Jump to the following topics:

1. What is a banner exchange? 
2. Advantages and disadvantages.  
3. Features of a banner exchange.  
4. Resources. 

What is a banner exchange? It is a company which manages the swapping of banners among the websites. In this swap, I show other members' banners on my site, and the other members show my banner. The company rotates the banners throughout the system, so that a visitor to a particular page on our site is likely to see a different banner in each visit.

Advantages and disadvantages.

1. Advantages.
   • This is a free means of publicity.
   • It is an easy means of publicity. The steps of the process:
     • We register our site with the banner exchange.
     • We submit our banner to be displayed on other people's sites.
     • We paste some html code into the pages where the banners will appear on our site. (The code contains a link to the exchange, which relays a banner to our site whenever one of our pages is accessed by a visitor.)
   • We can earn revenue. When we display the ads, some are straight swaps; we earn no money. But for some of the ads, we are paid for each visitor who views the ad, or who clicks on the ad.
   • We gain information about our visitors. Some banner exchanges give traffic-analysis statistics: what time the visitors arrived, where they were before they came to our site, etc.
2. Disadvantages.
   • Some people's banners will be inappropriate for our site. Most banner exchanges refuse to display banners from sites which promote pornography, hate, or illegal activities. But even so, our site might be cluttered with banners which are ugly, over-animated, or embarrassing.

Features of a banner exchange.    

1. The ratio. In a banner exchange, we display other people's banners, and they display ours; however, this is rarely a 1:1 trade. (These numbers refer to "page-views"; a page-view occurs when a visitor clicks on a page where the banner is being displayed.) Usually, the ratio is 2:1; when we display two banners, the exchange displays one of ours. (Other possible ratios are 3:2, 4:5, etc.) The unequal ratio allows the banner exchange to earn a profit from this service; the exchange can put in some banners to advertise its own services, and it can put in banners for which other people have paid money.
2. The size of the banner. The standard size of banners is 468x60, but some banner exchanges allow their members to use banners in other sizes, e.g., 400x40.
3. Targeting. Some banner exchanges allow us to specify that we want our banner to be displayed on particular types of websites; for example, we might want our site to be on business-oriented sites only.
4. Placement of ads. Some banner exchanges insist that we put the members' banners at the top of our web pages.
5. Restrictions regarding banner design. For example, there might be restrictions regarding file size (e.g., less than 10k for the banner), animation (which might not be permitted), etc.
6. Free credits. Some banner exchanges will give us some free credits when we join; for example, 500 credits would allow for 500 free page-views of our banner on other people's sites. We could also earn credits if we enlist a new member.
7. Stats. The banner exchange will have records of our page-views. Some exchanges will give us a web page with complete traffic analysis for our site: number of visitors, their origin, etc.
8. Ability to purchase credits. Generally, a banner exchange is based on a barter system: we give page-views in order to get page-views. But if we aren't receiving many visitors, we aren't earning many credits; thus, our banner is being displayed at very few sites. One solution is to buy credits; some banner exchanges charge about $10 for 1,000 page-views.

Resources.

1. Search engines. Search on the keywords, "banner exchange."
2. Lists of banner exchanges.
   • Mark Welch.
   • Promotion World.