To excel in social media, great blog advertising needs to combine hyperlinks, intriguing images and iterations.
Bottom line, blog readers are media savvy and news addicted. If you're focused on engagement, not just eyeblasting, you'll need to think smarter and faster.
Readers are bored, busy or craving something new. Most of the time they're trolling the Internet for news, scouring the same sites repeatedly. Show an image that would work as content if it weren't an ad. Ask a question, drop a hint, provide useful information.
Blogads are formatted like actual blog posts, pairing an interesting image with accompanying text including hyperlinks. By using both the available image and text portion you're able to connect with readers using a format they relate to.
Blogs are filled with hand-made news, they're not the slick product of a media machine. In this environment, ads that look and feel human work best too. Let a human thumb-print show, daring to sometime try an image that is off-center, less glossy, grainy or imperfect.
Standard and HiRise Blogads allow 300 characters of text below the image, all clickable! So why would you include text in your image?
Blogs are full of links and your ads should be too. Include hyperlinks throughout the text, each linking to different pages on your site. More specificity gives readers more potential ways to engage with your offerings.
Available with any of our Blogads units (except classifieds), this feature allows you to stream tweets from Twitter accounts or blog posts from your XML or RSS feeds. Not only does this strategy give readers more places to click, it gives them the news they crave, with hourly updates.
Testimonials from customers, readers, or fans are persuasive. People believe their peers 4x more than marketers. Ads are particularly effective when they link to the actual post where a blogger wrote about your product.
This is the most important part of the ad, yet we see countless scrunched images that look like clipart. Pick a picture that is vivid, distinctive, and enthralling. Avoid the smiling emoticon and throw in a large, laughing, human face.
Use a jpg and format it to look like a video still. Put a play button on it and direct viewers to the real video embedded in your site.
Have fun! Upload a few different ad versions to see what works and what doesn't. Blog readers are return readers, they will see your ad repeatedly. If they don't feel like clicking on a piece of creative the first three times they see it, chances are that they won't on the 4th time.
Learn how to add multiple creative versions. Check out our video!
If you don't add links to the text in your ad, you're wasting one of the biggest advantages of our ad unit. Only with Blogads can you link to specific items so people can go from general interest, to buying in one step. Make it easy to buy!
Why clog your image with text when we provide 300 characters of text below the image? On a site slathered with text, your image is your change to catch a reader's eye. The last thing you need is camouflage!
While logos are good for branding, if you're judging your campaign by how many clicks it generates, don't go there.
