Using Google’s Image Ads

Today I’m going to give you a secret to getting an avalanche of traffic on the Content Network, using Google’s Image Ads. I’ll begin by explaining something that’s totally core, thoroughly fundamental to hyper-effective, profitable advertising.

Every form of media and every way of selling any kind of space has its own fundamental financial metric.

Commercial real estate is leased according to dollars per square foot per year. Therefore the core metric of a retail store is sales per square foot.

The core metric of the Internet is dollars per thousand impressions.

Every Google search is an impression and that impression is what Google has to sell, period.

So even though AdWords charges you per click, it rewards you for Click Thru Rate. So if you do the math, at the end of the day you’re paying for impressions. The #1 bidder is the guy who gives Google the most $ per 1000 impressions. The #2 bidder is the second most profitable advertiser per thousand impressions.

The same is true on the Content Network. The ads that get the best coverage are the ones that get the most clicks and generate the most money per thousand impressions.

Well if you break it down one step further, each ad or ad block takes up a certain amount of space so it really comes down to:

PENNIES PER PIXEL.

Many AdSense syndicators allow Google to serve both text ads and image ads on their sites. The way Google decides which to serve is: Which makes more money per pixel – 3 text ads or one image ad?

If your 250×300 banner ad can $out-perform three text ads, your banner gets shown instead of three other advertisers’ text ads.

OK, so here’s the punchline:

***PIXEL FOR PIXEL, AN IMAGE AD CAN ALWAYS OUTPERFORM A TEXT AD.***

Why?

Simply because you can test more things.

Text ads only have text and they’re black and white. Each pixel in an image ad has 65,536 possible colors. Banner ads have color, texture, faces, patterns, animation… flavor.

My friend, that’s the Pixel Power Principle.

This is why Image Ads can get MUCH higher CTR’s than text ads – 2 to 5 times better. Again, they must, to even get served. But there is literally an endless variety of things you can test. It’s a new frontier in Google AdWords. I’ve really been enjoying the art of playing with these image ads.

Listen up: You test 30-50 banner ads with a Content-Friendly topic, and you are going to come up with one or two ads that SLAY DRAGONS and enter the fabled “Jet Stream.”

Oh, and by the way I discovered a really talented graphic designer who makes beautiful image ads for me. Her name is Laura Husmann, “The Banner Ad Queen.” Her website is www.BannerAdQueen.com.

Enjoy the science and the ART of testing cool banner ads on the Content Network.

Banner ads are soooo 2010!

Perry Marshall