I'm going to start by telling a story about storytelling.

About a month ago, my fiancé banished me to my home office to research items for our upcoming wedding. Apparently, pointing to pictures of wedding things and saying "that's gross" doesn't count as feedback, so it was time for me to come up with better suggestions on my own and give her some well-deserved rest.

While devotedly pouring over websites dedicated to votive candles and stationary, googling "decoupage", and researching charities for our registry, I was stopped in my tracks by a striking banner ad. It was almost amateurishly simple, but unmistakable in its message: the grainy black and white picture of a middle aged man with solemn eyes and copy that read "STOP THE EXECUTION OF TROY DAVIS!"

Almost two hours later, my fiancé popped in to check on my progress and found that I'd made none. Instead, I had been on the Amnesty International website learning about the Troy Davis case, signing up for their email list, joining their online community, and frantically researching death penalty issues while sharing my findings with my friends and family on Facebook.

We talked it over and decided to save wedding stuff for another day; the task at hand felt so much more important. In the coming days and weeks, we both developed a stronger interest in the Davis case and a connection to AI's work. We decided to donate and became evangelical on our social networks to spread awareness.

As we know now, the outcome of the case was not what we wanted, but we really tried to create impact – and we know that going forward (as a family), we'll be close to AI's mission for life.

The point here is that I would not have internalized the story of this man and his case and the work that AI was doing to preserve his life without seeing that simple banner ad.

It was a first moment of truth and it hooked me into a story that has resonated with me powerfully ever since. It's an instance of advertising as storytelling and it's something many NPOs rarely consider.

For many years, I was an online media planner at one of the world's largest ad agencies, overseeing enormous media buys for brands like wireless companies, cars, deodorant, and the like. I was knee deep in the arcana of media advertising and I always thought that this experience had made me immune to something as simple as the banner I saw from AI.

But, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that while there is a huge amount of online clutter created by for-profit brands, there is space in the universe of paid online advertising for organizations that are seeking to tell their story. The problem (as I see it) is that NPOs don't realize that they can play in this space. They don't understand that advancing the reach of a powerful story through ads isn't as difficult or expensive as they think. In fact, it can be pretty easy if you're willing to invest a little time and money into running smart and well-planned campaigns.

I want to share the basics that your org should think about.

What do paid ads really do?

Define your goals and consider what success looks like.

If you need to build awareness around an issue in a short amount of time, consider running banner ads. Yes, online banners get clicks and drive traffic, but the value doesn't end there. Viewers who see your ad might not click, but they have the opportunity to walk away with awareness of your brand and, if your ad is a crisp shot across the bow, they'll recall your mission and brand ID at a later point.

Remember that average banner click-through is just 0.1% [DoubleClick 2009 Year-in-Review Benchmarks]. That number inches up with fancier and more interactive units like video and rich media. Just don't expect everyone who sees your ad to click – and that's okay.

If your ad can distill your larger story into a concise statement, there's value in simply getting eyes-on impressions.

What do planners need to consider?

The basic considerations for planning any online ad buy are reach, frequency, and targeting.

• Reach: the number of individuals who will have the opportunity to see your ad. In online media buying this is defined as impressions. This is the basic metric most novice media planners will consider above all. On ad networks like the ones mentioned later in this article, impressions are sold on a cost per thousand (CPM) basis. So an ad buy with a $1 CPM rate means each 1,000 unique impressions cost $1. Note: the ad networks covered in this article also offer buys on a cost per click (CPC) basis where advertisers only pay for actual clicks on their ads. This is often the better option depending on the goals of the buy, but more on that later.
• Frequency: the number of times an online user is exposed to your ad. While less important than reach, this metric is key to advertisers who either want to either push multiple exposures (the theory being that multiple exposure to certain ads will drive higher click through rates) or cap their frequency to ensure that the total pool of impressions is not duplicated, thus increasing reach. For most NPOs with smaller budgets who generally need to get as many impressions as possible for their campaigns, reach will be the more important factor of the two. However, if you are running a campaign against a small, tightly defined audience in a short amount of time, upping your frequency is a good tactic for ensuring your ads get seen by the niche group you're after.
• Targeting: this is the most important consideration for any ad planner. Before you even think about building a buy, you need to sit down and define your target audience. Consider their age, prevailing gender, geography and the themes of content that they are viewing online. Build a fictional persona around your "prime prospect". I even give mine names (like an imaginary friend) and create lists of the top twenty websites that they might typically browse – especially those in the context of your cause. For instance, Jane from Chicago loves NPR, gets her news from CNN and Huffington Post and reads product reviews online. This gives the planner a basis for contextually targeting their ads against sites and keywords that make sense against their prospects. Some of these assumptions will come from anecdotal knowledge of your target and some will just come from the gut – and that too is okay. Media planning is as much an art as it a science. As you go, you'll be able to use analytics to validate your assumptions and optimize your ad buys based on what's working.

What do creatives need to consider?

Both of the ad networks I'll outline allow you to build your own banners using templates they provide.

Don't do that.

Spend the time to write and design your own custom banners that do justice to your story.

Remember that these ads are doing double duty for storytelling: they need to distill the story you are trying to tell into a distinct message and they're also the hook that calls people to act and click through to dive deeper and experience the long form story.

The rule of thumb is to keep your copy short, succinct and urgent. Use simple, striking imagery that doesn't get lost in the copy points. Use a clear and distinct call to action that tells the viewer exactly what you want them to do. Finally, make sure that you're connecting them to pages that elaborate on their story. The ad is just the man with the sandwich board outside the peepshow. You need to bring them to an experience on your site that elaborates on your ad's basic premise and completes the narrative you started with the banner.

So how do you get the ads out there?

There are a lot of options for this – and a whole spectrum of costs associated. The following two display networks will allow entry-level advertisers to create their own banner ad campaigns that reach a plurality of the online public. They both work on the same principles of bid-based buys on a CPM or CPC basis, with varying targeting capabilities. Here's the rundown:

Yahoo! MyDisplay Ads (http://advertising.yahoo.com/article/yahoo-my-display-ads.html): This self-service network is the simpler of the two covered. It allows users to upload their own creative and serve it across Yahoo!'s large network of display ad partner sites. You can choose your geography, your demographics, the context of content you want to position your ads within and purchase on a CMP or CPC basis. If purchasing CPC, remember that you'll pay a higher cost for estimated clicks. If you're running more of a direct-response campaign, this is often worth the expense since you're more likely to get a certain amount of estimated clicks based on this bid. There is no minimum budget and I like how Yahoo!'s simple interface lets planners get a confirmed cost for the number of impressions (reach) they will receive before pulling the trigger.

Google Display Network (http://www.google.com/ads/displaynetwork/): Google Display Network, which runs on the same platform as AdWords, is the more complex of the two. Google's ad tool focuses more on keyword targeting along with opportunities to choose specific websites to run your ads through their ad placement tool. Similar to Yahoo!, this network allows you schedule your ad budget based on bids on a CPM and CPC model. Google also provides the option of targeting by demographics as well as geography and allows you to cap your frequency to limit duplicating impressions. One nifty new feature is that you can include +1 buttons on your ads to add a layer of sharability.

Keep in mind that these tools are the basics for learning how to leverage advertising as a storytelling medium. Once you've planned and placed your first ad buy, you'll be able to use these tools to see what worked for you (and just as importantly what didn't) to refine and inform your future efforts and build the skills you need to graduate to more complex ad buying tools and richer more interactive media.

Remember that ads are an opportunity for learning what messages the online public is receptive to and can give you direction around message design for other media you use. Follow the simple rules we've outlined here and in no time your organization can be telling your story to more people in more places than ever before.

Nasser manages marketing for See3's client partners and for See3 itself. He is a specialist in communications planning, client service, and new media activation with a diverse agency background. Previously, Nasser delivered marketing and media campaigns for Procter & Gamble and U.S. Cellular at Starcom Worldwide. He is a graduate of the University of Missouri, loves country music, and drinks an alarming amount of coffee most days.