Horizons Unlimited Motorcycle Travellers Website

From an article in MediaWeek, Oct 27, 2008:

"...TV and newspapers are forecast to suffer more than any other media over the next two years...Press has borne the brunt of clients' more cautious outlook, with some £67.7m of ad spend being pulled out of the medium year on year - twice the fall of outdoor, the second most-affected medium...

Meanwhile, online ad spend is expected to continue to increase, albeit at rates lower than the boom years of the early part of the decade. Zenith expects year-on-year online growth of 21%, 20.3% and 23.7% over the next three years...

From "The Economist" Aug. 16 2008, pg. 60

"As well as driving harder bargains with suppliers, firms are also being more selective about the channels they use to communicate with existing and potential customers. This favours the internet, which allows marketers to address focused audiences and quickly gauge the return on their investment. Most experts expect online ad spending to keep rising this year, albeit at a slower rate than in the past, as spending on most other kinds of media shrinks. For some marketers the downturn may even be a blessing in disguise.When the good times roll, a strong marketing message can be drowned out in the cacophony as brands compete for consumers attention. But as weaker firms cut promotion in a slowdown, relatively strong rivals that maintain or increase their marketing spending can stand out more easily and steal market share.

A 2003 graph - and the trend is accelerating...

From an article in Business Week Magazine, Dec 27, 2004:

"...Sooner or later, advertisers had to figure out the Internet. Here was a medium that was reaching into nearly every office in America. And at home, it was wresting millions of eyes away from the TV. It could even count mouse clicks. Today, Net advertisers are finally hitting their stride.

... Internet advertising should reach $9.4 billion in 2004, according to Kagan Research LLC. And with continued double-digit growth, it's on pace to surpass magazine advertising in about two years, adds Kagan. (That ought to be 2006, and it's 2008! Grant)

...The explosion of Internet ad prices -- the daily price of a banner ad on marquee sites such as the Yahoo or MSN homepage has doubled in the past year, to $300,000.

1. Full Banner ads in the main (wide) section

Price per ad:

Six issues: US$45 = US$270
Twelve issues: US$40 = US$480

2. Text Ads, in the main (wide) section

a. Price per ad, 4 lines of text, approximately 44 words:

Six issues: US$35 = US$210
Twelve issues: US$30 = US$360

b. Price per ad, 2 lines of text, approximately 22 words:

Half the rates in 2a. above.

3. Text Ads, in the sidebar (narrow left) section

Price per ad, 10 lines of text, approximately 40 words:

Six issues: US$20 = US$120
Twelve issues: US$15 = US$180

4. Other ad sizes and number of insertions:

Possible. Please contact us for rates with your specific requirements. We aim to please.

1. Full Banner ads

HOME page - www.horizonsunlimited.com/

80,000 plus pageviews per month for the home page alone.

1a. In the main (central) section top half

80,000 plus pageviews per month for the home page alone.

Price per month

Three months: US$400 = US$1200
Six months: US$300 = US$1800
Twelve months: US$250 = US$3000

1b. In the main (central) section, lower half

80,000 plus pageviews per month for the home page alone.

Price per month

Three months: US$250 = US$750
Six months: US$200 = US$1200
Twelve months: US$150 = US$1800

1b. In the right or left column

80,000 plus pageviews per month for the home page alone.

Price per month

Top Right above the fold:

Three months: US$250 = US$750
Six months: US$200 = US$1200
Twelve months: US$150 = US$1800

Middle, right or left

Three months: US$200 = US$600
Six months: US$150 = US$900
Twelve months: US$120 = US$1440

Bottom of the page, right or left, above footer:

Three months: US$150 = US$450
Six months: US$120 = US$720
Twelve months: US$100 = US$1200

1d. Full Banner ads in the main (central) section of any INDEX page (section heading, e.g. Trip Planning, Travellers Stories etc.) NOT including home, hubb indexes.

Price per month per page:

Three months: US$90 = US$270
Six months: US$75 = US$450
Twelve months: US$50 = US$600

1e. Full Banner ads in the main (central) section of any other Horizons page (mostly your choice of page EXCEPT the home page or index pages, contact us with your request)

Six months: US$100
Twelve months: US$150

1f. Vertical Banner ad in the RIGHT hand column of all pages except the HUBB and home page

Price per month

Six months: US$300 = US$1800
Twelve months: US$250 = US$3,000

1g. Vertical Banner ad in the LEFT hand column, below the menu, of all pages including the HUBB

Price per month

Six months: US$450 = US$2700
Twelve months: US$400 = US$4,800

1h. Vertical Banner ad in the RIGHT hand column, of MANY pages, to be discussed

Price per month

Six months: US$200 = US$1200
Twelve months: US$125 = US$1500

2. Text Ads, in the sidebar (narrow right or left below the menu) section of the HOME page - www.horizonsunlimited.com/

80,000 plus pageviews per month for the home page alone.

Price per page, 6 lines of text, approximately 18 words:

Three month: US$100 = US$300
Six months: US$90 = US$540
Twelve months: US$70 = US$840

2a. Text Ads, in the sidebar (narrow right) section of any INDEX page (section heading, e.g. Trip Planning, Travellers Stories etc.)

Price per page, 6 lines of text, approximately 18 words:

Three months: US$40 = US$120
Six months: US$32 = US$192
Twelve months: US$24 = US$288

2b. Text Ads, in the sidebar (narrow right) section of any other Horizons page (mostly your choice of page EXCEPT the home page or index pages, contact us with your request)

Price per page, 6 lines of text, approximately 18 words:

Twelve months: US$5 = US$60
NOTE: Minimum invoice is US$100

3. Links Page

Our links page is one of the best resources on the planet for motorcycle travel related information!

3.a Banner ad in the Links page

A text listing in these pages is free for all appropriate motorycle or travel related companies with a return link to Horizons Unlimited. We reserve the right to refuse to link for any reason we deem fit.

A full banner graphic in your link is US$15 per month IF you also do an ezine ad AS WELL, or US$25 per month WITHOUT an accompanying ezine ad. See Touratech ad, or Motorrad Elektrik ad for examples.

3.b Banner or text ads, for Links page and Tour Companies pages

A text listing in these pages is free for all appropriate companies with a return link to Horizons Unlimited.

A full banner graphic - minimum 6 months

US$20 per month IF you also do a Newsletter / ezine ad.

OR

US$30 per month WITHOUT an accompanying ezine ad.

See Touratech ad, or Motorrad Elektrik ad for examples.

Tour Company ads will all show up in BOTH the special Tour Companies page AND your Country of operation page.

4. Other ad sizes and number of insertions, page quantities, and major sponsorships of sections of pages, the HUBB or the entire site:

Possible. Please contact us for rates with your specific requirements. We aim to please.

Payment via check (or cheque) can be made in US $, Canadian $, British £, and Euros €. For other countries the best is US$ money order.

Mail check (or cheque) to our international post box, and please make the cheque payable to Grant Johnson, (NOT Horizons Unlimited!!), and mail to your closest address below, or for the quickest service, to the UK address.

USA and Canada	UK, Europe or other international
Grant Johnson 102-15910 Fraser Highway Suite 472 Surrey, BC   V4N 0X9 CANADA	Grant Johnson Suite 621 24 St. Leonards Road Windsor, Berkshire SL4 3BB UK

Pay with PayPal, and use your Visa / Mastercard / American Express:

Paying in US$? Click here:

Paying in UK£? Click here:

Paying in € Euros? Click here:

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You DO NOT need to be a PayPal member to make this payment, your credit card will work fine.

Copy must be plain text or HTML in an e-mail message. Microsoft Word documents etc. will not be accepted due to the virus risk.

Graphics should be in GIF89a or JPEG format. Animated GIFs are fine. Please try to keep your graphic file size under 15K.

Graphics can be e-mailed to us, if needed we can also download graphics from your web site.

Graphics

If you need help with graphics we'll see what we can do. If it's easy, no charge, major work of course is extra. We have graphic artists available if needed for custom work.

IMPORTANT!

We can support the standard Web advertising banner sizes. However, ad blocking software in Norton Internet Security and MANY other similar programs looks for images which fit these standards to determine if an image is an advert and should be blocked! So, we make the pixel size slightly different than standard (see table below for actual sizes we use).

Ad blocking software also looks at other factors, such as certain text strings in the file name or path, so we do all we can to ensure your ad doesn't get blocked.

We recommend the E-Zine Full Banner or Modified Full Banner for best results with all browsers and screen resolutions.

We can support Java applets and JavaScript, but don't assume that readers will be connected to the Internet when browsing their issue of the e-zine, and many people have Java and JavaScript blocked. In other words we don't recommend this! Keep your ad simple and clean. Clean, simple animated .gifs are excellent.

1. Grab attention, invoke action

When it comes to display advertising, the old AIDA (attention, interest, desire, action) marketing principle holds true. Strike a balance between visual and textual elements to attract the users’ attention and invoke a response, says Michael Fleischner, Marketing Director, Peterson’s, an educational resource company.

“When you talk about display advertising, it needs to be visual and to the degree that it includes motion. More often than not, you’re going to improve clickthrough rates. To move someone through that decision process, you really need to grab their attention. And we’ve just seen better results with visuals, but there needs to be some kind of call to action, which is ‘buy now,’ ‘act now,’ ‘get more info,’ as part of that overall contextual ad,” says Fleischner.

There are three design elements that usability expert Jakob Nielsen says are most effective at attracting attention:

o Plain text
o Faces
o Cleavage and other “private” body parts (Don't even THINK it! Grant)

As for calls to action, “with one particular placement, we added a button in red that said ‘get free info’ and that had a dramatic lift in results,” says Fleischner.

2. Be clear

Web visitors should immediately know what your ad offers. The benefit should be obvious.