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View Full Version : Advertising for and amongst PGD members



AthenaOfDelphi
04-03-2006, 04:32 PM
Hi all,

Firle has just released Commando Xenidis (hope the spellings right) and one of the things he'd like is more exposure for the title.

I'm sure we're not alone in running on a very tight budget where we have an advertising budget of 0. So, we as a collective have a couple of options open to us.

Print Advertising
We could get some money together between us and purchase some ad space in a gaming mag. The ad could then be sgemented up and each party involved gets a portion of the space to do with what they will... hey presto, we get some print advertising on a budget that would ultimately be more affordable than buying the ad ourselves.

This is a great idea, but it still requires money up front. So, we have to consider an alternative.

Banner Advertising
This option is possibly the most appealing. It essentially costs nothing apart from a little bit of time. The general idea is this... we (Outer Reaches Studios) already have a banner ad server setup and serving ads to the sites related to our game. We have in our rotation mainly affiliate program ads along with one or two of our own.

I'm prepared to setup a PGD rotation and provide the code peeps must drop into their sites to use the ads from our system. All you have to do, is include the code on your site, provide a banner that is standard 486x60 (I think) and thats it. Our server will do the rest.

The key here is site traffic. I doubt that any us get exactly the same visitors (except for other PGD members), so theres a good chance we will get a nice increase in traffic and that can only be a good thing.

You're probably wondering what the catch is... there isn't one. I'll stick a banner in for our game, you send me your banners and I'll send you the code etc. to serve only the PGD rotation. The rotations on our sites will continue to serve a mix from our other rotations. There will be no other ads in the plan, just ads for our games. Btw, if you don't have a game, but are up for putting the rotation on your site, feel free, let me know and I'll mail the code.

If enough people come on board, we could all benefit. The only requirement is that you host the banners yourself.

Comments please :-D

Firlefanz
05-03-2006, 08:17 AM
Sounds very good.

I have a own homepage, but no own server, I got a provider with a monthly fee.

So I understand I put banners into my homepage, including my own banner and some others, and so do you?

Is it right, can I do that without having an own server?

Is it just HTML code I have to add to my index homepage and some banner images I have to store in my FTP directory?

Thanks, the idea sounds nice.

Firle

AthenaOfDelphi
05-03-2006, 12:38 PM
You've got the idea. Each time the page is served, the code grabs another banner from the rotation served by our server. The images can be anywhere, within reason. Its best if you don't have bandwidth limits (a lot of ISP's provide hosting without limits), but if you do, I'm sure we could sort something out.

The more people who are prepared to have the banners on their site, and the more people providing banners, the better.

So... anyone else interested in working together on something like this?

Huehnerschaender
05-03-2006, 12:51 PM
Sure,

sounds very interesting. But first I have to finish any projrct to be able to take part in this 8)

Firlefanz
05-03-2006, 07:05 PM
Sure I am :D

Firle

jdarling
05-03-2006, 09:23 PM
Actually I already have my server setup to do this (http://www.eonclash.com). It rotates about 20 different ads right now, and I'd be happy to add anyones stuff to it. It would be nice though if the games are making a profit to see a bit on the back to help the costs of running (though I don't get much traffic any more).

cairnswm
06-03-2006, 05:36 AM
(Been too busy coding Verne-X for the contest and have ignored other threads :) )

YES PLEASE. Count me in. My web site needs a redesign but I would very happily join into the shared banner system. Currently I would like to fit into a PGD specific banner group. :)

I'll need to create my own banner :)

Also CairnsGames has just joined a South African Game Dev web ring - have you considered something similar?

jdarling
06-03-2006, 02:53 PM
Let me pipe in with one more comment :). In order for anyone to put up banners we need to set some standards. Typically banners on a website fall into a few sizes (and yes I know this for sure):

1) 460x60 - Bottom or top banner
2) 120x600 - Left or right banner
3) 160x600 - Another Left or Right banner
4) 300x250 - Kinda a squarish thing
5) 120x60 - Medium "Button"

Those are the most common ones. For me to post a link on my site I require you to fit into 460x60 or 460x90 (shown less often). If anyone wants to post up the pic (can be JPG, GIF, PNG but NO FLASH) and the link it should go to I'll be happy to link it up. That goes for PGD's logo and link as well. I can also post up the PHP source and DB format if anyone else wants to use it.

AthenaOfDelphi
06-03-2006, 03:04 PM
For anyone thats interested in having ads served from my server or if you want to put an ad in the rotation, email me and I'll get it sorted over the next day or so. Banners should be 468x60, preferably GIF, if you are sending me a banner, send me the URL where the banner is located. If you really can't host the banner yourself, then please let me know and I'll see what I can do. I'll also try and setup the ad server so that it mails you details about the rotation so you can see page serves, clicks etc.

At this time, I'm thinking of one banner per product. I will say this... any inappropriate banners or banners for stuff other than your own and I'll kick you out of the rotation. Inappropriate means unsuitable for minors or offensive on the grounds of decency, race, gender, sexuality.. yadda yadda yadda... you get the picture :-)

My email address is athena at outer hyphen reaches dot com.

Firlefanz
10-03-2006, 08:37 AM
Hi Athena,

I asked my friend who does the grafix to do 3 banners for us, one for each game. We are currently redesigning our homepage and I will send you a mail and post here when I get them, might take a few days.

Can you show some banners to get an idea how they may look like?

Do you also have a banner rotation somewhere to take a look?

Why don't you put a link to your website in your signature? :D

Thanks,
Firle