Lets look at affiliate banners.  Most of us want to monotize our blogs or website publications and affiliate or cpa programs are a great way to do that. Running affiliate banners that stink are a BAD way to ‘attempt’ to monetize your blog.

Take a look at the affiliate banners on your site. Do they have a call to action ?

The 125 banners to the right all have NO call to action. I found these on a blog which is interesting as I often here from bloggers that they won’t run affiliate programs because they don’t earn revenue.

You will find many small affiliate merchants that offer in house affiliate programs do not have hours of experience monitoring large volumes of ad impressions, clicks, and sales that a dedicated affiliate manager has. So their creative goals are usually to brand their business and look great. Or they simply don’t have the expereince to create the banners you need. The same holds true for some graphic artists, they design based on design not sales.

This will NOT help you as an affiliate drive converting (purchasing) visitors through your affiliate links.

I have watched a campaign receiving over 20 000 US only impressions a day go from a click through rate of .05 % to 1.1% simply by changing the creative to include a clear call to action and offer statement.

So how could these banners generate more qualifying clicks ? By including a simple clear call to action such as:

1. Click here
2. Shop Now
3. Buy Now
4. Go
5. Click for free shipping <- call to action & incentive or offer statement
6. Get info here
7. Check it out
8. Go Shopping
9. Subscribe now
10. Join now

I made this banner in about 3 minutes (so pardon the unfinished look) I want to show how just a simple question and call to action can increase your affiliate programs performance. So which of these would you click?

OR this one:

Call to action Call to Action Call to Action. Yes, it’s an affiliate marketing mantra. If your affiliate programs aren’t converting – check your banners.

Your affiliate merchant should be providing you with full sets of IAB Universal Package banner sets for a variety of offers and landing pages that allow you to target your affiliate offers to send them better qualified visitors.

If they aren’t it’s time to send them an email and let them know your sales would increase if they provided better and MORE creative.

One more disclaimer, this post is titled affiliate banners need a call to action. Really ALL banners need a call to action.