Banner Ads Still Work If You Know How to Use Them
When the Internet was still taking off, banner ads were regarded as one of the most effective forms of online advertising. Highly noticeable images located on otherwise bland sites attracted attention and encouraged clicks from their visitors, resulting in large volumes of quality traffic.
Marketers who created these advertisements had a very powerful promotional tool at their disposal. First-time Internet users took everything they saw or read at face value, so the promises displayed on those banner ads were enough to bring massive traffic to your site.
But that's all in the past. Nowadays, banner ads only average a measly 1 click in 1,000 impressions.
So What Happened?
Before you jump ship and decide against using banner advertising for the rest of your life, it’s important to understand what really happened and why so many of these large and colorful ads fail to bring the desired results.
Most of these statistics come from website owners and advertisers who are terrible at their jobs. They treat banner ads as the infallible marketing tool that they once were, only to discover that modern Internet users are more annoyed by traditional promotional banners than they are interested in them.
What’s the Solution?
Because of these dramatic changes in website visitor behavior, small businesses and large companies that are serious about driving quality traffic to their sites are constantly inventing new ways of appealing to a new breed of Internet users, leaving their slow competitors behind with terrible stats like a 0.1% click-through rate.
Professional advertisers realize the value of a standard 468 x 60 banner and use the space they are given with maximum efficiency. A creative and unique ad can completely turn around the reaction of your potential buyers and customers, from annoyance to fascination.
Targeting Mobile Traffic
In order to make your banner advertising campaigns more efficient, you have to make them compatible with mobile devices, as well as desktop computers. Targeting tablet and smartphone users is essential in the modern business environment, and new methods that make banners friendlier for a touchscreen environment are already emerging.
For your business to stay relevant, your ads have to fit nicely with the dynamic website design features experienced by users browsing the web on their mobile devices. You must be able to see your banner ads from many different perspectives and find a solution that benefits them all equally.
Promoting User Interaction
Another important thing to consider is the increasing need for user interaction on your ads. While advertisers who create banners that encourage some input from website visitors in the form of “Click Me” buttons and mini-games is certainly a step in the right direction, the possibilities reach far beyond that.
The state of modern HTML, Internet connections and average computer processing speed allows marketers to create advanced interactive content that transforms the traditional concept of banner ads into a new advertising platform for the businesses of tomorrow.
