Contact Alex (beardie) for further details about available ad impressions, positions, and pricing at admin@beardeddragon.org.

The BeardedDragon.org Banner Ad Program is a simple and affordable way for advertisers to get their banner ad to be seen on BeardedDragon.org. This program is in its early stages, so I will be trying to keep it as simple as possible. And hopefully, keeping it simple will make everyone happy.

This is not a banner exchange program. If you are looking to exchange links, your link (if it qualifies) will only be placed on the Related Links page. For more info, go to the Link Exchange program page.

How much does it cost?

Currently, the most affordable slot goes for $10 per month, and the most expensive slot goes for $75 per month.

I do not list prices publicly for various reasons, but I found that when I told people the prices, they were shocked it was so cheap, and almost didn't bother contacting me because they assumed it would be expensive. So, I thought that in light of this reaction, I would at least list the current price range (above).

The price can vary based on which page you want your ad displayed, the exact position, and what the "value" of the page currently is to the website. This last part means that I check against the other ad sources to see what the same "space" is worth, and roughly base the price on that. It should work out such that the varying prices, based on these factors, should be fair to us both. I don't lose money, and the different pages can provide proportionate value to you.

How it works

It's simple. First, you decide on what position you would like to advertise on. Here are the currently available packages:


Next, you contact me to let me know about your interest. We talk about pricing, estimated impressions and CTR, and when you want your ad online. I'll send you an invoice (using PayPal). Once payment is received your ad will be schedule for the paid position.

Of course, there are some other details in there, such as getting your graphic ready. Also, I reserve the right to refuse any banner image, if I feel it is too "loud" or lacking in a clean look/design. I am also willing to discuss ideas for your banner image, and possibly working with you to create your banner ad image. Additionally, I am allowing for a change of the graphic up to once a week to allow for "keeping it fresh".

The terms of service are based on a time slot. You are not paying for an exact number of impressions, clicks, or sales conversions. I will provide you with an estimated number of ad impressions. I tend to estimate a little low, to help ensure you at least get that many. The number of clicks can vary on many factors, including what your product is, or the banner image itself. And your sales conversions for clicks can vary even more, depending on the design and ease of navigation of your site, your products, pricing, etc.

What size do the banners need to be?

The banner images are available in two sizes. The top banner available on most pages of the site (excluding forums) supports an image that is 728 x 76 pixels. The smaller banner, which is 468 x 46 pixels, is often in the middle of pages, mixed in between or near the end of the content of a page.

A sample of a larger banner ad is at the top of this page, just below the site's main banner image. A sample of a smaller banner ad is just below.

What type of images can be used?

The BeardedDragon.org Banner Ad program supports JPGs, GIFs, animated GIFs or PNG files. Ideally, the image should be kept to reasonably small file sizes to ensure they are displayed quickly (to your benefit as well) and do not cause the web page to be delayed when loading. Again, all images are subject to my approval.

What about reporting?

I've put together a simple reporting interface that provides tracking of the performance for your account, individual ads, or page positions. The report provides a bit of flexibility to allow you to slice the data in a number of ways, so you can really see how your ads are performing. You are provided with the number of ad impressions and the number of clicks. I have provided some screenshots of the report interface.

What payment methods are accepted?

Paypal
Paypal is the preferred method of payment.

Check
I will accept a check as payment, but it must clear the bank prior to activating the ad service.

Terms and Definitions

Banner ad
A graphical (image) ad that has a hyperlink tied to it to URL of the advertiser. On many sites they are static images (JPG, GIF, PNG), animated GIFs, or Flash animations. Currently, all banner ads for this program will be static (not animated) JPG images.

Page impressions or page views
This is the number of times that a single webpage has been requested from the server.

Ad impressions
This is the number of times a single ad has been requested from the server. It is possible for there to be multiple ad impressions for the same page impression, as there may be more than one ad per page.

Click Click-through
This is when a visitor clicks their mouse on a banner ad. When a visitor clicks on a banner ad, they are transfered to the advertiser's URL/website.