“Do Banner Ads Really Work?”

Q: To get more visitors to my website, I’m considering buying banner advertisements. So do banner ads really work?

A: Yes, banner ads can bring more traffic to your website. But not all banner ads are the same. And increased traffic won’t tell you whether or not you made a good investment.

At the end of the day, a banner ad’s effectiveness depends on how many leads and application submissions it generates…and at what cost.

You can spend $5,000 on banner ads to drive 1,000 visitors to your site. But if only 10 of those visitors convert into leads — and only 1 of those leads convert into sales — a $500 cost per lead is not worth it.

The right banner ads can help you increase sales and more than pay for themselves. The challenge is in finding the right location to place those banner ads.

Planning for conversion

Don’t start your campaign until you’re ready. All the website traffic in the world won’t do you much good if they just “bounce” away without becoming sales leads.

This is a big problem for many online advertisers. They invest hundreds or thousands of dollars on PPC ads that drive hundreds or thousands of new visitors to their websites. But because their new visitors don’t buy anything or become sales leads, those ads turn out to be a complete waste of money.

Smart online marketers know that you need to first prepare your website before you begin your banner ad campaign. You have to make sure that your website is designed to convert visitors into leads. This means giving online health insurance shoppers what they want — information and tools for making a decision.

Keep in mind that online shoppers tend to use the Internet to first do research on their purchase. That may take a while. But when they do decide, online shoppers tend to act quickly.

With that in mind, your website should provide guides and useful information for insurance shoppers. In addition, here are three additional tips to help you boost your website’s ability to convert visitors into leads:

• Usability
  Make sure it’s easy to use and that you deliver what you promise. If you promise information about Medicare, make sure that you actually have links that take them to Medicare info within your website. And don’t take it for granted that your design looks good to you. Ask potential health insurance shoppers you know to take a tour through your site and give you an honest review of its usability.


• Call to action
  People may not like being told what to do, but online shoppers do appreciate a little guidance. That’s why every page should have a call to action that “invites” visitors to take the next step…which could be checking out a comparable program — or contact you for more information.


• Quote engine
  When it comes to “calls to action,” many top producers can vouch that nothing beats offering a self-service multi-carrier quote engine. Serious health insurance shoppers can take the big step of comparing plans and price quotes from various carriers. And as soon as they use the quote engine, they become your exclusive lead.

Designing your campaign

Now you need to decide where to place your banner ads, and the type of online advertising you want to use. In both cases, your budget and marketing goals will shape your decision.

First of all, there are two basic types of banner ads, at least when it comes to cost.  Some banner ads charge you for impressions — whether or not they actually deliver traffic to your site. If you’re looking to build your brand recognition (and have a lot of money), this is probably the way to go.

But I recommend you go with pay per click (PPC) banner ads whenever possible. With PPC ads, you’re not charged until someone clicks on that ad. This makes it ideal if you’re trying to drive more potential buyers to your site.

These ads can be placed directly with individual website owners or through ad networks. If this is your first time using banner ads, I suggest first trying to place it with individual websites.

So which websites?

You’ll probably want to place your banner ads where consumers who would be interested in health insurance would visit. Unfortunately, if you google “health insurance,” practically every site you’ll see in the first dozen pages of search results are health insurance companies or lead generators — and they don’t accept ads.

Your best bet is to look at health-related portals, such as webMD.com, health.yahoo.com or health.msn.com. You may also want to consider consumer finance pages.

Most of these sites do sell banner ad space. More importantly, they attract health insurance shoppers.

Test and track

Don’t think that your work is over once your campaign is up and running. Online ad campaigns require oversight…to make sure that you’re getting the highest return on your investment (ROI).

In addition to tracking which banner ad placements are delivering the most visitors to your site, you’ll want to track which of these ads are generating the most leads and submitted apps.

You should also test two or more ads in the same websites. Most websites who post banners ads can rotate your ads.

If you see that one ad generates more visitors and leads than the others, then you should use that ad more frequently. This approach should help you get even more traffic and leads.