I’ve worked on both sides of affiliate programs for years now and one of the biggest issues I see with advertisers are their banners and marketing creatives.

I’ve set up a lot of advertisers in an affiliate network as well as in-house programs. When it comes to banners, the worst thing you can do is offer one 468×60 standard banner of your logo and URL. Well actually, the worst you can do is 470×80 or some weird size that doesn’t scale or fit into banner rotation software. In fact, you could do even worse and just offer text links.

Anyway, I want to make agencies and advertisers aware of the do’s and dont’s that will subsequently lead to an affiliate dumping or not choosing your program at all.

In no particular order, I offer some hints and tips:

Design - Clean and Professional
As an affiliate, I have a nice looking site so I want your banners to complement it. I don’t care how many clicks you think you can get with a red and yellow flashing “YOU WON” banner, I am a professional, so please keep your banners looking professional. I understand, your corporate colours are important, but so are mine.

File Size - Watch Your Weight
Hire a designer, one with experience creating banners. I don’t want my users to load 100KB banners when it could have been created in 10KB. The IAB are currently working on “file weight” guidelines, but while you wait, just compare your stuff you everyone else.

Pixel Dimensions - Stick To Standard Sizes
The IAB in Australia (Internet Advertising Bureau) has published a set of standards and guidelines for the Australian UAP (Universal Ad Package). This is the very minimum you should have, it includes 4 ad units including a leaderboard 728×90, standard banner 468×60, medium rectangle 300×250, and a wide skyscraper 160×600. Note, the US IAB drop the 468×60 from their UAP and swap it with a 180×150.

A lot of major traffic portals will be compliant with UAP units, however keep in mind the ‘mum and dad’ affiliate who also want to see some other sizes.

The United States IAB also publishes standard ad unit guidlines for a complete range of banners. Work towards adding as many of those banner sizes over time, or as you receive requests working with more affiliates.

Promotions - Keep Your Banners Updated
If you have seasonal campaigns or products you must keep your banners updated, this lets affiliates know you are actively taking care of your program. If you’re a chocolate shop and you’ve got Easter promotional banners but it’s Christmas time now, forget it. Keep your promotional banners up to date. You should identify seasonal banners as such and allow the affiliate to run your promotional banner in a “spot”, managed on your end that he/she can rely on you to update and keep fresh.

URLs in Banners
You must have a different set of banners for affiliates on CPL/CPA programs to the ones you use on CPM campaigns. When you buy impressions from me, I am selling you the right to get brand recognition from my users, even if they don’t click. If you’re paying me per lead or per acquisition, and your URL is featured predominantly in the banner, forget it. I don’t want my user typing in your URL tomorrow and I get nothing for it.

Some networks and advertisers offer post-impression tracking (PI) that will track a sale for x number of days after a user has been served a banner impression, that is acceptable and a highly respected piece of code. In my experience with some finance campaigns (credit cards, home loans etc) I’ve seen up to 40% of sales coming through from 2 day PI display ads. So if your URL toting advertisements give you 40% more sales that I won’t be getting commission for, I’ll be promoting someone else.

So to summarise:

• Standard sizes, best variety possible.
• Clean and professional designs.
• Small filesize, fast loading.
• No URLs for CPA/CPL campaigns.
• Keep banners fresh and promotions up to date.

Most importantly, be prepared to work with your affiliates. If you are in a network and an affiliate application comes through, make sure you have the right tools for that affiliate or they won’t promote you. Check out their website, consider the possible spots you will be promoted, if you don’t have a banner size for that spot, create it, and get back to the affiliate. It can get costly creating custom banners, but remember, if you add another standard size or colour for a particular affiliate, it can always be used by other affiliates.

ad units, affiliate network, banners, CPA, CPL, CPM, creatives, iab

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