as total unique visitors, then it is crucial that the price of the ad box be commensurate to the expected impressions. More visits translates to affordability and maximize brand exposure. So if I exceed expected visits, most probably they shall extend their ad placement.

Now that I have a feel of how this banner ad can monetize my website, I think we need to adjust the pages and media marketing efforts to what is expected by my potential advertisers.