Banner Ads

If you've spent any time surfing the Internet, you've seen more than your fair share of banner ads. These small rectangular advertisements appear on all sorts of Web pages and vary considerably in appearance and subject matter, but they all share a basic function: if you click on them, your Internet browser will take you to the advertiser's Web site. But how do they work and why are they there?

Banner ads are usually relatively simple pieces of HTML code, but their presence on the Web and their importance in Internet-based business is immense.

You will examine banner ads and their place on the Internet. We'll see how they work, how advertisers rate their effectiveness, and how you can use them to advertise your site or bring in revenue.

We will also examine the technology behind them and look at some of the different forms they can take.

Love them or hate them, banner ads are one of the dominant forms of advertising online. Due to the widespread acceptance of the standard 468x60 banner ad size, buyers can easily secure placements at most sites, and publishers can accept ads from most advertisers.

Banner ads were initially judged primarily on the basis of click-through rate (CTR). In the early days of the Web, click-through rates were generally much higher than they are now, perhaps due to the novelty factor. Other causes for the decline in CTR may include technical limitations, the awkward horizontal shape, poor banner design, an excessive percentage of run-of-network buys, and accumulated bad experiences of Web surfers.

"Banners never work" is a common refrain from the anti-banner crowd. Although click-through rates have gone consistently downward, the same can be said of banner ad prices. It is still possible to achieve a click-through rate many times the industry average by combining good placement and design. Combining below-average ad rates and above-average response rates can lead to an acceptable return on investment, just as in any other advertising medium.

When it comes to creating great banner ads, there are a lot of subtleties you need to take into consideration. One major consideration is the message that you wish to portray to the viewer of the ad about your particular product or service. Lets say you have product(s) which have a great focus on quality (like Apple), you would want to sculpt your ad in a certain way to reflect that image of quality. There are many ways to achieve this, and I have listed a few below that we used when developing our own clients ads.

1. Imagery


2. Branding


3. Call to action


4. Background


5. Strong text


6. Highlighting