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Can you use advertising to build your brand? You bet! Advertising is a traditional way to build brands, and is perhaps the most widely used and effective way to do so. That does not bode well for building your eBay brand, however, because advertising tends to be expensive. Even on the Web it tends to be expensive.

Just because it’s expensive doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. It means that if you do advertise, you will want to advertise intelligently while measuring its effectiveness. This article covers four types of online advertising below which you can use with confidence. But that doesn’t mean that other advertising schemes won’t work. The Web is young and there is a lot yet to be invented. When it comes to advertising, think of the process as one long experiment. Keep track of results. Experiment more. Find out what works for your products.

Advertising Links

The Web has a unique feature, which is a compelling one for advertising: hyperlinks (links). Links appear in a different color (and with an underline). When the reader clicks on the words, the reader is magically taken to a different webpage.

Why is this important for advertising? Because link words embedded in text are rather inconspicuous. They don’t interfere with reading. Yet, they can take readers off to new websites, new webpages, or even to a graphic presentation. And any one of those three can be an effective advertisement. For instance, suppose you operate a chess boutique where people can buy chess sets, chess pieces, and chess paraphernalia. You have a pleasant storefront website and would love to have people come in the front door. You also have specific webpages inside your website where people can learn about your products. Then too, you have other webpages where they can use chess tutorials. Furthermore, you have plenty of digital photographs showing your products.

Suppose some enterprising individual publishes a chess newsletter online. The possibilities follow:

1. Your storefront website could be mentioned in an article written for the newsletter. A link could bring readers directly to your storefront.

2. One of your products or one of your tutorials could be mentioned in the article. And the words that mentioned your products or tutorials could be links. That would potentially take readers right from the article to your product or tutorial webpages.

3. A reference to a photograph (of a product) that you show on your website could be made in the article, and a link could take a reader straight to a digital photograph of a product.

Provide Photographs

You might want to set up your website so that anybody who desires can “steal” your photographs. Make it easy for them to come in and take the photographs right out of your webpages. What’s in it for you? Nothing , unless there is something in your photographs indicating your brand and where your online retail store can be found. That turns your photograph from just a photograph into an advertising message.

It’s easy to add text to a photograph with an image editor. Put your business name and your website URL somewhere in the photograph where it won’t be distracting . It should be big enough to read but small enough to be inconspicuous.

Other websites don’t actually have to steal one of your photographs to use it. They can just reference the photograph’s URL in an image link in their own webpage, and your photograph will magically appear in that webpage. Make your photographs work for you by letting other people use them.

Competitors

Many eBay businesses—and other online retailers—put text across their photographs so that their competitors cannot use the photographs for selling indentical products. Unfortunately, such text is distracting , often ruins photographs, and hinders sales even if it does stymie competitors. Perhaps you can follow the sidebar above and make your photographs available to non-competitors but not to competitors. There’s no foolproof way to do this. Still, if you go to the trouble to display a copyright notice, that will discourage many competitors from stealing .

The copyright notice should also contain licensing language that gives anyone—except your competitors—a right to use the images unaltered. Remember, the photographs should have your name and URL on them in an inconspicuous place.

Banner Ads

Banner ads are simply photographs or graphic artworks that are also links. Most have an advertising quality to them. When website visitors click on a banner ad, the ad takes them to another website or webpage.

Do banner ads work well? In a word, yes. At an appropriate website, banner ads can generate click-throughs. Naturally, it depends on the quality of advertising and the location as to how well a specific banner ad works, but banner ads are a proven means of generating sales leads—and ultimately sales. Although generally expensive, banner ads are often a dependable means of advertising on the Web.

Website Sections

Suppose there is a website for parlor games (FamilyGames) that’s very popular. It might be effective for you to have a banner ad on such a website for your chess boutique. However, with the FamilyGames website, it’s time to think big. You will want more than just a banner ad on this website. You will want a section of the FamilyGames website for yourself where you can promote your retail chess business.

There are several ways you can do this.

1. Supply a set of webpages to FamilyGames for uploading to its website.

2. Supply a set of webpages on your website but linked (both ways) to the FamilyGames website. These webpages become, in effect, a portion of the website at FamilyGames .

3. Have FamilyGames link to your website inside an HTML frame, enabling website visitors to easily return to FamilyGames once they visit your website.

First, you can always provide webpages (or content in another format) to the FamilyGames website. FamilyGames will probably take your content (text) and copy and paste such content into templates for the FamilyGames website. In other words, FamilyGames will want to have the look and feel of the webpages at the FamilyGames website, not your website. And that’s OK.

Second, you can also use a link to go from the FamilyGames website to a custom section on your website devoted to the use of FamilyGames. (Note that this link does not go to your home page.) In the custom section of your website, you can make it appear as if it is really a portion of the FamilyGames website. Since it’s devoted to FamilyGames, links in the custom webpages will return website visitors back to the FamilyGames website rather than to someplace else in your website.

Is this is a lot of trouble to go to? The more places you advertise and set up this scheme, the more trouble it will be. Does that mean it’s a prohibitive marketing technique? No. It’s like anything else. You can get set up digitally to maintain custom webpages quickly and efficiently using webpage templates and other digital techniques. And you have direct control of the maintenance, which you don’t on the FamilyGames website. The one disadvantage to this kind of an advertising scheme is that your webpages and the custom section you devote to the FamilyGames will look different than the FamilyGames website. That may not appeal to FamilyGames.

Third, you can use a simple link on FamilyGames website that leads to your website. This is a loose association of your content on the FamilyGames website, but it’s one that can be made more inclusive with the use of frames. With frames, a link can take a website visitor off the FamilyGames website and bring her to your website without leaving the FamilyGames website, in effect. Your website always appears within a frame that exists on the FamilyGames website. Although a frame can be invisible, it usually consists of a side panel with a navigation menu on it. That navigation menu is for the FamilyGames website. Thus, your website appears in the frame with the FamilyGames navigation menu, and the website visitor feels that she never left the FamilyGames website.

Is using frames a good practice? I believe there are valid reasons to use frames occasionally. But to include somebody else’s website, or a portion thereof, within your own website via frames is in most cases not a good practice. It sometimes confuses people, and if it doesn’t confuse them, it may irritate them when they can’t seem to get out of the frame. You should probably forgo this practice unless you have a specific use for it that doesn’t either confuse or irritate website visitors. Now, in using one of the three techniques mentioned above, what can you do? Well, you may not want to provide just advertising. You may want to provide some content too.

Content

What’s the prime objective of having a section on someone else’s website? Why are we talking about all of these techniques and going to all of this trouble to do this? The answer is: content. You want to get a portion of your content on somebody else’s website to help market your products.

The idea is that supplying content to another website is a mutually beneficial arrangement. You get some promotion value, and the other website gets free content. The other website might also collect an advertising fee from you.

Content in Action

There are two things to keep in mind here:
1. Products for sale can be content.

2. The first thing you might want to ask yourself is, What’s the specific benefit to the other website? The answer is simply that your content has to be relevant to the theme of the other website. If your retailing isn’t relevant to the other website, then there’s no point to using the techniques outlined in this section.

For instance, your chess store has great relevancy to the FamilyGames website. Chess is a popular family game. Therefore, there’s content you can contribute to this website, such as a mini-catalog of chess sets. Just a little catalog not only creates content for the FamilyGames website but also provides a convenience to its website visitors.

You might also offer chess tutorials to the FamilyGames website. Many people have enough interest in chess to seek to improve their chess skills. That is, they might use your chess tutorials. Presumably using your tutorials it will eventually lead them to purchasing your products. But the tutorials also add great content to the FamilyGames website. The content you provide makes the other website more robust and more attractive to website visitors. The content also helps you sell your products. This is a win-win arrangement, so to speak. Indeed, this is a wonderful marketing technique. But it has one big problem. Most website owners don’t have the vision to grow their website using other people’s content. Therefore, in many cases you will have a sales job on your hands to convince other website operators to include your content.

Some website operators, once they agree to accommodate you, will be very sensitive to how your section of their website is set up and run— understandably. You may have to give them a couple of different alternatives regarding how the concept can be put into effect in a way that’s agreeable. Other website operators, once they understand the idea, won’t care how how you set up your content, and you will be free to use the format that’s most convenient for you.

Affiliates

Affiliated marketing programs fit this concept very nicely. An affiliate marketing program essentially markets and sells your products on someone else’s website and pays him a commission, in effect, to use his website for your sales. Amazon.com is famous for enabling you to get paid for Amazon book sales that come in via links from your website. In that case, it’s up to you to build the book catalog. However, Amazon and other online book vendors will also create a mini-catalog—what amounts to a small book store—right on your website. Of course, all of the books offered are relevant to the subject matter of your website.

As you can understand, an affiliated marketing program may be your best shot on adding content to other people’s websites. In this case, the content is strictly products for sale. If you add content other than products for sale, it will be up to you to create a format acceptable to both you and the other party.

Works for You Too

Keep this concept in mind when you are building your website. It may be to your best advantage to get other people to add content to your website to make it more robust. The incentive for them will be that they can sell products and services relevant to the subject matter of your website, on your website. The benefit to you is you can build up your website to be an information center or portal—a major attractor—faster and at less expense than you would be able to without such participation. Thus, the idea of advertising (or marketing) is not only something you will find beneficial to do on other people’s websites but also something that you will find beneficial to you if done on your website by someone else.

Keyword Ads

Keyword ads are for search engines. When certain keywords are used to search, ads for products relevant to the keywords appear on the pages of returns for the search. These are box ads with plain text, usually in a column on the right or left of the central column of text. For instance, Google offers its Adwords program (https://adwords.google.com) and eBay offers its Keywords program (http://www.ebaykeyworks.com - see more details below).

This is Web advertising that works. It’s advertising that’s appropriate for experimentation because it’s not necessarily a large investment. You can buy as much or as little as you want.

First, Google is a major gateway to ecommerce perhaps as big or bigger than eBay. Second, Froogle will be as big or bigger than Google before long as a gateway to ecommerce. Third, eBay itself has become a major gateway to ecommerce, not just another marketplace on the Web. And what do they all have in common? They all offer keyword advertising, and keyword advertising has proven to be effective. Can’t ask for much more than that.

If you are going to advertise, keyword advertising should be your first stop, that is, your first consideration. You may decide to do other types of advertising instead, but you should at least investigate and consider keyword advertising.

Overture (http://overture.com), now owned by Yahoo, and FindWhat (http://findwhat.com) are examples of the many additional keyword ad programs that may be worthwhile.

Compensation

You can pay for links, banner ads, or advertising sections with a monthly fee, a click-through fee (based on how many people click to see the linked webpages), or even on an exchange basis.

Along with compensation comes accountability. When you advertise, you want to make sure that the other website that you are paying is accountable for advertising performance. There are plenty of link and banner ad programs. They are programs that will keep track of the click-throughs on advertising and give a periodic report (e.g., once a week). Don’t pay for advertising without such accountability being offered as part of the advertising package.

For keyword advertising on eBay, Google, Froogle, or other major ecommerce gateways, you pay for click-throughs. This is know as “pay per click” or PPC advertising. You can buy as many or as few clickthroughs as you want. Each portal has its own payment scheme. But advertising is not limited to only affluent businesses. Any business can buy some advertising, that is, some number of click-throughs. Moreover, you can buy advertising in small enough quantities to experiment before you commit yourself to larger expenditures. Keyword advertising (PPC advertising) works well, and the payment schemes for keyword advertising make its use flexible.

Affiliate marketing is different. Keep in mind that when you control the operation of the sales effort, as you do with affiliate marketing programs, it is you who provides the accountability to let the other website know how many click-throughs or sales have been made—and pay accordingly. If you can’t do that, you’re unlikely to find participating websites.

eBay Advertising

eBay offers several advertising programs that may help you increase your sales cost-effectively.

Co-Op Advertising

eBay has a co-op advertising program. Go to http://www.ebaycoopadvertising.com for details. You can get reimbursed for a portion of the advertising expenses for advertising your eBay merchandise. There are restrictions, but if you spend a significant amount on advertising, this presents an opportunity to recoup some of your costs.

eBay Keyword Ads

Wouldn’t it be great to be able to advertsie on eBay itself? This is one way you can do it. Advertising right on eBay with text-box ads. Your ads for your products appear at the top of listing pages for lists of items under the keywords you choose. You pay for click-throughs. Go to https://ebay.admarketplace.net/ebay/servlet/ebay for full information on eBay keyword advertising on eBay.

One great feature of this program is that you can set your own budget. You won’t get charged more than you want to spend. Of course, once you reach your budget amount, your ads no longer appear.

Keywords for Titles

You can use the eBay keyword ads process to discover fruitful keywords to use in your eBay auction ad titles.

As mentioned earlier, keyword advertising can be very effective. However, you need to determine whether eBay keyword advertising is as effective as Google or Froogle keyword advertising (Adwords). Only your experiments will tell.

Offline Advertising

Advertising offline works fine for ecommerce on the Web, if you can find an advertising medium that fits your products. It costs money and is usually expensive, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be cost-effective.

Don’t rule it out without evaluating specific opportunities that seem to have promise.

What many ecommerce businesses have found when advertising offline is that many orders come in by telephone. Yes, there are still people who aren’t connected to the Internet or who don’t find shopping online convenient. If you advertise offline, you’d better have some order-takers ready by your phones.

Cost-Effectiveness Review

Arranging links and banner ads for no fee, which is possible, might be cost-effective. It’s possible, however, you will spend too much time trying to find free websites, and cost-effectiveness will go down the drain.

If you are willing to pay for links, banner ads, and PPC advertising, the cost-effectiveness will depend on the results. To measure the costeffectiveness, you will need to know the results. Consequently, you will want to make sure that any advertising you do is accompanied by periodic reports on performance.

Cost-effectiveness is more difficult to evaluate for using a section of another website. It will take more work to prepare the webpages than a banner ad, and you are unlikely to get any reports on overall performance. However, if the other website has high traffic and is closely relevant, it might prove to be a great marketing opportunity. If you create an affiliation with another website, you can count your results yourself (i.e., sales made via the affiliate website), but it is you who will need to provide the periodic result reports to the affiliate website. The cost-effectiveness will depend on the degree of automation provided by your affiliate software.