Web Banner Advertising
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Web banner advertising has become a traditional staple of Internet advertising for countless large and small businesses seeking to gain the attention of hundreds of millions of web surfers every year. They are called banners because that is exactly what the advertisements are, usually strung across the tops and bottom of monitor screens on page after page of a site's content. Over the years since the late eighties, these types of ads have made a lot of money for a lot of companies and are usually not intrusive unless the advertisements flash like emergency lights or blow in the breeze like a flag. But the ads are not limited to going left to right or vice versa across the screen; the ads can also drop down like the unfurling of a flag from a ten story building. There are different approved sizes, each costing more as the advertisements grow in size. The sponsor of Internet advertising on other websites may not be able to have as large a web banner advertising presence on a particular site as it may desire. The owner of the website may have a restriction as to how big an ad of this sort can be.
In most cases this type of marketing has a very low click thru rate, hovering around one half of one percent. A person might think those low a numbers would scare off most potential advertisers, but the banner advertisement has not died by any stretch. The very low click thru rate for general web banner advertising has been shown to be raised when a highly focused, targeted approach is taken to the choice of websites and their particular subject matter. But let's see how this all plays out in money terms. Suppose a shoe company decides to pay ten dollars for every 1000 impressions with its online banner campaign. An impression is an event that occurs when an ad shows up on the page a viewer is scanning. Now the average click thru rate is about one half of one percent, so five viewers out of a thousand click on the shoe company's ad.
In the first batch of numbers it has cost the company two dollars for each of those visitors, a possibly acceptable per click cost. But the average conversion rate is only two percent so how much did the real pair of shoes cost the company in advertising fees? Do the math and you'll find it to be one hundred dollars. So the company had better be selling a shoe that has been worn by Kobie Bryant, autographed in blood, has an optional jet pack and can turn instantly into army boots when the wearer is attacked by wild dogs. But there are a couple of things to get that advertising more in line with reality. First get the click thru rate higher and secondly get the cost for a thousand impressions (CPM) down and the web banner advertising becomes just a little tastier.
When a business decides to undertake an advertising campaign using banners, the company will need to decide what size banner will be used. In most cases the larger the banner the higher the CPM will be. And the only really concrete measure of success is the click thru rate. Much of the job of a company that might provide web banner advertising is to supply the customer with reports and studies on the click rates of various websites so that a proper decision can be made. It seems there is an epidemic of grayness these days: there are not right and wrong, just gray areas where one's own experience makes things "relative." but the Bible is always black and white, night and day. ""And this is the record, that God hath given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." (1 John 5:11-12)
Banner ads may be the least intrusive of all the types because they usually sit there and don't invade your space. But there are things about banner ads that drive people crazy like fake dialogue meant to engage the person but they are really a link to something completely different. And some ads, including web banner advertising have fake close buttons; there is no way to get rid of them! Aggravating! But study has shown that almost no one looks at web banner advertising that looks like an ad Instead, there are now attempts to make ads look like they are a part of the website's content in order to increase click thru rates and of course increase business. But then there are ethical issues that come into play and it makes one long for the day when someone's yes meant yes and a no meant no.
If a business is planning to use web banner advertising the need for overall research is pressing. The truth is that click thru rates on these types of ads continue to fall. And there is one other thing to consider in this discussion about banner ads; lower income viewers are more likely to click on web banner advertisements. So advertisers are looking at new ways to run their advertisements. How about a video that runs as soon as a surfer hits a landing page? No choice about it being on and off and maybe no escape until it ends. But how many websites would even allow that kind of thing to happen?
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