help with banner

They have: 121 posts

Joined: Apr 2003

I just had a animated banner created. I'm wondering how to these things work? I'm going to be placing it on my "link to us" page so webmasters can grab the code to link to us with the banner. Any ideas?

Thanks,

Ron

The Webmistress's picture

She has: 5,586 posts

Joined: Feb 2001

Sorry, what exactly are you asking for help with? Confused

They have: 121 posts

Joined: Apr 2003

I thought that was an easy enought question, but I'll explain in detail. We have a banner. We want our banner to be placed on other people's webstie. How can we provide that so webmasters can grab the banner? Can they right click and save the banner or will they need to poing to my server?

The Webmistress's picture

She has: 5,586 posts

Joined: Feb 2001

It's probably better if you ask them to right click and save the banner onto their server

DaveyBoy's picture

They have: 453 posts

Joined: Feb 2003

actually no thats wrong, if you make them link to your own server then you can make changes to the banner on your server and the banner will change on everyone's web site that has your banner on.

Megan's picture

She has: 11,421 posts

Joined: Jun 1999

I guess there are pro's and cons to each case - if people are linking to your server you could have problems with bandwidth.

What a lot of sites do is provide a piece of code that people can just copy and paste onto their own site. The code would contain the absolute banner image reference and link to your site and any other formatting you want to include. This makes it easy for lazy webmasters to include your banner, and may increase the chances of people actually doing it!

So, there are a couple of ways of doing this. The method you choose depends on who you want to make it easist for.

Suzanne's picture

She has: 5,507 posts

Joined: Feb 2000

Further to Megan's post re: pros and cons:

The purpose of the banner/link can be another factor: if people directly link to your server, you can provide dynamic content, such as weather buttons, newsfeeds, et cetera. You can also record hits to the banners as a way of controlling statistical information.

However, 3rd party linking often slows down a site significantly, especially if the 3rd party's server goes down. As someone who has advertising on my site, I may want to use static coding and specific ads that I can control for appropriateness for my sites, as well as keep the download time reasonable.

There is an intrinsic conflict between people selling advertising space and those wishing to purchase it that can sometimes result in a fight over control.

On the third hand (ha!) marketing campaigns are often time-specific and marketing folks like to be able to entirely control what banners/ads are shown where. If you're working with people showing your banner, you may need to communicate with them at length to find the best solution for both you.

To sum up: the purpose of the banner/link, the length of the campaign, your need to track banner "impressions" (you can track hits with either static or dynamic links), the webmaster's preferences/needs and your bandwidth allowance all influence whether the link should be static or dynamic.

Aren't you glad you asked?

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