Banner Ads: Not Always the Bread and Butter of Your Business

Where many online businesses make their money is often from the banner ads that they have so proudly displayed along the sides of their web pages. However, how much is too much?

Not Always the Bread and Butter of Your Business:

Isn’t wasn’t that long ago (maybe five minutes perhaps) that I was surfing the Internet and came across a website in which the content was actually quite good. However, I was extremely distracted by all of the banner advertising that was displayed on the landing page. Across the top, along the sides, down at the bottom…I felt as if I was being surrounded by banner ads.

It made me feel kind of webpage-a-phobic. Eventually, I grew annoyed enough and left the website simply because it was too distracting. I’m not the only one who follows this natural progression, however. There are countless others who find banner ads to be incredibly distracting, and it seems as if some website owners don’t realize exactly how distracting it can be. So, if this is the case, then why do so many Internet marketers insist on the banner ads?

In 2007, Dave Morgan published an article called Outing the Heavy Clickers in which he described the behavior behind those people who actually clicked on banner ads and other types of PPC-related items:

While focusing on clicks makes a lot of sense in search advertising, since the audience has already been highly qualified by their search term and is “hand-raising” — announcing their interest in a particular product or service or activity — it is logical to focus on a click as a very good proxy for the generation of a qualified lead. It makes sense. It works. The market loves it; Google will do more than $10 billion in revenue selling clicks this year. No further discussion needed, right? Not the case when it comes to display ads delivered on Web pages containing content or applications, where the audience is not in an active search- and-buy mode. [source]

In the end, Morgan denounced banner advertising, explaining that most people do not click on ads; therefore, banner advertising is not necessarily an accurate representation of the number of people who will actually be the ones who eventually use your product or service. My advice? Lose some of the advertising on your landing page, and keep it simple.