Responsive affiliate banners

[martin-s]

How does everyone handle affiliate banners on responsive websites? Obviously it's something that Adsense is pretty good at, but looking at Awin, I can't see much responsive stuff?

 

[Adam H]

Could you not wrap the banner code in a div and do something like :

.bannerdiv img {
      max-width: 728px;
      width:100%;
      height:auto;
}

Obviously changing the max-width to the size of your banner.

 

[Edwin]

Perhaps this will point you in the right direction?
http://matthewjamestaylor.com/blog/responsive-banner-ads

Oh, and you probably know this already, but Amazon Affiliates has implementations for responsive sites.
https://affiliate-program.amazon.co.uk/gp/associates/promo/mobile?rw_useCurrentProtocol=1

 

[Edwin]

Also worth noting: it's probably pointless to implement affiliate banners in a responsive way if the merchant's site doesn't work or works very badly on mobile devices!

 

[Adam H]

Also worth noting: it's probably pointless to implement affiliate banners in a responsive way if the merchant's site doesn't work or works very badly on mobile devices!

I respectfully disagree with that, there is no point in putting up with a poor display and creating a poorer user experience on your own site just because the destination site doesn't cater for mobile users. Non-responsive banners can create horizontal scrolling where its not needed and various other problems which can hinder your own users.

 

[martin-s]

Could you not wrap the banner code in a div and do something like...

Well yes, of course, but I'm quite surprised to find that none of the major affiliate programme providers offer this by default.

Not sure if that's a gap in the market.

Perhaps this will point you in the right direction?

That's the panacea, but if only more programmes bothered with HTML5 content. Sadly most don't seem to currently.

 

[Edwin]

I respectfully disagree with that, there is no point in putting up with a poor display and creating a poorer user experience on your own site just because the destination site doesn't cater for mobile users. Non-responsive banners can create horizontal scrolling where its not needed and various other problems which can hinder your own users.

I respectfully disagree with your disagreement

For most niches, there are enough competing affiliate programs that you can choose to work with the one(s) that have mobile-friendly sites. You're right however if you've identified a high-paying affiliate program that converts particularly well, but where the merchant's site isn't mobile friendly.

 

[Edwin]

That's the panacea, but if only more programmes bothered with HTML5 content. Sadly most don't seem to currently.

Can't you just use HTML5 and CSS to style the img tag and/or text, and link, that the typical affiliate program gives you? Or are you talking about rich content links?

 

[martin-s]

That's a lot of effort when you have a big site and campaigns are changing regularly. There are typically three banner sizes to work with too 728x90, 468x60 and 234x60 (ideally would have been 320x50 (mobile leaderboard), but not many campaigns seem to provide those yet