Advertiser Video Training - Uploading Banners
Keeping your creative inventory up-to-date and organized is extremely important to the overall success of your Affiliate Marketing program. Maintenance of your creative inventory will provide you with greater control on how your Publishers are marketing your brand, and will ensure that you are offering only your current promotions and links. We strongly recommend that you review your current links and supply new creative on a monthly basis as part of your program management activities.
In order to assist in your creative inventory maintenance efforts, we have released the first in a multi-part video training series entitled Creating and Managing Links: Uploading Banners. This 8 minute video training explains in detail the process for correctly uploading banners to the LinkShare Advertiser Interface, setting up creative categories, and setting start/end dates to keep your creative inventory organized. You can find this, and other video trainings in our Merchant Resource Center:
http://www.linkshare.com/resourcecenter/index.shtml
Or you can access the video directly here:
http://www.linkshare.com/share/flash/uploading_banners.html
We hope you will take a few minutes to review this valuable training as a refresher on the Banner Upload process. It can also be used for training if you are an Affiliate Marketing Manager who is new to the inner-workings of the LinkShare Interface. We have also included some more in-depth Banner Inventory FAQs below which we recommend that you review after you have completed the video training.
If you have any questions, or would like to recommend additional training subjects, please reach out to your LinkShare Account Representative.
Banner Inventory FAQs
Q : If the end date for a banner lapses, but the link is still on a Publisher’s website, what will happen when a customer clicks on it?
A: When the end date passes for a banner, the landing page will automatically redirect to the URL associated with the default banner set in your Default Creative. If a default banner is not configured, the landing page will revert to the Default Landing Page (DLP) set for your program. Please keep in mind that for LinkShare hosted images, when the end date lapses, the landing page will not only change, but the banner displayed will also show the Default Banner. This feature will not work the same way if you host your own creative. For these banners, the landing page will change to the default, but the banner image will not change.
Please Note: If the end date lapses for a text link, the landing page will redirect to the default in the same way as for a banner. However, the copy in for the text link will not automatically change on a Publisher’s site, even if you manually change the copy in the interface. Therefore it is critical that you communicate the start/end date of a promotion directly in the text link copy. This way you can ensure that you are not misleading potential customers, even if a Publisher fails to remove an expired text link from their website.
Q: What happens if you delete a banner?
A: We recommend that you DO NOT delete activated banners, even if they are outdated. When you delete an active banner, you can potentially affect the creative that is displayed on a Publisher’s website (please note: the result will be different if your banner is LinkShare hosted or Advertiser hosted). Deleting a banner can also affect the reporting on the backend in the system. Instead of deleting banners, we recommend that you instead “unassign links” that you do not want any new Publishers to access.
Q : Since the LinkShare Network is based on the GMT time zone, should I set the Creative Start/End Date on the day before or after?
A: You should take the GMT time zone specification into consideration when you set the Creative Start/End dates for your banners. GMT is 5 hours ahead of EST (6 hours ahead of CST, 8 hours ahead of PST), so depending on the valid dates for your creative, you may need to set your creative to start a day before your promotion, and end the day after.
Q : Is there a way for me to change out my banner creative so it automatically updates on my Publishers’ websites? If so, what is this process?
A: Yes, this is possible, and the process will differ depending on whether you host your own creative, or if it is LinkShare hosted.
If your banners are hosted by LinkShare, updating the banners is as simple as updating the link itself in the LinkShare Advertiser Interface. Underneath “Image URL”, click “Browse” and select the new image much like you would do to create a new banner. Then, click “Save Changes”. Your banners will be updated with the new creative across all Publishers within an hour!
If you host your own images, you will need to overwrite the old image with the new one on your server. For example, say you have a $5 off banner which is located at http://www.yourwebsite.com/images/promotion_125x125.gif. Now, you would like to replace it with the new 10% off promotion banner. Give the new banner the same file name as the old one, then upload it to the http://www.yourwebsite.com/images/ folder on your server. The $5 off banner will be updated with the new 10% off promotion across all Publishers’ websites instantly! There is nothing you will have to do in the LinkShare Interface, unless you want to change the landing page URL for the banner.
Please Note:
- Be sure when you upload new creative that it is the same file format as the previous banner. If the previous creative was a gif, it must be replaced with another gif, not a jpg
- Whenever you update banners, regardless of Advertiser or LinkShare served images, it is imperative that the new creative is the same size as the image it is replacing. This way, the new banner size doesn’t disrupt the layout of the Publisher’s website and incline them to remove your links.
If you have banner content that needs to be updated on a frequent basis you might want to consider implementing Dynamic Rich Media (DRM) links, which will give you more control over the content which is featured on Publishers’ websites. For more information on DRM, please contact your LinkShare Account Representative.
