Do Banner Ads Make Sense?

Just thinking out loud here, and I realize this isn’t a terribly original thought.

I don’t believe I’ve ever clicked on a banner ad, except by accident or unless it mentioned a special deal for a specific product, service, or event I was already interested in. And believe me, I’ve seen a ton of banner ads.

In contrast, I have clicked on informative contextual text ads served up by Google Adsense and its competitors, both on web sites and in search engine results.

This makes me wonder why so many sites junk up their layout with banner ads…

…Especially when they load up a page with a several postage-stamp-sized ads (often animated GIFs that shift annoyingly in your peripheral vision as you try to read), as is commonly the case on news sites. (Here’s a randomly chosen example.)

I suppose that most visual advertising has always seemed like mumbo-jumbo to me – the idea of visual branding, or brand repetition, of subconscious logo recognition, etc. I mean, I’m sure it has some effect, especially for mass-market consumer products like Coca-Cola. But for most offerings? It just seems ludicrous to run those kinds of ads online, where people are more focused on content and relevancy.

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This entry was written by Amy Gahran and posted on August 22, 2005 at 9:02 am and filed under Content Style & Business. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Comments are closed, but you can leave a trackback: Trackback URL.

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5 Comments so far (Add 1 more)

1. The question of why a site would choose banner ads over contextual ads is a good one.

My guess is that those sites make more money with banner ads
(click through rates aren’t the only thing that determine how
much money you earn - for example maybe they get a bigger cut
of a smaller overall pie).

There are also other ways to price ads, such as per impression
instead of per click. Maybe they just don’t know any better.
Or maybe they like the detailed reporting you get with most
banner ad networks as opposed to the very little amount of
detail that you get with most contextual ad providers.

And in certain cases (such as for content categories like
technology or games), banner ads may actually receive higher
click throughs…

[Reply]

1. Yossi Goldlust on August 24th, 2005 at 5:17 pm
while experienced surfers are all but blind to banners, new larger standardised formats and most crucially, increased relevancy are going some way to help. Gawker media (eg screenhead) are starting on the right tracks. it’s down to the media owners and agencies to get the right ads to the right people, and stop viewing it like carpet bombing (like direct mail was 20 years ago).

[Reply]

2. anthony on August 23rd, 2005 at 6:25 am
Think about this….how many times have you cicked by accident? You are just one accidental click out of….100? No multiply that by a 1,000,000 page views and voila, mortgage paid. Okay I have made about a cup of coffee and a newspaper.

[Reply]

3. Jim Turner on August 22nd, 2005 at 5:56 pm
I think they were so abused in years past that they have now become nearly invisible.

Exactly.

For “experienced” web surfers banner ads barely exist, but for “new surfers” I’m guessing that they are marginally effective. As time goes on I think that banner ads will disappear (we can always hope!).

[Reply]

4. doug on August 22nd, 2005 at 3:06 pm
I think they were so abused in years past that they have now become nearly invisible.

Content relevant text ads seem to be the only thing that will work in the future.

[Reply]

5. Lumpy on August 22nd, 2005 at 12:24 pm