XChangeBanners Review: Banner Advertising, Promo Codes & More
XChangeBanners is a specialized banner-advertising exchange rather than a traditional safelist or traffic exchange.
The concept is simple: members display other people’s banner advertisements on their websites or advertising pages, earn banner-exchange credits from the exposure they provide, and then use those credits to have their own banners displayed throughout the network.
For marketers who primarily want banner impressions, that narrower focus can actually be an advantage. You’re not dealing with a system packed with dozens of different ad formats. The central purpose is exchanging banner advertising.
XChangeBanners also offers paid account upgrades that add substantial amounts of banner exchange credits, increase the number of banners you can have in the system, improve your credit-earning rate, and add referral commissions.
XChangeBanners at a Glance
| Feature | Free | 1-Month Upgrade | 3-Month Upgrade |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free | $5.95 | $17.95 |
| Banner Exchange Credits | — | 100,000/month | 400,000/quarter |
| Exchange Earnings | Standard | 1.5 credits/unique view | 1.5 credits/unique view |
| Banner Impressions on Splash Pages | Limited | Unlimited Free | Unlimited Free |
| 468×60 Banners | Limited | Up to 20 | Up to 20 |
| 125×125 Banners | Limited | Up to 20 | Up to 20 |
| 728×90 Banners | Limited | Up to 20 | Up to 20 |
| 300×250 Banners | Limited | Up to 20 | Up to 20 |
| Hourly Credit Limit (CPH) | — | Yes | Yes |
| Random Referrals | — | Yes | Yes |
| Direct Referral Commission | — | 40% | 50% |
| Spotlight Login Ad Rotator | — | — | Yes |
The paid membership information above comes directly from the current upgrade information you supplied.
What Is XChangeBanners?
XChangeBanners is a banner advertising exchange designed specifically around exchanging banner impressions.
Rather than purchasing every banner impression with cash, members can participate in the exchange and earn credits by displaying other members’ advertisements.
Those credits can then be used to display your own banners.
This makes the platform particularly relevant for people who operate:
- Websites
- Blogs
- Landing pages
- Splash pages
- Traffic resources
- Advertising pages
- Affiliate marketing sites
If you’re primarily interested in banner advertising, XChangeBanners is much more focused than a typical safelist.
Is XChangeBanners Free?
Yes.
There is a free account, allowing you to participate without purchasing an upgrade.
The paid accounts are optional upgrades that increase your advertising capacity and introduce additional benefits.
The two upgrade options you supplied are:
- 1 Month — $5.95
- 3 Months — $17.95
There are no recurring subscription details in the information supplied, so I would describe these as account upgrades for the stated periods, rather than assume they automatically renew.
XChangeBanners 1-Month Upgrade — $5.95
The 1-month upgrade costs $5.95.
For that price, you receive:
- One month of upgraded membership
- 100,000 banner exchange credits added monthly
- Increased chance of your banners being displayed
- Ability to limit hourly credits consumed by your banners
- Unlimited free banner impressions on splash pages
- Up to 20 468×60 banners
- Up to 20 125×125 banners
- Up to 20 728×90 banners
- Up to 20 300×250 banners
- 1.5 credits per unique view earned through the exchange
- Random referrals
- 40% commission on purchases made by direct referrals
For $5.95, that’s a fairly substantial increase in advertising capacity.
XChangeBanners 3-Month Upgrade — $17.95
The 3-month upgrade costs $17.95.
It includes:
- Three months of upgraded membership
- 400,000 banner exchange credits added quarterly
- Ability to limit hourly credit consumption
- Unlimited free banner impressions on splash pages
- Up to 20 exchange banners
- 1.5 credits per unique view
- Random referrals
- 50% direct referral commissions
- Your link added to the Spotlight Login Ad Rotator
The 3-month plan is therefore more than simply a longer version of the 1-month membership.
It also increases the direct referral commission from 40% to 50% and adds the Spotlight Login Ad Rotator.
How Does the XChangeBanners Credit System Work?
The basic concept is an exchange:
Display banners → earn credits → spend credits displaying your banners.
The paid accounts receive a large block of credits automatically.
The 1-month account receives 100,000 credits per month, while the 3-month account receives 400,000 credits for the three-month period.
The upgraded accounts also earn 1.5 credits per unique view through the exchange.
That means your own website or advertising page can potentially contribute to your advertising balance while displaying other members’ banners.
Banner Sizes
One of the more useful things about XChangeBanners is the number of banner formats supported.
The upgrade information specifically lists:
468×60
The traditional horizontal banner format.
Upgraded members can have up to 20 of these banners.
125×125
The smaller square banner format commonly used in sidebars and advertising directories.
Upgraded members can have up to 20.
728×90
The large horizontal leaderboard-style banner.
Upgraded members can have up to 20.
300×250
The rectangular ad format commonly used within content areas and sidebars.
Upgraded members can have up to 20.
That’s potentially 80 banner slots across the four listed formats for an upgraded account.
Unlimited Free Banner Impressions on Splash Pages
Another interesting benefit of the paid upgrades is unlimited free banner impressions on splash pages.
This is separate from the normal banner exchange credit system.
For someone who operates splash pages or similar advertising pages, this can be valuable because you’re able to get banner exposure without consuming your normal exchange-credit balance for those impressions.
Limit Your Hourly Credit Consumption
The upgraded memberships also provide the ability to set a credits-per-hour (CPH) limit.
This is a useful feature if you have a large number of credits and don’t want your banners consuming them too rapidly.
For example, instead of allowing your banners to consume credits as quickly as the exchange permits, you can establish a limit on how many credits are used per hour.
That gives you more control over the pace of your advertising.
Random Referrals
Both paid upgrades include random referrals.
This is an additional benefit beyond the banner exchange itself.
The idea is to help upgraded members build their downline by receiving referrals from the system.
The information supplied doesn’t specify the exact number or frequency of random referrals, so I wouldn’t put a specific number in the review.
XChangeBanners Referral Program
The referral program is another difference between the two upgrades.
1-Month Upgrade
Direct referrals can generate 40% commissions on purchases.
3-Month Upgrade
The commission increases to 50% on purchases made by direct referrals.
That makes the 3-month upgrade more attractive for anyone who intends to actively promote XChangeBanners as an affiliate.
Spotlight Login Ad Rotator
The 3-month membership has one additional feature that the 1-month upgrade doesn’t list:
Your link is added to the Spotlight Login Ad Rotator.
The supplied information says this is added manually.
This gives the 3-month upgrade an additional promotional opportunity beyond the regular banner exchange.
XChangeBanners Promo Codes
I don’t have a verified current XChangeBanners promo code from the information supplied here, so I wouldn’t invent one.
For the finished article, I’d use this section as a recurring CTA for your promo-code email list:
Looking for XChangeBanners promo codes?
We keep track of available bonuses and promotional offers for XChangeBanners and other traffic websites. Join our promo-code email list to receive updates when new offers become available.
That also fits nicely with the internal-link strategy we’re using throughout the directory.
Is XChangeBanners Legit?
Based on the information available for this review, I would characterize XChangeBanners as a specialized advertising exchange rather than make any guarantee about the quality of its traffic.
That’s an important distinction.
A banner exchange can provide a large number of impressions, but impressions aren’t necessarily the same thing as visitors, leads, or sales.
The real question for a marketer is:
How many people actually click the banners, and what happens after they click?
That’s something you’ll want to track independently.
For example, if you’re promoting a squeeze page, I’d use a unique tracking link specifically for XChangeBanners. Then you can measure:
- Banner impressions
- Clicks
- Click-through rate
- Email opt-ins
- Cost per lead
- Sales
That gives you a much better indication of whether the traffic is useful than simply looking at your exchange-credit balance.
Who Is XChangeBanners Best For?
XChangeBanners is particularly suited to people who:
- Want banner advertising
- Have websites where they can display banners
- Use splash pages
- Promote affiliate offers
- Run advertising directories
- Want multiple banner sizes
- Prefer credit-based advertising
- Want to test banner traffic inexpensively
- Want an additional referral-income opportunity
It’s probably not the first site I’d recommend to someone whose entire strategy revolves around email marketing.
But if banner advertising is part of your overall traffic strategy, it’s worth testing.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Free membership available
- Very inexpensive paid upgrades
- $5.95 for one month
- $17.95 for three months
- Large blocks of exchange credits
- Four major banner sizes supported
- Up to 20 banners in each listed format on upgraded accounts
- Unlimited free banner impressions on splash pages
- Hourly credit-consumption controls
- 1.5 credits per unique exchange view for upgraded members
- Random referrals
- Up to 50% direct referral commissions
- Spotlight Login Ad Rotator with 3-month upgrade
Cons
- Much more specialized than a full traffic exchange
- Primarily focused on banner advertising
- Traffic quality needs to be evaluated through your own testing
- Banner impressions don’t guarantee clicks
- Clicks don’t guarantee leads
- Some details of the Free membership aren’t included in the information supplied
Is XChangeBanners Worth Trying?
For the price, I think it’s worth testing.
The biggest selling point is the low cost.
A $5.95 one-month upgrade gives you 100,000 exchange credits, 20 possible banners in each of four formats, unlimited free splash-page impressions, increased exchange earnings, random referrals, and 40% referral commissions.
That’s enough advertising inventory to conduct a legitimate test without spending a lot of money.
The $17.95 three-month upgrade is even more interesting if you already know you want to use the service.
You get 400,000 credits for the three-month period, the same 20-banner limits, 1.5 credits per unique view, random referrals, and the referral commission increases to 50%.
You also get the Spotlight Login Ad Rotator.
I wouldn’t upgrade solely because of the large credit numbers, though.
I’d start by sending traffic to something where you can accurately measure the results.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is XChangeBanners free?
Yes. XChangeBanners offers a free account, with optional paid upgrades.
How much does XChangeBanners cost?
The upgrade options supplied for this review are $5.95 for one month or $17.95 for three months.
How many banner sizes does XChangeBanners support?
The paid upgrade information lists 468×60, 125×125, 728×90, and 300×250 banners.
How many banners can upgraded members have?
Upgraded members can have up to 20 banners in each of the four listed banner formats.
How many credits does the 1-month upgrade provide?
The 1-month upgrade provides 100,000 banner exchange credits per month.
What does the 3-month upgrade provide?
The 3-month upgrade provides 400,000 banner exchange credits for the three-month period, plus 1.5 credits per unique exchange view, random referrals, 50% direct referral commissions, and access to the Spotlight Login Ad Rotator.
Does XChangeBanners have an affiliate program?
Yes. The supplied membership information lists 40% direct referral commissions for the 1-month upgrade and 50% for the 3-month upgrade.
How We Use XChangeBanners
I’d use XChangeBanners primarily as a banner-testing traffic source.
Rather than simply throwing banners at the exchange and judging the site by the number of impressions, I’d create a dedicated tracking link and send traffic to one of our squeeze pages.
Then we’d compare XChangeBanners against the other traffic exchanges and safelists we’re using.
The important numbers would be:
Impressions → clicks → opt-ins → subscribers → sales.
That’s particularly important with banner exchanges because a huge impression count can look impressive while producing very few actual visitors.
If the click-through and opt-in numbers are good enough, the low cost of the upgraded membership could make XChangeBanners a useful supplemental traffic source.
Final Verdict
XChangeBanners is a very focused banner advertising exchange, and that simplicity is probably its biggest advantage.
You’re not paying $50 or $100 just to test it.
The entry-level upgrade is $5.95 for one month, and for that you receive 100,000 banner exchange credits, increased exchange earnings, unlimited free splash-page impressions, increased banner limits, random referrals, and 40% direct referral commissions.
The $17.95 three-month upgrade improves the economics further with 400,000 credits, 50% commissions and the Spotlight Login Ad Rotator.
For someone already using banner advertising as part of a larger traffic strategy, I think XChangeBanners is worth a small test.
The important thing is to measure the traffic rather than getting distracted by the number of exchange credits.
If those impressions turn into clicks and those clicks turn into subscribers, you’ve got something useful.
If they don’t, you’ve only spent a few dollars finding out.
