Horizons Unlimited Motorcycle Travellers Website

Advertising Rate Sheet

On this page:
E-zine Rates
Website Rates
Bulletin Board Rates
Contact us
Payment
Ad guidelines
Privacy

Why should you advertise on the internet at all?

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.

The Net's ad growth is benefiting online publishers every bit as much as the agencies. The trick, say analysts, is to find sites that reach a well-defined demographic."

Definition of a well-defined demographic:

The "Horizons Unlimited Motorcycle Travellers' Website"

is the premier website for motorcycle travellers, covering the world for motorcycle people who are on the road for weeks, months and often years.

Don't take our word for it - Type 'motorcycle travel' into Google, and see where we come up!

*** Recent stats: 1,540,000 pageviews, 920,000 user sessions, and 19,500,000 hits - per month. Over 32,000 pages of information! ***

Why are we Number 1?

First created in 1997, with the addition of the HUBB and E-zine in 1999 and 2000, the site has become a home and a focus for thousands of motorcyclists around the world.

There's over 6,000 pages of superb content and gorgeous photos, including exciting, humorous and sometimes terrifying stories from intrepid motorcycle adventurers in Africa, South America, Asia, Australia and RTW. Our Trip Planning section has a wide range of articles and stories covering how to get yourself and your motorcycle across the continent or around the world, including where and when to go, living on the road, border crossings, shipping (across oceans or war zones), organized tours, and much more.

Then there's the 32,000+ pages of invaluable information contributed by our very active Bulletin Board regulars, in over 40 forums, covering route planning, which bike and bike tech, safety on the road, trip transport, paperwork, regional forums, equipment, photography, navigation, communications, bike swaps, and much more.

Last but not least, we have a true global community of motorcycle travellers, with over 500 Horizons Unlimited Motorcycle Travellers Communities established in at least 93 countries around the world, to enable motorcycle travellers, both those on the road and those at home, to meet up with like minded people.

From a satisfied advertiser:

"Things are still going very well with the website advertising and it is the most effective advertising we do so thank you... Horizons Unlimited is a great place for us to drum up customers..." Lee Mears, Kudu Expeditions

"We are more than pleased with our current advertising exposure on Horizons and are considering increasing it, substantially." Mick McDonald, Compass Expeditions

Why should you advertise with us?

The average long distance motorcycle trip will take 6-12 months, or longer, and cost at least US$15-25,000 per person. Some people spend much more than this...

A significant chunk of this money is spent in advance on the bike and preparation / modifications, and individuals frequently decide on which bike and what gear to buy based on information obtained on this site, and discussions on the HUBB. Somewhere along the line, the bike will likely have to be transported across an ocean. Alternatively, many individuals and couples will be inspired by the stories, but prefer the safety of an organized motorcycle tour or rentals rather than ship their own bike. It all adds up to big bikkies, as the Aussies say, and as we ourselves well know from our own RTW trip.

Horizons Unlimited is well-established as the first source of reliable, unbiased information on all aspects of motorcycle travel. We reach a dedicated, worldwide group of real travellers, and are the only website focusing exclusively on long distance motorcycle travellers. If you sell motorcycles or motorcycle accessories, riding gear, camping equipment and clothing, transport motorcycles, organize motorcycle tours, or have motorcycles to rent, you should be advertising here! See below for our very reasonable rates.

The "Horizons Unlimited Motorcycle Travellers' e-zine"

is a special interest online e-zine covering the world for Motorcycle Travellers. Subjects are of interest to all Motorcycle Travellers regardless of how long or short their trip. It is the only English zine of any type, electronic or print, to cover the long distance motorcycle traveller market exclusively.

The e-zine is delivered free of charge via e-mail as an HTML or attached HTML file to a fully opt-in subscription only mailing list. It is also placed online at the Horizons Unlimited web site. Publication frequency is 6-8 issues a year. See below for our very reasonable rates.

E-zine Advertising Options and Rates

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.

Website Advertising Options and Rates

1. Full Banner ads

HOME page - www.horizonsunlimited.com/

47,000 plus pageviews per month for the home page alone.

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

47,000 plus pageviews per month for the home page alone.

Price per month

Three months: US$300 = US$900
Six months: US$250 = US$1500
Twelve months: US$200 = US$2400

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

47,000 plus pageviews per month for the home page alone.

Price per month

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

1b. In the right or left column

47,000 plus pageviews per month for the home page alone.

Price per month

Top Right above the fold:

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

Middle, right or left

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

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

Three months: US$120 = US$360
Six months: US$100 = US$600
Twelve months: US$90 = US$1080

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)

Price per month per page:

Three months: US$10 = US$30
Six months: US$9 = US$54
Twelve months: US$7 = US$84

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/

47,000 plus pageviews per month for the home page alone.

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

Three month: US$90 = US$270
Six months: US$80 = US$480
Twelve months: US$60 = US$720

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:

Three month: US$4 = US$12
Six months: US$3 = US$18
Twelve months: US$2 = US$24

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 in your link is US$20 per month IF you also do an ezine ad AS WELL, 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 Links page AND in the special Tour Companies 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.

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.

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Bulletin Board (the HUBB) Advertising Options and Rates

Contact us for rates. Forums available from only US$30 per month!

Search Engine Options and Rates

Choose a word or words! Go to the Search Engine main page and search on "New Zealand" for instance, for an idea of how it works. (A lot like Google "adwords")

Contact us for rates and further info.

Rates effective:

Jan 1, 2008 and subject to change without notice.

Requests for specific position will be given appropriate priority.

Placing Your Ad:

Contact us to place an ad. If you don't get a response within a few days, your mail has probably been caught in a spam trap - please try again.

Payment:

Payment is required in full before an ad is placed. PayPal is preferred, see below.

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:

New to PayPal? Sign-Up here

Closing Dates:

The Horizons Unlimited Motorcycle Travellers' e-zine is published monthly, on or about the first of the month. Ads must be in and paid by three days before publication.

Submission Guidelines: Copy & Graphics

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.

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.

Ad Design Tips (from www.MarketingSherpa.com)

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.

Refusal of ads:

We reserve the right to refuse any ad at any time for no other reason than we don't like it. We are very reasonable. No porn, politics, racial, hate etc. allowed.

Privacy Policy:

We are a 100% opt-in only list. We do not sell or rent or lend our mailing list. Don't even ask. And please don't put us on a junk mail list - or ANY list. We absolutely do NOT deal with anyone who sends us unsolicited commercial email / spam. Privacy Policy in detail here.

What are you waiting for? Contact us NOW to place YOUR ad on the world's premier motorcycle travel website. You'll be glad you did!