Advertorials or banners? Anyone who has used both forms of internet advertising will tell you that advertorials win hands down over banner ads.  There is no research which ranks the advantages from greatest to least, so the following appear in no particular order.

1. Launching a new product

An advertorial is a great way to launch a new product or service, as it gives an opportunity to tell your prospective buyers about the qualities of your product far more than a banner ad could.  You can describe the item in detail, include photographs and other graphics, add testimonials from satisfied customers, links to sites where the item can be purchased and, of course, contact information.  If the advertorial is well-enough written, it will capture the attention of anyone who reads it, and they will be drawn in to your campaign, and sooner or later become customers.

2. Cost

The pricing structure for advertorials is flat rate.  For the more elaborate packages, you can expect to pay a few hundred dollars, while the basic packages start around $90. For this you get 3 paragraphs of text  or120 words, proofreading and copy editing where necessary, and conversion of your advertorial into HTML format. 

Each advertorial is hosted for 6 months, and has an individual link incorporated.  This can lead to your website, to an affiliate’s website or an email for direct contact. The cost is the same whether 3 people or 300,000 people view it.

The cost for banners, on the other hand, is based on cost per thousand (CPM) meaning that you pay anywhere from $35 - $65 for every thousand times that your banner appears on someone’s computer screen.  While you should have some idea of the traffic to any site you plan to advertise on, there is no way to predict how many impression of your banner you will have to pay for. (Each time someone accesses a page on which the banner appears is considered an impression)

3. Room to breathe

An advertorial allows you to include far more information than can be fitted into a banner

4. Branding

Banners may lead to direct sales of individual items, but advertorials convey the mood, the feeling and even the history of the product.  They don’t tell you must buy a product, but they suggest why you might want to. They make an impression on your mind, so that next time you see the name, you greet it with familiarity.  You are hooked.

5. Engagement

Viewing a banner ad is entirely passive, reading an advertorial engages the reader in an active manner.  A good advertorial will be informative and entertaining so that the reader feels that he or she has benefitted from the reading even if they do not buy the product.  He or she is likely to remember the piece; there is connection for the future. Banner ads just pass by.

6. Added Value

Advertorials which originate on the web may also be published in printed newspapers or magazines at relatively little or no extra cost.  They are frequently picked up by bloggers who may distribute the content to their readership. Furthermore, it only takes one reader to post it on the right social media, and your advertorial can go viral.  That doesn’t happen with banners.

To sum up, advertorials establish a relationship with the (potential) customer in a way that banner ads never will. Banner ads are one-off, here and now.  Advertorials are the future.  AdvertorialAgency.com provides an online advertorial distribution service that will help enable you to boost both marketing and sales.