Ad Types Explained

This article was written by Ted Dhanik

In the world of display advertising, there are a few methods of reaching your audience. Some rely heavily on the content of the page, others require attention grabbing copy and images to farm clicks. Here are some of the types you’re bound to encounter.

Contextual

A contextual ad is placed within content, and typically draws upon that content for relevance. Sold in exchanges, these ads will look for proper context for both the ad and the content. When a match is found, the placement is auctioned off. They are usually sold in a pay-per-click fashion, so the advertiser has an opportunity to fine tune sales copy in order to hit the sweet spot of click through rates.

Text Link

A text link is an in-content link, but it’s not quite like a contextual link. Contextual ads tend to show an ad with the keyword, where as text links only use the link itself to lead the user to a landing page. Text links can be extremely useful, if the link is used as the source in an article.

Display Advertising

Banner advertising is often impression based, meaning that is sold based on how often viewers are shown the ad. Advertisers are charged whether or not a click was made, so it’s important to find effective sales copy that gets customers to click. Display ads also rely heavily on targeting, so it’s important to determine specifics about your audience so you can improve your chances of hitting the right kinds of page views.

Bio: Ted Dhanik is a display advertising guru with fifteen years of experience. Ted Dhanik publishes banner advertising tips online through blogs and his website go now. Find more tips online from the CEO of engage:BDR, Ted Dhanik.