This
article was written last December by one of the many successful Banners
Broker affiliates in response to the few people out there who are
determined to give BB a bad name, so I would like to share it with you
to dis spell
the myth.
Banners Broker – Myth or Magic?
I had to write this.
I see so much commotion about Banners Broker that’s just uninformed noise, I had to speak up.
The so called “insiders,” who are not much more than bloggers with an
opinion trying to rank for a keyword, need some actual facts.
I’ve been a full time professional affiliate of the company for a year now.
I’ve attended their major events (Click here for event review), met
and interacted with the CEO, Chris Smith, the COO Raj and Lorenzo, their
#3 man, hung out with their families – wives, kids the whole shot, so I
feel I have some grounds to speak. I know there are some warts, but
let’s be real here.
Even almighty Google started in a garage.
(Banners Broker just bought a new building and staffed it with 100 new personnel
If any of these critics could speak with real knowledge of how it
works we could do something constructive, but they just show that they
really don’t understand the business model. It’s new and I am going to
cover it thoroughly, so there are a few pages to read. Let’s get
started!
So, what is Banners Broker?
Banners Broker is just what it says – a broker in the banner
advertising field. A unique broker – unique in that no one else does
what they do.
What’s a broker? The dictionary says: “a broker is a person who buys and sells goods or assets for others.”
Banners Broker “brokers” in a slightly different way than has been done before on line… here’s an overview:
There is a network of websites and advertising companies that
comprise what is called the “Blind Network”(Click here for definition)
(an Internet ad industry term).
Note, that I didn’t say – Banners Broker operates within a Blind Network.
They operate within T-H-E Blind Network.
The same Blind Network that thousands of advertisers and publishers already operate within.
The same Blind Network that successfully generates BILLIONS of Dollars of revenue every year.
This isn’t something invented by someone to trick you – it’s how the
on-line advertising industry works – (so how can these so called
“insiders” be inside anything but their own rear ends?)
…Sorry…
A comparative is magazine advertising.
If you want to put your ad on the front inside cover of Time Magazine, you’re gonna pay top dollar.
A front-page ad on the New York Times is a bit expensive and there’s
just so many of those spaces available. In the television ad world it’s
prime time or the Super Bowl.
Advertise there? Forget it.
It’s not cheap. Not the place for the small guy to get into the online ad world.
The Internet equivalent is having your banner ad on the top of
Inc.com or
Forbes.com or some other top tier site.
But what about the small business that wants to advertise online?
If you can’t afford Time Magazine, front cover inside and just want
to advertise in the magazine, you would pay a lot less, but they’d put
you where they felt it fit best.
You would not have control over where you were put in the publication.?? Imagine this situation on the Internet.
There are some 500 million websites on line, give or take a couple…
There are a percentage that a) get enough traffic and b) want to make
money hosting advertising on their site. They have space that they want
to rent out.
This is part of the reason they’re on line in the first place – to
make revenue from their website – any smart website owner knows that
advertising is a potentially lucrative part of his income streams.
They go to a broker and if their site qualifies, they can then be a publisher.
All of this available advertising space is bid on the auction block
and depending on the amount of visitors to a website, it will command a
certain price – lower prices for lesser traffic sites – higher prices
for higher traffic sites.
Google is an example…
Google has a program called AdSense that utilizes Google’s network
and many, many website owners go to Google and apply to run AdSense
advertisements on their websites to earn revenue.
Well, outside of Google, there is a network that is controlled by about 10 major brokers.
They bid website advertising space, they connect the ad space with
the advertiser and they make that space make money. And there is lots of
money in Internet advertising.
Some
$37 or $38 Billion in 2011.
The Blind Network that Banners Broker uses is second tier – not front inside cover of Time Magazine or atop
Forbes.com. Ads are placed wherever it’ll work best on smaller websites in the second tier network.
Banner ads are shifting entities that move from site to site, from eye to eye.
If you’ve ever noticed, somehow the Internet tracks your search
behavior. If you’ve been searching for cameras and then go to website X
that has banner ads, more than likely you will followed around by
banners about cameras, camera accessories and the like.
But if your friend went to that same site, he’d get a different banner ad.
Banners are targeted to your demographics and search history.
Different ads appear in the same space according to who is logged on
from what computer.
So, if you wanted to flip through the entire network of sites, you
could find the ad that merchant X placed with ad company Y somewhere
amongst those trillion pages…
Banners Broker Product
So, How does Banners Broker fit in?
In 2010, owner and CEO, Chris Smith – an IT guy – had the idea to tap into this market in a unique way.
He approached those 10 blind network brokers with a proposition – to
create a broker relationship that was unique, innovative… if the idea
worked it could revolutionize the Internet ad world…
And?
They all said….“No.”
Except one. One of the medium sized brokers saw the potential and
said, let’s try it. This was a concept in it’s infancy and guess what?
It’s working.
No one on the outside has a clue, but it’s working.
Chris built the computer algorithm that would sell to individuals
(Banners Broker affiliates), parcels of that advertising space, which
then made money from real ads.
His vision was to create a pool of funding that could increase the
amount of ad space bid for – i.e. grab a bigger share of the market,
which that broker controlled, and thereby increase revenue.
The front line broker would then be invoiced by Banners Broker and
pay them their part of that earned revenue. Banners Broker as part of
its operating expenses would then pay its affiliates.
Banners Broker affiliates purchase the product of “advertising
inventory,” from Banners Broker, which the front line broker connects to
advertisers.
So the product of Banners Broker is: Advertising Impressions.
The end user – the advertiser, who never sees or hears of Banners
Broker, gets ad space that hosts his advertising, and visitors to the
various websites where that ad is displayed, see that ad.
There’s the product.
Sort of tough to see in a virtual word, but there it is.
Traffic
And there’s one other very little known trick in the system that makes it work.
In any business, traffic is a commodity. Brick and mortar businesses
depend on people walking by the shop. Traffic is where the money is.
Traffic is why Times Square or other similar places in cities around the
world are packed with very high priced advertising space.
Traffic = income.
Well, part of what makes Banners Broker work is that they are also
partnered with Internet traffic companies – companies that for a fee,
send real live visitors to the websites where the ads are.
So, when an affiliate purchases ad inventory, he also purchases the means to make that ad inventory create revenue – traffic.
The advertiser pays per view – so every time that ad is put on a web
page, in front of a visitor, the advertiser pays the advertising
company. So, everybody gets what they need and want – real visitors,
paying advertisers, a website that makes revenue for it’s owner…
My wife and I used to sell shoes in a mall in Erie Pa.
Canadians would come from across the NY/Canada border to Erie by the
busload to shop because Erie had no sales tax… so, the city of Erie got
smart and by setting up favorable conditions to bring traffic from
Canada, got tour busses full of people, money in hand to their doorstep.
Smart use of traffic earns Erie, Pa. more revenue.
That’s how traffic works – people who come past your shop with money in hand ready to buy. That’s how Banners Broker does it.
All the ingredients are there to create a booming business model – an
expanding advertising network, lots of affiliates who want a chance to
get into the profitable game of internet advertising and the ability to
drive of lots of traffic to round it all out.
So, everyone benefits. The broker has more leverage, the website
owners make more consistent money and the smaller advertisers who can’t
do Time Magazine front cover inside have a place to advertise that they
can afford.
Banners Broker affiliates have a vehicle to create a business in the online advertising industry that just didn’t exist before.
Even the traffic company gets a piece of the action.
But “insiders” have never heard of Banners Broker ‘cuz the company
doesn’t go to Internet advertising trade shows… Advertisers and
publishers generally have never heard of them.
Why?
Because Banners Broker’s clients are their affiliates on one end and the front line broker on the other end, not ad agencies.
Banners Broker doesn’t touch advertisers in general – except their
own growing list of advertising clients – which they feed into the
overall blind network.
Banners Broker is a broker. Yes, they have an advertising platform of
their own, but the overwhelming bulk of their revenue comes from the
blind network. Banners Broker invoices the front line broker who pays
them; Banners Broker then pays it’s affiliates then pockets it’s own
profit.
But Isn’t Banners Broker Just Another Sleazy Ponzi Scheme?
What’s a ponzi scheme anyway? The dictionary defines a ponzi as:
Ponzi scheme |’pänze| noun a form of fraud in which belief in the
success of a nonexistent enterprise is fostered by the payment of quick
returns to the first investors from money invested by later investors.
ORIGIN named after Charles Ponzi (died 1949), who carried out such a fraud (1919–20).
Well, what about a pyramid?
The definition of a pyramid is:
A system of financial growth achieved by a small initial investment,
with subsequent investments being funded by using unrealized profits as
collateral. • short for pyramid scheme.
Banners Broker is neither.
A Banners Broker affiliate buys a product – ad inventory – blank
advertising space on a website. He also buys traffic from a traffic
broker and he also buys advertising impressions for his own use in
advertising on the same blind network.
If he knows what he is doing, he gets that advertising inventory to work, utilizing traffic, creating revenue.
If he’s really saavy, he gets his own ad campaigns running promoting
his own website and products. Affiliates can also sell advertising and
publishing services that Banners Broker offers.
If he wisely shepherds his earnings he can increase his working ad
inventory and thereby increase his revenue. If I pay
$10 for a piece of
ad inventory and make
$20, that’s not some outrageous markup.
It costs me
$2.50 in traffic to enable that
$10’s worth of ad space
to make
$20. I then pay
$10 for another piece of inventory, I pay for
more traffic and I keep it rolling.
I don’t take my “profits” out until I have created cash flow in
excess of what is required to continue my businesses growth… Just like
any other business.
I just made
$7.50 in 3-4 weeks off of that inventory. What’s so strange about that?
Hell, those shoes I sold in Erie cost me
$19 from my wholesaler, but I
sold them for
$60 and they brought raving return customers. (And
jewelry markups are way, way higher.)
If an affiliate learns and utilizes sales skills – just like any
other businessman, he can make small sales commissions from bringing in
other affiliates – and he earns free traffic called “sales credits.”
Remember the bad joke that “MLM” stands for Most Lose Money? Sadly,
it’s true. I know first hand. I am a paid, successful Multilevel
Marketing professional.
I know that of the almost 3,000 of my downline, very few make money,
but those few that do work their tails off…. those few that do have
developed sales, communication, leadership and mentoring skills to a
high degree.
So the individual makes the model work or fails to make it work. It’s still all up to you in the end.
Is multi-level marketing a fraud?
No, not at all. It’s just that most who enter that field have no
business running a business, so blame the business model when they need
to look in the mirror.
They think someone is supposed to do the work for them and they sit
back and make money. Doesn’t work like that in real business…
Remember Amway got shut down as a ponzi in some countries where the
MLM business model was not well understood, yet they were the founder of
a very unique, but legitimate business model in the 50s.
And Google, Apple and HP all started out in garages…
Remember young George Lucas? He approached Hollywood and they all said no.
Except one.
Chris Smith started Banners Broker with an idea, a computer program
and one front line broker who could see the potential. In two years he
has 265,000 affiliates and Banners Broker is growing like wildfire and
starting to catch on.
Seeing this concept work, one of the original resounding “No” brokers – a big one – has now done a double take and reconsidered.
Banners Broker and that new broker are currently bridging their computer systems to do business.
Hollywood missed hits right under its nose.
Sometimes it takes a while for a unique model to gain acceptance…
But when they do, if they can survive in the jungle we call business; they can change their industry.