The Media Buyer Manifesto

2014

LITTLE-‐KNOWN SECRETS TO STARTING

YOUR OWN SERVER CRUSHING TRAFFIC-‐JAM
By Justin Brooke and Co-‐Author Mike Hardenbrook
BROUGHT TO YOU BY: JUSTIN BRROKE, MIKE HARDENBROOK & KNOWLEDGE.LY
The Media Buyers Manifesto
Little-Known Secrets to Starting Your Own Server Crushing Traffic Jam
Table of Contents

Media Buying 101 – Before You Buy Media ...................................................................3

Competitive Intelligence ..................................................................................................5
Where to Buy Media – The 2 Basic Types of Media Buys ..............................................6
Network/Agency Buy Methodology .................................................................................7
Media Buying via Demand Side Platforms (DSP) ...........................................................8
Direct Buy Methodology ..................................................................................................9
Negotiating the Media Buy ............................................................................................10
The Insertion Order .......................................................................................................11
My Secret Resource ......................................................................................................11
Media Buying 102 – Your Traffic Ramp-up ...................................................................12
All the Traffic You Can Handle Using Only Banner Ads? .............................................13
Market Research – Where is your audience hanging out online? .................................15
The Biggest Hurdle in Banner Advertising ..................................................................16
The Nuts And Bolts of Building A Better Banner .........................................................17
Wide Skyscraper 160X600 ........................................................................................18
Leaderboard 768X90 .................................................................................................19
Our Banners: ..............................................................................................................19
Other Good Examples: ..................................................................................................19
Medium Rectangle 300X250 ...................................................................................20
Our Banners: ..............................................................................................................20
Other Good Examples: ................................................................................................20
Mickey Mouse Banners Vs Steve Job Banners.........................................................21
The Disney Style Ads ..................................................................................................21
The Marketer Style Ads ...............................................................................................21
My Personal Black Book of Banner Advertising ....................................................21
ScriptLance.com..........................................................................................................21
99Designs.com............................................................................................................22
20DollarBanners.com ..................................................................................................22
MyBannerMaker.com ..................................................................................................23
Media Buying Made Easy .............................................................................................24
TEST! TEST! TEST! ......................................................................................................25
Taking Your Banner To the Masses ..............................................................................26
Copyright © 2014 – Knowledge.ly - All Rights Reserved. Page | 1

Advanced Training – Using A Little-known Almost Secret Tool to Get on High Traffic
Sites [Like Forbes] for Under $100 ...............................................................................27
Speaking Like a Media Buying Pro .............................................................................28
What Works And What Doesn’t ...................................................................................30
Advanced SiteScout Tactics........................................................................................32
The Little Known, Yet Extremely Powerful Bidding Secrets of SiteScout ...................34


Media Buying 101 – Before You Buy Media

So before we talk about how media buying can help you create a virtual traffic jam…let me tell
you a little about myself and why I’m qualified to teach you.

My name is Justin Brooke and I’ve been successfully buying media for the last 6+ years. That’s
over 6 years of in-‐the-‐trenches media buying experience that has generated billions of ad
impressions, and made millions of dollars in sales for myself and my clients. In fact, I’m known
as: “The Traffic Guy Millionaires Recommend”. A title [I’m proud to say] I busted my ass to earn.

In this guide, I’ll be explaining some of my favorite, most rigorously tested strategies for buying
media and driving server crushing traffic. I’ll be covering beginning, intermediate & advanced
strategies to not only drive traffic, but limit risk and increase R.O.I., as well.

This guide will also cover the research you’ll need to do to before you do your media buy.
Research that can limit your risk, improve your return on investment [while buying], uncover
the types of display media buys you can engage in, and what to remember when you’re actually
negotiating the terms of your media buy.

There are 2 parts to the research you need to do before making your media buy: 1)
Demographic research and 2) Competitive analysis.

Demographic Research

You can do demographic research for free using many websites found around the web. You can
also pay for this information from providers like ComScore. The information may not be 100%
accurate, but will give a decent snapshot about what’s happening around the web.

The free sites we’re going to dig into are Alexa.com, Quantcast.com and SimilarWeb.com. Each
of these sites regularly changes what information they provide free and behind their paid
premium services.

Alexa.com: What’s Alexa? To quote from their website “Alexa is continually crawling all publicly
available websites to create a series of snapshots of the web. We use the data we collect to
create features and services.

Alexa employs web usage information, which tells us what's being seen on the web by real
people. This information comes from our community of Alexa Toolbar users”. By doing a search
for a domain, demographic information becomes available for free.


Quantcast.com: Quantcast provides worldwide audience and demographic data. Quantcast
couples machine learning with massive quantities of directly measured data to deliver detailed
audience data in real-‐time. Search any website within Quantcast to get measured
demographics and volume results.

Similar Web: Their ranking is calculated with an algorithm that takes into account a
combination of website engagement metrics, including the number of unique visitors to a site
and the number of page views. The size and breadth of their global panel of users enables it to
assess how a website ranks in the entire Internet, on individual countries, and on its category.

Important demographic metrics: Gender, Age, Children, Income, Education, Ethnicity

Ø Age: For the most part age and/or gender is going to be your most important
demographic category to target.
Ø Gender: in some cases, gender won’t matter, in others it will. For examples, the
cosmetics niche will probably do better with a female audience versus a male audience.
Ø Education: This will depend on your target audience. For example, if you’re doing lead
generation for an MBA or graduate program, you obviously would want to target sites
that cater to individuals with a higher education level.
Ø Has Children: Again, depending on your target audience this could be a key
demographic. For example, if a source is predominately male and doesn’t have a child
that’s probably not a good place to promote any sort of baby or parenting guides.
Ø Income: Income levels matter for the type of product you’re trying to promote. If it is a
high cost product, let’s say a private jet, targeting low income demographics may not
yield the best results.
Ø Ethnicity: If you have ethnic specific markets or products, this metric becomes pretty
important.


Competitive Intelligence

The demographic information is certainly a baseline to start with. On many sites you will find an
abundance of information that will help in your media planning. Other times you may have
spotted reporting. This is why we like to use what we like to think of as the unfair advantage,
competitive intelligence.

Using competitive intelligence platforms will save you a lot of time by providing a detailed
understanding of what’s working in competitors’ ads and media buy campaigns. This
information is critical because by understanding what’s working for them, you can uncover
where they’ve spent time & money testing, so you don’t waste money on ineffective media.

WhatRunsWhere.com on of several competitive intelligence platforms for media buying that’s a
must have for any media buyer, brand new or an old veteran.

Once you log in, you can search by advertiser, website, or ad network to find out what’s
performing best for any of the three search options: Top ads, Placements and Trends.

By taking [and improving upon], the media buys your competitors are testing, you can save
both time and money, before you even launch your media buy.
When using competitive intelligence, you want to get (KPI) or Key Performance Indicators.
Including the target demographics (of the places your competitors are advertising on, who’s
coming to their website, etc.) and of course, the ad copy.

By looking for recurring trends/ themes in your research you can level up your media buy and
gain a huge competitive advantage from the get go. Or use it to bring an existing campaign to a
whole new level of profitability and scale.


Where to Buy Media – The 2 Basic Types of Media Buys

When doing a media buy, there are 2 basic ways to go about it. A Direct Buy & a Network/
Agency Buy.

Direct Buy – When you buy ad space directly on a website, from the website owner. For
example: Doing a media buy on nba.com, is an example of a direct media buy.

Network/Agency Buy – When you buy ad space through a third party network or agency.

Examples include:
Ø Google Adwords Content Network Ø BuySellAds
Ø MSN Content Network Ø Burst Media
Ø AOL Adsonar Ø Rubicon Project
Ø Pulse360 Ø 247 Real Media
Ø Interclick Ø Contextweb
Ø Tribal Fusion Ø Valueclick
Ø Blue Lithium Ø Adbrite
Ø
…and hundreds more.

In the following section we’ll go through the basics of each type of buy.



Network/Agency Buy Methodology

Ad networks are companies that aggregate available ad space across a large number of
websites (publishers) and sell it to an advertiser. There are many types of ad networks from the
very large to niche ones targeted to a specific audience.

By going to these networks and buying from them, you can achieve a large reach for your ads
and scale your campaigns quickly by leveraging their depth and breadth of publishers available.

Pros of ad networks: Set up quickly, Test a lot of sites fast, Potential to Scale, Swap out ads and
content quickly, work with a representative to optimize your media buy.

Cons of ad networks: Traditionally there is more risk (higher $ minimums to start buying),
Varying levels of actual transparency, reliance on a representative to do their job, you don’t
necessarily know where your ads are showing up (there is a degree of black box effect)

Examples of Ad networks include: CPX Interactive, Blue Lithium, ValueClick, AdBrite, etc.



Media Buying via Demand Side Platforms (DSP)

Media buying is constantly changing and evolving. New technology and different ways to buy
and sell ads are always being developed. One trend that has caught on in the last few years is a
new platform that takes the demand side platforms audiences and allows you to buy it from a
single interface. NOTE: A DSP is a platform that allows advertisers to buy traffic.

This technology is known as RTB or Real Time Bidding.

“Real-‐time bidding (RTB) is a relatively new advertising technology that allows online
advertising to be purchased and served to the highest bidder, almost immediately. Instead of
reserving prepaid advertising space, advertisers bid on each ad impression as it is served. The
impression goes to the highest bidder and the ad is then served on the page.

The closest comparison would be the stock market: As stocks (online advertising spaces) come
up for sale, brokers (advertisers) bid for the stock. Whoever bids the highest price gets that
stock (the ad is served). Then the process immediately starts all over again.” (source:
crowdscience.com)

RTB platforms allow you to bid on a huge amount of inventory (Ad space), from a lot of
different sources in one interface. Each RTB platform is different, with different capabilities.

Some allow you to just bid on traffic networks or audiences, while others like SiteScout.com,
allow you to bid on specific websites. Allowing you to essentially do single site placements on a
mass scale.

This allows a quicker and easier way to set up and manage campaigns, making the media buying
process a lot less labor intensive than in the past.

The other nice thing about most RTB platforms is that they require a very low minimum (usually
between $500-‐1000) to start buying through. Examples of DSP platforms include MediaMath,
Turn and SiteScout.com.



Direct Buy Methodology

Direct buys are on a website by website basis, buying inventory directly from the website
owner or company.
Pros of Direct Buys:
Ø Tap into high volumes of traffic…
Ø Cut out middle men (such as ad networks)…
Ø Build relationships with direct websites for your future media buys…
Ø Lock inventory in, creating barriers to entry for competition.

Cons of Direct Buys:

Ø Time consuming to locate direct buy sources (unless you use spy tools like
WhatRunsWhere, where the information is condensed for you)…
Ø Need to monitor a lot of websites…
Ø Need to pay for a third party ad server to deliver for ads onto the site (Examples include:
SiteScout.com and Zedo.com)…
Ø Scaling is a harder and more manual process…
Ø Very time consuming to manage & optimize a lot of direct buys on an individual basis.

When you buy media directly, you have more transparency with your advertising and more
control of the traffic sources, where your ads are placed. To find direct sites to buy from, you
can use tools like WhatRunsWhere.com, Alexa.com, Similarweb.com, and Quantcast.com.

These tools have research and planning capabilities that can generate lists of websites that fit
with your media buy plan (i.e. Quantcast.com and Similarweb.com) or that your competitors
are using to already buy media from (i.e. WhatRunsWhere.com).

After you’ve gathered your intel and are armed with your list of sites to place ads on, the first
step to quickly getting your direct buy live, is to contact them to begin negotiating.



Negotiating the Media Buy

So you’ve found where you want to run your media? Great! Now it’s time to negotiate what to
pay for it. Here, we’re going to give you a high level overview of pricing structures..

In the media buying world, there are (3) three basic pricing structures:

Ø Cost per Thousand Impressions (CPM): A CPM is how much you’ll pay per thousand
impressions of your ad during your buy. For example if you have a $1 CPM, you’ll pay $1
every time your ad is shown 1000 times.
Ø Cost Per Click (CPC): A CPC is how much you’ll pay every time your ad is clicked. For
example, if you have a $0.50 CPC, you’ll pay 50 cents each time that someone clicks your
ad.
Ø Cost per Action (CPA): A CPA is how much you’ll pay when a designated action is
performed. For example, if you negotiate that a signup is worth $5, then whenever
someone completes that action (sign up), you’ll pay $5.
Generally, there are two types of inventory available on media buys, premium and remnant
inventory. Premium inventory is normal high quality inventory. Remnant inventory is unsold or
lower quality inventory.

As you can imagine premium inventory is usually more expensive on a site by site basis while
remnant inventory is cheaper. The type of inventory you want to buy depends on your goals
and budget for the campaign.


The Insertion Order

Unless you’re buying directly through a self-‐serve RTB platform (SiteScout.com for example),
you’ll come across an insertion order. An insertion order is a formal, printed order to run an ad
campaign.

Typically, an insertion order identifies the following:

Ø The campaign name

Ø The website or ad network receiving the order
Ø The planner or buyer giving the order
Ø The individual ads to be run (or who will provide them)
Ø The ad sizes
Ø The campaign beginning and end dates
Ø The fee structure
Ø The estimated total cost per billing period
Ø Discounts to be applied
Ø Reporting requirements
Ø Possible penalties or stipulations relative to the failure to deliver the impressions
Ø Out clause (the maximum time needed to stop the buy in case of failure or issue).

NOTE: Insertion orders vary per order, so there is no one size fits all templates.

My Secret Resource

Want to speed up your results? Model your competition! Competitive intelligence sites like
whatrunswhere.com quickly and easily allow you to dissect your competitors advertising
campaigns, resulting in reduced risk and higher ROI for your online advertising campaigns.


Media Buying 102 – Your Traffic Ramp-‐up

Now that you have a solid grasp of the basics, let’s dig a little deeper…

When I first started to drive paid traffic [back in 2008], I only had $60 to my name. So what did I
do? I started with a lowly banner ad. But, I did my homework. I put the right banner, in the right
spot, at the right time, and watched my revenue grow exponentially every month.

Within one year it was a 6 figure business. So what was my takeaway? What was the lesson?
Banner ads work -‐ PERIOD!

Lately, I’ve been hearing some Internet marketers bash banner ads. They write them off as
obsolete. They say banner ads are dead, gone and buried. But let me tell you…nothing could be
further from the truth.

Whether you’re just starting out, or you’re an expert marketer, banner ads should be an
important part of your overall marketing campaign. Why? Because banners drive an enormous
amount of traffic to all kinds of websites, every day.

I’ve seen plenty of start-‐up entrepreneurs dismiss banner ads as expensive, but, if you know
what you’re doing, banner ads can be a very affordable and effective way to drive all the traffic
your site needs – even if you have a start-‐up budget, like I did.

With that said, here are my proven, tested & evergreen banner ad strategies, so you can add
banner ads to your media mix & start your own server-‐crushing traffic-‐jam.


All the Traffic You Can Handle Using Only Banner Ads?

If you put-‐a-‐gun-‐to-‐my-‐head and told me I HAD to drive a ton of traffic to your website, but I
could only use one traffic source [or it’s curtains for me], without hesitation, I’d choose banner
ads. Why? Because I know from YEARS of testing [& MILLIONS of $$ spent on banner ads] what
most entrepreneurs don’t: The right banner ads can drive enough traffic to keep even the
largest businesses afloat.

But banners tend to be overlooked, because they have a deceptively low click-‐thru rate. My
best-‐performing banners can have a click-‐thru rate of around just 0.5%. However, I can easily
make a decent ROI from that 0.5% click-‐thru rate, if my sales page converts.

But if your sales page doesn’t convert, it doesn’t matter what type of traffic you use.
So on the surface, a 0.5% click-‐thru rate (CTR) looks pathetic. When you add the fact that your
banner may be getting 1 million impressions a day, the math changes.

1,000,000 impressions x 0.5% CTR = 10,000 clicks!
See for yourself: Here’s a screenshot of my
analytics

The low click-‐thru rate might throw a marketer off
when he’s analyzing his stats, but don’t let it fool
you—banner ads are powerful.

Also, almost all ads are some variation of a banner
ad. Whether it’s a rich media ad with a video or
audio track, or a moving graphic, even a clickable
text link, it’s the same process.

Someone somewhere saw something that
attracted their eye and convinced them to click.

What’s funny is almost every time a new traffic course comes out, some traffic expert claims
banner ads are dead. But the truth is: Banners ads are the cockroach of the Internet.

Being there from the beginning, they will likely be online for many, many years to come. By far,
banner ads are the most resilient type of advertising the web has ever seen. PERIOD!

And that’s because they work.



The Secret to Turning Your Banners Into A Fat Wallet

To make banners work, you need to create powerful banner ad copy that converts. Because it’s
the words on the banner that makes them click. The good news is that there are simple ways to
get some ideas fast.

As discussed earlier, a great way to create winning campaigns is to study what your competitors
or other marketers have already done. Don’t reinvent the wheel, just improve it! At Moat.com
you can search any company name and see all of the banners they are using right now.

NOTE: Make sure to enter the full company name when searching. For example: “Whole Foods”
doesn’t work. But “Whole Foods Market” brings up the health-‐ food chain’s ads instantly. You
can also type in a domain name, like TruthAboutAbs.com

Moat is a very powerful tool because it tells you where your competitors are posting their
banner ads. Just hover over any of the ads they find and look where it says “Last seen on.”

This is important for two reasons. It gives you an idea of what sites to put your ads on and also
an idea about what sites your market might be visiting.


Market Research – Where is your audience hanging out
online?
If you want to get the most return on your advertising investment, your best bet is to target
your audience. Find out where your prospects are hanging out online. What blogs are they
reading?

Where are they shopping? Going for news? If you haven’t done any market research yet, a great
place to start is a website called MoreOfIt.com. The concept here is that you type in a website
URL into the search engine, and you get back a list of the most similar and popular websites.

When entering the website into the search engine make sure to put it in URL format. For
example, searching “Strategic Profits” won’t yield any results, but searching
“strategicprofits.com” gives 500 results.

The most popular and similar results show up at the top of the list. So when you’re doing some
market research on MoreOfIt, take into consideration who your competitors are and who are
leading in your market and search those domain names.

After you search MoreOfIt and find sites that are similar to yours, you can go back to Moat and
look up their banner ads. Do some cross-‐research and see what you find.

For example, when I search BestBuy.com, the top three results are NewEgg, CompUSA.com and
Buy.com in that order. But when I look at those three websites, their top advertisers are Dell
and Intel.

Best Buy does not advertise on its competitors’ sites. In fact, according to Moat, Best Buy mostly
advertises on news and entertainment sites like CNN and MSNBC, or on sites that belong to the
products that they sell, such as samsunggalaxysforum.com.

Follow the cues of these big companies—they pour a lot of money into market research and
they know exactly how to find out where their target market goes online. Google a keyword
your audience would search for and you would like to have a high ranking for. Then look to see
what the top websites are appearing in the search results.

Now, instead of trying to get ranked #1 on a Google search, you can just advertise on the
websites that do rank first. That way you’re following your prospects, rather than trying to
attract them to your site.

When I bought banner ads on the top 5 sites for a certain keyword, it was like my ad was
following my prospects.

While ideas for your banner design are zipping around in your head, you’re ready to learn…



The Biggest Hurdle in Banner Advertising

You can design the sharpest, most convincing banner ad on the planet—but viewers might
never notice it was there…

It’s called “banner blindness,” and it’s a reality that all marketers have to overcome.

According to Wikipedia, “Banner blindness” is a phenomenon where visitors to your website
consciously or subconsciously ignore information that looks like a banner… it can also be called
“ad blindness.”

This is happening because we’re so over-‐saturated with ads, which our minds have learned to
tune out and focus for specific information on a page. Fortunately, there’s an easy way to
overcome “banner blindness” and get your prospects’ attention. It’s called a pattern interrupt.

A “Pattern Interrupt,” is a method used in therapy, persuasion, and entertainment. Basically, it’s
a way of attracting and keeping someone’s attention.

It’s a n interruption in the flow of your design that can sometimes be abrupt. Similar to what I
did with the word “interruption” above. Good luck trying to not look at that!

I bet you looked at it 2 or 3 times already. And I bet you just did it again!

Point is, pattern interrupts wake people up and make them pay attention to you by introducing
something that interrupts their attention.

You might introduce in your design an element that doesn’t belong. The human brain is
hardwired to catch mistakes, so this can be a very effective strategy. I found a lot of success
with my ads when I placed an object upside down or put things that didn’t go together.

For example, for an orthodontist ad, I put a shark with big scary teeth wearing braces. It’s
something out of the ordinary that the viewer’s automatic filter couldn’t ignore. And that’s
exactly why you want your ad(s) to have a pattern interrupt.

In my testing, I’ve also discovered putting a face on an ad produces a greater response, because
the human brain tends to respond to images of people rather than objects. Think about Frank
Kern’s ads on Facebook [if you’ve seen them]. They almost always have his face in the picture.

I’ll show you specific examples of effective ads and teach you how to launch campaigns using
those same principals. But first, we’re going to break down the elements of an ad into five parts,
so you can crawl inside my head and start brainstorming you own campaigns.



The Nuts And Bolts of Building A Better Banner

The Headline: This is your big message. What’s your point? Focus on just one, convincing idea.
Don’t be too clever. Don’t try to sell the product. Just convince them to click!

Call To Action: They won’t click unless you ask them to. Don’t be shy to include “Click Here” or
“Click Now” on your banner’s copy.

A Button: This isn’t an obvious element to include, but it’s one of the most important. You see, a
lot of web users don’t know that they can click anywhere on the banner and be directed to your
site. So create a button in the design that looks clickable. This is a good spot to place the “Click
Here” copy. It will get you more clicks if you make it crystal clear to the user he is looking at an
ad and that he should click on it.

Ordinary, Old-‐school Link: At the bottom or top of your ad, always include a standard, old-‐
school, blue and underlined link. This is for people who don’t realize the entire banner is
clickable. But, they know what to do with a link — they click on it!

Watermark – [NOTE: This is really important]: Always make sure to include a watermark or logo
in the ad. The web has seen its share of ad-‐thieves, people who steal your ad(s) and use them
for their own sites.

Just don’t make the watermark too gaudy or overwhelming. Think of an artists’ signature. Their
signature doesn’t detract from the painting, but if you look for it, it’s there.

Yes, it’s annoying that someone might want to steal your ad [it happens], but it’s even worse to
ruin your design (and click-‐thru rate) by going to outrageous lengths to deter a thief.

Now that your banner designs are safe, I’m not only going to show you the (3) three sizes that
consistently get the most impressions and clicks, I’ll also share specific examples of successful
ads and other campaign ads I’ve curated for you.

When it comes to online ads, changes happen faster than you can say “JPEG.”

So for industry standards and practices, I always refer to the Interactive Advertising Bureau
(IAB). They are the leaders in research and news about online advertising.

IAB is constantly updating their Display Advertising Guidelines. That’s the go-‐to place for specific
details on every type of online ad in existence.


The three sizes I always use—the backbone of my banner ad campaigns—are part of IAB’s
Universal Ad Package. That means they’re some of the industry’s most standard ad sizes and
dimensions.
Wide Skyscraper 160X600

The wide skyscraper is the banner ad you normally see to the right or left of a site. It’s
vertical and long. These are effective because as the user is scrolling down, your ad stays
with them.

Make sure to follow IAB’s guidelines; there are some rules about how “interruptive” us
marketers can really be. Here’s an example of one of the guidelines: “Ad unit content must
be clearly distinguishable from normal webpage content (i.e. ad unit must have clearly
defined borders and not be confused with normal page content).”

Leaderboard 768X90

Leaderboard banner ads are the ones you see laying horizontally at the top of a page. These
are effective because they’re in a location where any visitor to your site is immediately
exposed to the ad. The user has to scroll down or click away to get the ad out of sight.

Our Banners:

Other Good Examples:

Medium Rectangle 300X250

The Medium Rectangle banner ad actually looks more like a square. It’s the kind that goes in
the middle of a page or sometimes on the side of a page.

Our Banners:

Other Good Examples:

These 3 sizes constantly produce the best results and most traffic. There are more sizes you can
use, I’m just sharing what works best for me. So now that you know which sizes to begin with,
let’s talk about the ad itself.

For your design you can hire a designer on your own, or use one of the places I’ll tell you about
later on that I use to find and hire my designers. I don’t recommend designing your own
banners, unless you really have an eye for design. However, it’s not always affordable for
everyone to hire a designer, so here are some tips.


Mickey Mouse Banners Vs Steve Job Banners

There are two styles of design that I use for my banners: what I like to call the “Disney” style
and the “Marketer” style. I’ll describe each in just a moment.

You want to make three sets each with 3 different sized banners (one leaderboard, one wide
skyscraper, and one medium rectangle in each set) for a total of 9 banner ads.

The Disney Style Ads

These ads are the pretty, organized designs you see used by Disney and many other companies.
They look clean and professional and have that brand-‐new, shiny look.
They’re not telling you to “Buy now!” They’re simply piquing your interest and curiosity to get
you to click.

For these types of ads, 20DollarBanners.com is the perfect fit. They use stock images and have
that well-‐done look to their designs.

The Marketer Style Ads

These banners are designed to be direct-‐ response ads. They have images that pop out at you
with attention-‐grabbing colors like red and yellow. They use bright colors and calls-‐to-‐action.
And there’s absolutely no question about what they’re selling—just like Apple.

Whenever you see an ad for any Apple product, it’s got the product and the price listed right in
the ad, right off the bat. It’s a direct message telling you to buy now. Their message is clear and
in your face, but they are offering something you want to know more about.

My Personal Black Book of Banner Advertising

These are four websites that I go to when I
need a banner designed, but I go to each for
different reasons. Let me explain…

ScriptLance.com

This a freelance market place where freelance
designers bid on your job posting on a
contract basis. The upside to ScriptLance is
that you get to communicate directly with
your prospective designers, feel them out and
negotiate a good a price.


I’ve developed a standard practice when dealing with any outsourced designer—especially
when there are a few bidding on my project—that will help you ensure you hire the right
designer for your project.

STANDARD PRACTICE: In your job posting, always request a mockup or preview from a
contractor before awarding them the project.

When you request the mock-‐up, make sure to give the designer some direction and tips on
what you’re looking for. This way you can decide if the artist understands your vision for your
campaign.

Some designers will complain that they don’t want to do free work. If they can’t take a few
minutes to sketch out a preview for you, don’t hire them. There are plenty who will be pleased
to show you what a great job they can do for you.
When you receive the mock-‐up ask yourself this:

Ø Is this the design quality I’m looking for? (Keep in mind that it is a mock-‐up, and not a
final product by any means)…
Ø Is this designer going in the general direction of what I am imagining?

Only after you award the project, you can begin to give the designer tweaks and changes you
want made.

99Designs.com

For the highest quality banners you can outsource on the web, this is my go-‐to site. You’ll get a
banner designed by world-‐class designers, but you’ll also pay the price. The service here is more
expensive, but you get what you pay for.

This site works on a similar concept. The only difference here is that the designers have to give
you a preview. So you don’t have to worry about asking for a mock-‐up.

20DollarBanners.com

At 20DollarBanners.com you can get professional, clean, well-‐done banners at reasonable
prices. Also, it’s like online shopping… you find the product that’s right for you and check out at
the cart.

You don’t have to worry about judging mock-‐ups, sifting through bidders, or posting your
project. What you do have to provide is the Ad Copy (the text you want on the banner) and a
description of what you have in mind.

Provide an example of a banner you want to model yours after. You could not be clearer
than that.


For a banner ad campaign, you’re going to need a few different banners in several sizes and for
this, 20DollarBanners is great. They offer several different packages that include a variety of
sizes for your designs. Quick and easy.

MyBannerMaker.com

If you’ve got experience in graphic design and prefer to do it yourself—you can make your own.
You can use this website for a super speedy way to design a banner with the correct specs.

This site basically gives you templates for all the types of banners. All you have to do is create
the design. It saves the files for you in the right dimensions and format so you don’t have to
worry about creating a banner ad completely from scratch.

Now that you have your banners designed and ready to go, it’s time to buy up the media space
and launch your test-‐campaign.


Media Buying Made Easy

Media buying is simply the act of buying space for your advertisement. I’m going to simplify this
whole process for you and tell you exactly where to go.

As you’ll see, I wasn’t kidding when I said you could launch a banner campaign on a tiny budget.

The first thing you need to know about media buying are your pricing options:

Ø Cost Per Thousand (CPM) – You pay a set price for every 1,000 impressions of your ad—
meaning every 1,000 people who view the page your ad is on.
Ø Cost Per Click (CPC) – You pay a set price per each time someone clicks on your banner
ad.
Ø Cost Per Action (CPA) – also known as Pay Per Action, is when an advertiser only pays for
specific actions (purchase, filling out a form, etc.) that was directly linked to the ad.
Ø Flat Price – You buy the ad space just once for a certain amount of time for a one-‐ time
fee.
Ø Hybrid – Any combination of any of the above options. For example, a flat price plus cost
per click.

Pop Quiz: What are the (2) two ways to purchase media space for your banner ad? Give up?

1) DIRECT BUYING – When you communicate directly with the owner of the site and
arrange to buy a space for your ad.
2) AD NETWORKS – Companies that aggregate available ad space across a large number of
websites (publishers) and sell it to an advertiser.

To buy directly from a site owner, consider the following:

Ø Cost Per Thousand (CPM) – You pay a set price for every 1,000 impressions of your
ad—meaning every 1,000 people who view the page your ad is on.
Ø Once you decide on a site or sites, find a way to contact the owner. Scan the website
and look for: a “Contact Us” page, “Advertise With Us” link, an advertising
department, Facebook, or any other social media site where you can send a direct
message.
Ø If you really can’t find their contact info, try using whois.domaintools.com… It will
give you information about who the owner is.



The upside of direct media buying is that you can negotiate a good price with the seller and talk
directly with the person who will be hosting your banner ad.
Direct buying is also a great way to bypass SEO, because there’s no need to rank high in Google
if your banners are on some of the top ranking sites anyway!

Many websites sell their ad space on ad networks. I’ll show you exactly how [and when] to use
ad networks in just a bit, but first…

TEST! TEST! TEST!

So far, I’ve given you all the information you need to create successful banner ads. Even how to
get started using them for traffic. However, because we don’t want to launch a campaign based
on guesses and estimations, we have to test our ads.

This is when we get back to our Disney (pretty) and Marketer (not so pretty) ad styles. What I
do is create 3 sets of all 3 sizes [160X600, 768X90 & 300X250]. One set is pretty, one is ugly, and
the other is a hybrid of the two.

NOTE: All 3 banner sets get the same 5-‐part direct response formula [that has made my clients
millions]:
1) Headline
2) Button
3) Call to action
4) Domain name and
5) Pattern-‐interrupt.

While there are a lot of different banner sizes: 160X600, 768X90, & 300X250 are my proven best
performers [based on my analytics], and are the most widely used and accepted industry wide.

Google has recently suggested that web developers stick to these banner sizes as well.


Taking Your Banner To the Masses

Once you know which of your ads are performing well, you can scale up your campaign.

Networks allow you to buy ad space in small or large quantities from many different websites.
It’s like a huge marketplace for marketers and advertisers. Think of ad networks as buying milk
at the supermarket and direct buying like getting your milk straight from the farmer.

With an ad network, you do NOT communicate with the seller. There are set prices for each ad,
so you can’t negotiate to get a better deal. You just find the ad space you need, and checkout at
the cart.

If you’re just getting started with banner ad campaigns, make sure you test your ads on a small
scale. Ad networks like BLOGADS.COM and BUYSELLADS.COM should work well for a smaller
campaign. You can get started with about $100 to $500 to start buying and testing ads.

Once you analyze which ads are working and which ads you’re going to kill, you’re ready for
your big media buy or roll-‐out [as we say in the industry].

Everything you need to get started, is here.

I’ve given you a lot of information in this guide, I’ve explained:

Ø How to get started on market research
Ø Told you about banner blindness
Ø Gave you the 5 elements of a banner ad
Ø Showed you where to get banner ads designed
Ø Showed you how and where to buy space to post your ad
Ø Explained pattern interrupt
Ø Showed you how to test and handpick your best ads for a more successful banner ad
campaign

Rest assured, I gave you all of my go-‐to sites, all of my tips, strategies & secrets I’ve picked up
from 6 years of in-‐the-‐trenches experience, billions of impressions and millions spent and
earned doing media buys.

WARNING: I can’t stress how important the market research stage is. Find out where your
audience hangs out, where else they like to shop, and advertise there!

Find out what your competitors are doing, don’t re-‐invent the wheel. The market research is
what makes everything else work. Skip it at your own risk!

Now, I’m going to share with you one of my best-‐kept secrets…


Advanced Training – Using A Little-‐known Almost Secret
Tool to Get on High Traffic Sites [Like Forbes] for Under
$100

In the next few pages, I’m going to talk specifically about SiteScout.com. There are some
interesting benefits to SiteScout that other banner ad networks don’t have. Specifically, the
ability to place your ads on mainstream media sites for the cost of a dinner at Denny's.

10 years ago if you wanted to run an ad in Forbes magazine it cost you thousands, maybe even
TENS OF THOUSANDS! The little guy had no chance of getting access to those eyeballs. Today,
the little guy stands a chance...

By using SiteScout you can place your banner on Forbes.com for less than $100! You do need an
initial $500 deposit to open your account, but you don't need to spend it all.

If you look at the screenshot below, you’ll see some of the major media sites that you can put
your ads on. You’ll also notice that the ones shown are all through the Google “exchange”:

Yes, that means you can run your ads on sites in the Google display network, without needing
to go through the Google Adwords interface. So if you’ve been slapped by Google, you can
finally slap them back…or give them the finger, I’ll let you choose.

I know what I’m talking about, I’ve been “beating” Google since 2008. I used to teach people
how to take over the whole page of Google, SEO side AND the paid side! So when I tell you how
much I like something [i.e. Sitescout], pay attention, because it can make you a lot of money!



Back to Sitescout…if you look all the way to the right of the screenshot above, you’ll see the
MILLIONS of impressions available. N o w k e e p i n m i n d , t hat’s o n l y 16 of the 14,000
sites available in the Google exchange.
SiteScout has access to 33 exchanges which consist of over 48,000 websites and 30 BILLION
DAILY AD IMPRESSIONS!!!

And they’ll let you start with a tiny campaign of just one banner on one site OR spend
millions on a nationwide campaign. Just know there is TONS and TONS of traffic available.

What you’re about to learn works on most banner ad networks. I only chose SiteScout
because I felt they were a great training ground for most people. They have a simple
interface. World c l a s s customer support, and it’s flexible enough to test small, and big
enough to scale your business to extreme heights.

Speaking Like a Media Buying Pro

SiteScout is an RTB (real time bidding) network, which means you’re not actually buying traffic
through the website your ads appear on. Instead these websites are auctioning off their
remnant space (leftover space that no one else bought) and you’re bidding in this auction in
real time.

The way you pay is by bidding on 1,000 views of your banner at a time. This is called CPM
bidding, the “m” stands for the Roman numeral for 1,000. However, you’re actually bidding on
every ad impression separately for a fraction of a cent. This means if you bid $5.00cpm it does
not mean you’ll actually pay that.

If you want to win more impressions in the auction, increase your max bid. If you want to save
money, bid less. However, it’s better to bid high with a small budget, than to bid low with a big
budget.

The ad space that’s sold for low prices are usually the least desired ad placements. The more
you pay the better quality and the more traffic you’ll get. So while testing, bid high, budget
small.

You can also save money by using frequency capping, which is your throttle for how many times
one person can see your ads. I usually set my frequency cap to 3x24, which means 3
impressions every 24 hours.

This doesn’t mean only 3 impressions per day for my ads, it just means the same person will not
see my ad more than 3 times per day. Some people like 2x24 and some like 5x24, all depends

on your own preferences and results.

Lastly, in the media buying world (buying banner ad space) they talk a lot about inventory and
exchanges. Inventory just means how much space they have available or the quality of the
space they have available.

An exchange is what they call the owner of a large set of inventory, and inventory just means
space available on websites. For example, the Google display network is mostly comprised of
the “Doubleclick Exchange” which they bought years ago for billions of dollars to expand their
Adsense empire.

An exchange is just a business that owns a massive amount of web property and makes it’s
money by selling ads across that network. Some are definitely better than others.

The exchanges with the best inventory in SiteScout are Google, Rubicon, OpenX, PubMatic, and
PulsePoint (in that order). I suggest you start with the best quality traffic and expand to others
as you need it.

I’m eager to get into the meat and potatoes, so I’m going to skip over basics like how to create
a campaign and what all the buttons do. If you go to http://6thlevel.com/sitescout there is a 1
hour long webinar replay teaching you everything you need to know for creating your first
campaign. NOTE: Skip the first 3mins of the replay. The first 3 mins are mostly silent.

What I want to teach you’re the things you can’t learn in a “learn the basics” webinar replay.
Things that have cost me thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours in field experience to
learn. Like what types of banners work and which don’t.


What Works And What Doesn’t

The good news is that fancy pants expensive banners don’t work. I use a free program called
Pixlr.com editor to make all of my banners. In fact, if you hire a professional banner designer
you’ll almost surely lose your money, unless you follow my 5 rules [see page 20].
For example, see the image here:

Don’t be fooled by the simplicity. That little banner
beat over 30 others that we tested, including ones
designed by a pro. However, there are a few ninja
tricks inside this banner that might be missed by
the untrained eye.
1. Turned a statement headline into a question...
2. Used $0.00 instead of “Free”…
3. The call to action looks like a web link…

The first two techniques force the viewer to think about the ad. Statements go in one ear
and out the other, the brain doesn’t really have to process them. Questions, require the brain
to think of an answer.

Similar to the phenomenon of diagonal lines. Your eye cannot ignore diagonal lines, because
all day it see’s horizontal and vertical lines. A diagonal design in your banner ad will pull the
eyeball over to the ad unconsciously.

Also, by using $0.00 instead of free I’ve disrupted their reading pattern. Again, making them
stop and think about my ad instead of being able to unconsciously ignore my ad.

Lastly, by making this ad look like a featured article I’ve gone under the radar and not
triggered their natural human ad blocker. The human brain is an energy saving maestro
and processing too many ads requires extra energy.

So the brain has learned how to ignore ads, especially today. By making our ad not look like
an ad we fool their brains into allowing our ad to be seen. It sounds like hocus-‐ pocus,
but it’s very, very real.



Now that you know what style works – There are 5 things you must include with every
banner:

1. The powers that be don’t like it when your banners blend in “too good” and they want
consumers to be able to tell the difference between ads and content. So if the color of
the background of the site you’re advertising on matches the color of your banner
(hint, it should) then you have to use a thin border.
2. Same rule goes for having some sort of brand information on your ad. Either your
logo or your domain name somewhere on the ad. It doesn’t have to be ultra-‐visible
though. You can’t make it invisible either, so just make it slightly visible, but not hard
to see.
3. You need a pattern interrupt. This is something on your banner that people aren’t used
to seeing. It could be a word in your headline that normally doesn’t go with the other
words or it could be an image that wouldn’t normally be there. I DID NOT SAY YOU
NEED BRIGHT RED BLINKING ARROWS OR SHOCKING GROSS IMAGES THOUGH! LoL (keep
it classy)
4. Write a damn good headline! This goes for any traffic strategy. You need to use good
headlines in your ads or people just won’t click. What I do is use tools like
WhatRunsWhere and SEMRush to see what headlines my competitors are using and just
modify it a little to become my own version (don’t plagiarize, it’s not cool).
5. You need something that looks clickable. Either a button that actually looks like a
button or a fake web link. Sometimes I even use both. A button and then a small web
link just under it. Make sure your button doesn’t blend in either -‐ it should stand out. I
like medium orange color for my buttons and either red or blue for my links.
Ok, it’s time to buckle up, hang on and put your thinking c ap on, because we’re diving deep
into…


Advanced SiteScout Tactics

50% of your success with any advertising always comes down to audience selection.
Another 30% is your offer, then the last 20% is your copy and design.

That means that what I’m about to share with you is almost 3x more important than everything
else above. I blew $5,000 figuring out what I’m about to share with you. This is my tried and
true system for finding the right audience on SiteScout.

First, I’m assuming you already know who your ideal customer is, that should be a given. Now
what I want you to do is target as many websites within SiteScout’s network as you can that
your ideal customer might frequent.

You may even consider using their contextual targeting ability to target a whole category of
sites. Which will allow you to find dozens of sites you never even knew existed. This is how you
find those secret honey holes of profit.

While you’re doing this you’re also going to load up as many banners as you can. Our personal
minimum is 9, but I’ve done as many as 120.

Doing this will take the guesswork out of where the best places are for your ads and which ads
are best. Instead you’re going to let SiteScout find success for you.

Let the banners run till each has at least 1,000 impressions. I like to let mine run until they have
10,000 impressions. The more impressions the more accurate the test.

Once you’ve got enough impressions on each banner, here’s how to analyze the data:
Ø Which style banner got the highest CTR?

Ø Which size banner got the highest CTR and is there a common pattern?
Ø Which sites got you the most clicks and highest CTR?
Ø Which placements on those sites got you the most clicks and CTR?

Get a notebook or fire up a spreadsheet and record the date, the ideas you tested, and the
answers to the questions above. That information will be very useful. I only wish I’d done that
from the start of my career. Can you imagine a whole notebook full of test ideas you tried,
noting what worked, what didn’t and dated?

YOU COULD EASILY SELL THAT for $100 or MORE!



Ok, once you have all your notes you’re going to create a new campaign. This time you’re only
going to keep the top 10%. Meaning if you ran 30 banners and 100 sites, your new campaign
should only have 3 banner and 10 sites. Don’t forget about placements also.

Placements?

It’s not good enough to just know which site got you good results, you need to know which
placement or location on the site got you the best results. Was it the header? Sidebar? Inside
the content?

Spend 2 minutes and go look at the site and the placement that won, try to figure out why that
specific location on the site was best.

Your second campaign is only going to have the best sites, best placements on those sites, and
the best banners that you ran in the big broad campaign. I call this campaign the “verifier.” The
goal is to try and verify the test results you just got.

This is what newbies don’t get. Newbies do the first round and say “Aww shit, these results suck
90% of my ads bombed.” A pro looks at it and says “BINGO, I found a couple winners.”

When you run the second campaign it is important that you increase your bid. You want to
make sure you’re not wasting these winners by being outbid.



The Little Known, Yet Extremely Powerful Bidding
Secrets of SiteScout

You see the way SiteScout works is if you get outbid then the other guy gets the first
impression. If he set his frequency cap (how many times his banners are shown per
day) to 3x24 that means he gets the first 3 impressions!

If you’re outbid by two guys, you might be buying the 6th impression or worse. So on this
second round make sure you’re bidding to win. I suggest $8cpm, but that doesn’t mean
you’ll pay that. It’s just making sure when you go to war you’ve got a big enough bid to
win IF it gets that high.

After your second campaign hits around 10,000 impressions it’s time to re-‐analyze the
data. Check to see how your CTR is doing and are there any placements (locations on
the site) that aren’t performing well? Lastly, how are your conversions?

Don’t worry if your conversions aren’t that good. You’ve already won the game. You now
have the data you need to feel confident striking up a direct purchase with the sites you
were targeting.

You should have a few banners that performed well. A good banner will have a CTR above
0.10% & the higher that percentage the better. There should also be a few sites that out
performed others. Armed with your best performing banners, it’s time to cut out any
middlemen and go direct to the source.

When you go direct you’re no longer buying remnant traffic, now you’re buying premium first
party traffic. Which is the best kind of traffic you can buy in the media buying world.

If your conversions are good you can just keep your campaigns running. You may still be able to
get even better results by going direct.

At this point you now have the step-‐by-‐step process for finding sweet honey-‐holes of profit
using SiteScout. Without having to guess and having rock-‐solid data to base your media buying
decisions on. Not only which spots on the web but the very locations and types of banners to
use.

The knowledge in this guide [which you now possess] is known by less than 1% of all business
owners. And even fewer than that know how the bidding system works for RTB networks.
That’s something only a tiny handful of people know. But the important thing is…now YOU
know!

And now that you know, what are you going to do about it? I have an idea…


CREATE A TRAFFIC JAM!
Written by Justin Brooke
http://knowledge.ly/

Co-‐Authored by Mike Hardenbrook
http://knowledge.ly/


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2014

LITTLE-­‐KNOWN SECRETS TO STARTING

Table of Contents

Media Buying 101 – Before You Buy Media ...................................................................3

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Cons of Direct Buys:

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Ø The campaign name

And that’s because they work.

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Wide Skyscraper 160X600

Medium Rectangle 300X250

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Mickey Mouse Banners Vs Steve Job Banners

The Disney Style Ads

The Marketer Style Ads

My Personal Black Book of Banner Advertising

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TEST! TEST! TEST!

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Speaking Like a Media Buying Pro

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on your own preferences and results.

For example, see the image here:

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Ø Which style banner got the highest CTR?

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LITTLE-‐KNOWN SECRETS TO STARTING