Do (Almost All of It) Yourself

Innovators in online display advertising have a long mountain to climb, but the view from on high is quite promising, which is likely why so many set out on this adventure in the first place. Take AdReady, a provider of “simple, cost-effective online display advertising solutions.”
The company helps businesses “easily design, launch and measure banner ad campaigns across Google, Yahoo!, and other publishers and networks that reach over 90 percent of Web users.”
AdReady’s tagline is “Making display advertising work like search advertising.” That’s an interesting, although not particularly creative, way to look at it.
The image below shows several customizable templates available on AdReady’s site.

The idea is for business owners to create and place their own display ads (something they may already do for “search” ads).
Here’s one testimonial. “We wanted to turn up the dial on our marketing program with high-impact display ads that could drive high quality leads – similar to the results of our Google Adwords and search engine pay-per-click programs,” says AdReady customer Dru Jacobs (via press release).
In most things, I’m a big believer in “Do It Yourself.” But this isn’t one of those things. If you’re going to spend money to run an ad campaign, do your company a favor and invest in the creation of the ads.