Affiliate Merchants - please ensure you have banners available in ALL sizes
I’m in the process of launching a new website which is all about cars (yeah white ones) so have been looking for relevant advertisers to feature. I have the following 3 industry standard ad slots available:
728×90
300×250
125×125
One of the first programmes I looked at was Carsource on Buy.at. A perfect fit for my site, apart from the fact that they don’t have any creative in any of my sizes, disappointing. So, after giving up on Carsource I log onto Affiliate Window and check out the Halfords creative. Big brand, lots of resources and quite active in the affiliate community so they’re bound to have all sizes covered, right? Wrong. They only have 3 sizes of creative! Yes 3. And guess what? None of them are the 3 sizes I want.
So the result is that I won’t be featuring either merchant on my new white car website which is bound to get billions of visitors as white cars are the future. They’re loss, I’ll just have to seek out some smaller merchants in the auto sector. If anyone has any recommendations btw please post below in comments.
I then thought I’d put together a list of the most commonly used banner ad sizes below, I think that if all merchants can offer some creative in ALL of these industry standard sizes then they’ll have a starting chance of being featured on 99% of affiliate sites.
88×31
120×60
120×90
120×240
120×600
125×125
234×60
250×250
300×250
468×60
728×90
If you have these covered then you’re doing really well. If you want to go one better then visit the Internet Advertising Bureau’s guidelines for ad units to see all available.
What I’m listening to right now: Don-E - “Addictive Love”
Thursday, July 3rd, 2008 at 10:46 am and is filed under Affiliate Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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[...] links for the ads, then all you need do is cut and paste the code for the 125×125 graphic (providing the merchant offers them) and then you instantly see a preview of what the ad will look like. You can also add weighting to [...]
Welcome to my blog. My name is Kieron Donoghue and I run UK Offer Media Ltd. I thought it would be fun to post a daily (well hopefully daily) blog, writing about my experiences in Internet Marketing and more specifically Affiliate Marketing. I'll include some personal stuff too, probably about my other passions, music and cars. Please feel free to post your comments and thoughts too.
Totally agree with you on this one. The lack of common sized banners is more widespread than you’d think. What’s equally frustrating is the lack of response when you email the merchant to ask them to put one together. A recent exception however was AttractionTix who put a 300×250 banner together for me (and others) within the same day. Brilliant.
It’s not as big a problem as it used to be (The standard used to be one 468×60, maybe two if you were lucky), but when merchants are competing against each other for coverage on the limited affiliate space available, they should be doing everything possible to ensure affiliates are able to slot them into their sites.
It’s a fair point Kieron merchants should supply banners in all sizes. But on the other hand whats stopping you from making your own?
Jacko, time, money and why should I??
Plus, some merchants don’t allow it.
Agreed that merchants should provide as much creative as possible, however the delay sometimes is the result of External Agencies doing the creative work.
In an ROI driven environment, Banners are some of the most crucial creative a brand works with, and therefore a SPECIALIST needs to deliver the goods.
IMO, creating a banner theme is way way more difficult than creating a website
You know, I hate the way affiliates (yourself included) just refuse to actually put any effort in to the extent that most of you get upset when asked to do a simple staple of business such as generating an invoice (I know you’ve ranted about this in the past).
You want money from merchants? Then raise a frickin’ invoice! It’s how business works! You’re not special, you’re not exceptional, you’re a supplier and this is how a supplier/client relationship works. Try explaining to HMRC that you don’t have any invoicing records because HugeGreenBallsMan1987 gets all moody when you ask him to submit one and threatens to sulk.
I’m going to start a merchant’s blog so you can all read about the shit merchants put up with, for example; A 14 year old child demanding telephone lessons in how feeds work and what a white label is (seriously) or he’ll “slag you off on A4U and tell everyone how you don’t want affiliate business”.
“Jacko, time, money and why should I?” - Umm, because you created a website aimed at doing affiliate business in the motor sector without actually checking which ad sizes Halfords and Autotrader provide as standard? And this is their fault? Jeeeeeeeeeeesus, reluctant to admit a mistake much?
Rant over, now let’s see if I get published or not
Bob - thanks for your colourful comments. Whilst my post isn’t about generating invoices I’ll respond to you.
In the world of affiliate marketing, it’s common practice for the affiliate networks to pay affiliates withour raising an invoice. That’s just the way it is. I can’t actually remember ever ranting about having to raise a “frickin’” invoice for any indpendent merchants before though, so not sure exactly what you’re getting at? I’ve certainly ranted about not being paid on time but not about having to raise an invoice. FYI I raise loads every month, and yes that’s life, no big deal. And also FYI there are plenty of MERCHANTS that don’t provide me with any paperwork and yes I do have to explain that to HMRC.
As I manage an affiliate programme I know all about how much s*** merchants have to put up with too. However I look forward to reading more on your upcoming blog. If you want any more examples let me know, I’ve got loads.
So following your bizarre odd logic I should first check to see what creatives are available from the merchants I want to promote and then build a site to fit around them? Talk about putting the cart before the horse. That makes total sense. Isn’t it enough that we promote merchants on a paid on results basis? Isn’t it enough that we take all the risk? Isn’t it enough that we send them our valuable traffic for FREE? Just on the off-chance that their site is good enough to convert visitors to sales? Is it really too much to ask that they have a decent range of creative available for us to promote them? For free, may I add again, in case you missed it.
You seem very angry Bob, I’m glad you could find an outlet for it on my blog. Maybe you could tell us all which merchant you represent? I’ll be sure to look out for them and give you some space on my sites. Providing you have creative in the right size of course
I share your frustrations, only today i came across a large merchant who did’nt have any 468 x 60 banners!
“So following your bizarre odd logic I should first check to see what creatives are available from the merchants I want to promote and then build a site to fit around them? Talk about putting the cart before the horse.”
Umm, wouldn’t you have a motoring site running right now with creative for Autotrader and Halfords on it if you did? I agree that having each creative in each size is ideal but then you have to balance that with the ROI for each creative set - if one doesn’t work, you have taken a risk and lost money. One of the things I like about the affiliate channel is the vibrant 2-way conversation that exists within it, replicated very few other places. The kind of feedback merchants and networks can gain from A4u et al can be invaluable and is certainly more visible than feedback on eg PPC can be.
I don’t want to claim to *represent* a merchant, I just work for one - I thought I’d play devil’s advocate and show that it’s not a one way street, and knew you’d appreciate it
I did toy with starting a blog, to be honest, but it would just die on the vine and/or get me unemployed pretty damn quick..
Oh, and I knew I wasn’t going mad:
“Also, don’t ask me to raise an invoice for my commission every month. Why should I? Every affiliate network in the UK manages to pay me monthly without having to create and submit an invoice so don’t ask me to do it. I hate paperwork and don’t want any more, thanks very much!”
Bob - I have always said that people should build blogs/websites about their passions and interests and not to make money. So that’s exactly what I did with my forthcoming blog about my weird obsession with white cars. I built the site and afterwards built in some ad slots in some of the most widely used banner sizes available. Perhaps I was foolish in thinking that in this day and age it wasn’t too much to ask for banners to be made available in the majority of the universal sizes? As Lammo said above it used to be a problem years ago when merchants only created 468 x 60’s but not now in 2008. Sadly I was wrong. I stand by my point that merchants need to do better in order to maximise the effectiveness of the affiliate channel. After all if they are not going to pay us on a PPC or CPM basis but purely on a results driven performance basis then its not that much to ask that they invest in a standard suite of banners in the most common sizes is it?
Regarding my invoicing rant, that stands too. Pretty much all UK affiliate networks self invoice so why can’t everyone? Again not difficult and when you’re promoting 300 or so affiliate programmes I’m sure you can appreciate what a headache it can be invoicing and then chasing up payments month after month.
What a shame you don’t want us to know which affiliate programme you manage. Would have been interesting.
“What a shame you don’t want us to know which affiliate programme you manage. Would have been interesting.”
Fair enough, I can go back and pull out a quote of yours to make my point but I’d hope you can understand why I’d prefer to remain anonymous - how else can I be so forthright
FWIW, we do business
Cheers for your answers and good luck with the car blog. Is it really about *just* white cars? Interesting slant, and don’t forget the TOP TEN FAMOUS MOVIE WHITE CARS list with a prominent Digg This icon. Freebie; Lotus Elan from Spy Who Loved Me
Can we have the url to your motor site? So we can take a look? More out of interest
Al - sure, just as soon as its complete I’ll be posting it here. Not long now
Come on guys, anyone that reads this blog on a regular basis could guess the domain name - easy, easy!
Hi Kieron,
I agree that all the common banner sizes should be made available, but you’re annoyance about this fact is clouding your judgment in my opinion.
It only takes a few minutes of your time to create a simple banner creative for the size you want, send it to your affiliate manager and ask for approval. (10 minutes tops)
Yet you want to make a big deal out of it and go with smaller lesser known brands just out of principle that is merely based on annoyance.
———————————————————–
I’ll just have to seek out some smaller merchants in the auto sector. If anyone has any recommendations btw please post below in comments.
———————————————————–
Before you would have received your first two suggestions you could’ve already created the creatives on your own.
I think you’re acting a bit silly though if i may express respectfully my honest opinion
Ed - I haven’t the first clue how to create a graphical banner, so no it won’t take me ten minutes it will take me years to learn how to become a graphic designer - competent enough to creative a good banner that will represent the client’s brand.
And even so why should I? Are you mad? I already promote the merchants for free, they only pay me if and when I make a sale. So I should know make some creative for them too. What next? Manage their entire affiliate programme for free because they aren’t doing a good enough job??
I would add 160 x 600 to that list!
Enjoyed the Kieron-Bob ding-dong up there
“Jacko, time, money and why should I??”
Isn’t the reason you should because the time spent will earn you the money?
You quote 11 official sizes earlier in the thread, but there are now 18 variations according to the IAB: http://www.iab.net/iab_products_and_industry_services/1421/1443/Ad_Unit
Why choose 11? Why not demand that merchants make all ads in all 18 sizes?
Merchants have limited time and money too - it’s not economical to make 18 (or even 11) sizes of the same ad when most of the sizes won’t ever get used.
(BTW - how did you choose your 11? Has anyone ever done a survey?)
“I think that if all merchants can offer some creative in ALL of these industry standard sizes then they’ll have a starting chance of being featured on 99% of affiliate sites.”
The more I read this, the less sense it makes.
Surely a text link and relevance gives a merchant that starting chance - not a big investment in graphical creative.
If LoveHoney had all 18 sizes of graphics, I wouldn’t expect us to have much chance of being on your car site.
Maybe if this hadn’t been discontinued
http://www.lovehoney.co.uk/product.cfm?p=12367
Surely at the end of the day, size doesn’t matter. It’s what you do with it.
Richard - isn’t the reason I SHOULDN’T because I have already spent time, money and resources on building a site/brand and getting traffic to it?? Do you not think that’s enough? Am I being unfair in asking that merchants do a little work and provide me with some banners in some of the most common sizes? And not just 1 or 2? Are you serious?????
Can I suggest that if it’s not economical for a merchant to provide a decent range of banners in a wide variety of sizes (11, 18 or whatever) then maybe they aren’t taking their affiliate programmme seriously? After all, a banner can cost what £20 or £30 each at most? is that too much to ask for them to invest in affiliate marketing? After all it will mean that more sites will feature their programme - FOR FREE!
And btw I chose 11 as in my years of internet marketing those are the 11 sizes that I have seen the most. But it could easily be 18 as you say. My point is, that 2 or 3 really isn’t good enough.
With your point about text links, no that is absolutely NOT a good starting point. There are a lot of sites out there that do not like to use text links for fear of their content being perceived as biased because it contains advertising. There are lots of sites that like to clearly define “sponsored” sections of their site and will only display graphical ads.
And another thing, its not just about the subject of cost for a merchant. Take Halfords for example, they actually have 68 different banners, across only 3 sizes. Wouldn’t it make more sense to have 3 of each of the 18 standard sizes?
Nice little tiff up there - but then 2 way discussion should be what blogs are all about.
I actually have some sympathy with Richard’s point of view. On many networks creating, administering and updating banners can be a bit of a nightmare, and a lot of them are never used. Once you create a size of banner, you have to keep it updated for perpetuity and this adds up to a few hundred quid a year. Not to mention the opportunity cost of the time of the designer, marketing person and whoever has to upload it and keep it updated.
Kieron - I see your point with regard to the big merchants, but all too often affiliates request all these things (banners, product feeds in special formats, bespoke copy, pages widgets) that just do not offer a viable ROI if they are to provided to every small affiliate (indeed it’s often the small ones that take all the time to want something very special, rather than the larger affiliates who will either move on, or find a way around a problem themselves) who wants them. Product feeds are a great case in point - often new affiliates will take up a good hour of an account managers’ time getting a full explanation of how they work, what they do and how to use them, only to deliver very few sales as they don’t have the traffic. I’ve helped a lot of people integrate feeds, and would probably do it again, but often it’s not a sensible use of time.
Time spent working on potentially un-economical requests takes time away from affiliates and other projects that could be a lot better use of time.
Having said all that, it’s balance, and if Kieron had come to me and requested a few banners in popular sizes for a new site he was building, then I’d have commissioned them in a jiffy.
Gav - I take your point about product feeds, bespoke copy, widgets etc but I’m talking about the absolute BASICS. All I ask is that if a merchant is serious about their affiliate programme then they should at the very least offer a range of banners in a wide range of the standard sizes. It’s really not a lot to ask.
I know that you and a lot of other affiliate managers etc would create bespoke content/banners for myself and others in a heartbeat but I’m not talking about that. Again I’m talking about the absolute total basics here. Just make sure you have a good range of banner sizes available so you can cater for as many affiliates as possible. That’s all.
How difficult is it for a network to set up an banner/ad-widget/creation system for affiliates? All with preapproved content, selection of colours and resizing options?
Couldn’t fit my thoughts on this into one comment, so have written a blog post. Just a couple of tips if you want to put together a wider range of banner sizes…
I don’t think the comment that only merchants who provide 18-banner sets are serious about their program is a fair comment. Serious merchants take in the requests and deliver them promptly. But they don’t have to accommodate for everyone’s requirements from the word go.
The vast majority of affiliates require 6 standard sizes: 88×31, 120×60, 125×125, 120×600, 234×60, 468×60. Some need MPUs and some need the 120×90 and the leaderboard, but it’s not as frequent a request. If a merchant does not provide these 6 sizes, then you can say they’re jokers or ill-advised. But not for not providing 18 sizes!
18 banners per set - with 3-4 sets available (brand generic, range specific, product specific, occasion specific): admin nightmare. Then you will complain that they don’t update them frequently enough - of course they don’t, what did you expect?
Plus, lest we forget, this is performance marketing. And banners don’t bring in the sales. A merchant must provide them and update them every season, but let’s not kid ourselves - that’s not what they should be spending most of their time managing. I would understand if you moaned about the lack of feeds, or the lack of automation, or the poor quality, and that’s where I focus when advising merchants: optimise your feed, improve conversion rate, incentivise the customers, incentivise your affiliates, and seasonally update your banners
Hero - you’re getting too caught up in the numbers. In my original post I listed 11 of the most commonly used sizes by affiliates, not 18. But that doesn’t really matter, my point is that by any standards, just having 3 sizes of banners isn’t good enough. I have to disagree with you about feeds too, I don’t use them and I know a lot of affiliates who don’t so I don’t care if they work or not. However, having a decent range of banners is an absolute must for any programme.
Somewhere there’s an affiliate blogging that having automatically updated product feeds is absolute must and that they don’t care about having 11 types of banner… Heh.
I think this issue boils down to: “having a decent range of banners is an absolute must for an programme that wants to be on Kieron’s sites”.
What of those numerous - and big - affiliates that drive traffic directly to merchants via PPC? Neither banners nor product feeds are of use to them…
Yes, more banners is better than fewer.
But I don’t think ’s sweeping generalisations help beyond that.
Richard - well I’m a PPC affiliate too and I want to drive traffic to my new car site via PPC. So guess what that means? Yes I need some banners to go on the site so I can generate sales! Nobody is making sweeping generalisations other than - 3 banner sizes just isn’t a big enough range of creative for an affiliate programme. Too much to ask? Am I really being unreasonable here?
you’re being unreasonable in the sense that you shouldn’t moan about the lack of sizes that aren’t the most popular out there. You’re in need of them, fair enough, contact the merchant or their account manager - if you don’t get them, then moan
I’m still with Kieron on this one. There are too many merchants that have too few banner sizes. I’m talking about those merchants that have just 3/4 sizes.
I was talking about PPC affiliates who send traffic directly to merchants - they have no need for banners at all.
No, you’re not being unreasonable in saying what you want for your sites.
You are being unreasonable in turning that into sweeping generalisations like:
“they’ll have a starting chance of being featured on 99% of affiliate sites.”
“if it’s not economical for a merchant to provide a decent range of banners in a wide variety of sizes (11, 18 or whatever) then maybe they aren’t taking their affiliate programmme seriously”
Yes, more banners is better.
But merchants can still take their programme seriously without making 11 sizes.
That’s all!
Hero - I’m a bit shocked by your statement. You think I’m unreasonable by saying that 3 banner sizes isn’t enough? I realy don’t think it’s really very much to ask that a wider range of creative sizes should be made available is it?
Richard - sure but do you think merchants are taking their programme seriously with only 3 banner sizes? I don’t and that’s my point.
where did I say that 3 banners are enough? I advocate a minimum of 6 banners of the most popular sizes out there plus providing further sizes fast upon request. What’s shocking about that?
If a merchant waited to launch with all the elements an affiliate could potentially ask for, they would never launch. Launch with the minimum and work with your affiliates and network to improve and build on your program. Provided the affiliates come back to you and tell you what they want - rather than generally blog about it
Hero - you said I was being “unreasonable” and I really don’t think I am. That’s what I found shocking. Likewise I don’t think an affiliate should have to go back to a merchant and ask for basic banner sizes, just because they only have 3 in their inventory. Instead I’ll just go and find a competitor (as I have done) who offers banners in a decent range of sizes. Once again I’m not asking for “all” the elements that an affiliate could ask for just the BASICS. I understand that datafeeds, eidgets etc. take time to build and shouldn’t hold up the launch of an affiliate programme. But in my book there is no excuse to not only launch with only 3 banner sizes, but also not to expand on them after a period of months/years. And as for blogging about it, well this is an industry blog about matters that affect the industry. This falls under that category so don’t expect me to stop anytime soon