Banner Ads

Banners are the most popular types of affiliate links, according to data in the 2011 Affiliate Summit AffStat Report, where over fourteen-hundred affiliates were surveyed, we asked, “What are your preferred link types?”

A banner ad is a rectangular or square shaped advertisement on a website, usually above, below or on the sides of the site's content.

The banner ad is linked to the website of the advertiser running the affiliate program with a link that is unique to the affiliate. The banner is usually hosted by the affiliate program or network, though some affiliate programs will give the option of hosting the banner(s) yourself.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) oversees Display Advertising Guidelines, which are their recommended dimensions for banner ads.

You can typically find a variety of these sizes in a given affiliate program.

But the affiliate marketing community doesn't fully adhere to these guidelines, as the IAB delisted a variety of ad units as of February 28, 2011, including many that are still very common among affiliate programs.

Anyhow, while banners are readily available in affiliate programs, and they are the most popular way to promote companies through affiliate marketing, I would suggest that you focus on text links instead, and I'll talk about them in the next section.

This is because my experience has been that people have “banner blindness” when they visit sites. They simply don't see those banners, and mostly click and buy through text links, at least in the case of my sites.