adhang display digital marketing NigeriaWhat is Banner Advertising?

We are used to the term banners on offline concept to refer to advertisement billboards that are placed to gain attention of the people. In the same way, the promotion method by which graphical representations are placed on websites on the top, bottom or side locations, are known as internet banner ads. There are both text based and image based banners found on the web and the image based ads are more prominent.

 

Online Banner Ads Based on Webpage Location

There are popular kinds of online banner ads based on their position on the webpage.

  • Leaderboard: Horizontal internet banner ads that usually fill the space between the title of the page and the page content are called as leaderboard banner ads. The dimension is mostly 780 X 90 pixels. The advertiser is given prominent space by staying on top.
  • Skyscraper: Skyscrapers are vertical internet banners which are tall and are usually placed towards the right side of the website. Usual dimension is 160X600 pixels. This one stays in visibility even after the user scrolls down to the website content.

Online banner ads which measure 300X250 are known as rectangular ads and there are also tiles used for advertisement which measure 200X80 or 150 X300. These are standard measurements.

 

Online Banner Ads Based on Kind of Image used

Banner Ads can also be differentiated based on the kind of image used. They are

  • Static Banners: As the name implies, they are simple images with some texts. This kind of ad is used to give a blend-in effect into a website or blog so that it does not distract the viewer but still stays attractive enough for the viewer to click through. These are the most traditional kind of banners and is not priced too high. Considering the current trend in banner ads, they receive more click throughs.
  • Flash Banners: Flash animation is used in flash banner ads. By animation, it means that sounds and effects can be used in these ads. It can work like a snippet of video ad. Flash ads are usually used when a broader message is to be conveyed and sounds can get easy attention. The disadvantage is that these do not work well on mobile browsers and also in computers without Flash plug-in installed.
  • GIF Banners: Gif’s are becoming a trend in recent times regaining their lost popularity. They load quickly due to the small size and open in mobile and any browsers without the need for plugins They are comparatively easier to make when compared to flash banners and thus cost less.

 

Popular Online Banner Ads Based on Behavior

  • Trick banner: A banner ad that attempts to trick people into clicking it, usually by imitating an operating system or software error/action message.
  • Wallpaper banner: background images appearing behind a page
  • Pop-up banner: A pop-up ad is a pop-up window used for advertising. When the program is initiated by some user action, such as a mouse click or a mouseover , a window containing an offer for some product or service appears in the foreground of the visual interface.
  • Pop-under banner:  a pop-under banner is a window that is created but temporarily “hidden” behind the window of a Web site that the user has chosen to visit. When the visitor leaves the site that was being visited, the pop-under window becomes visible. Pop-under banner is generally used for advertising.
  • Map ad: The Ad Unit creates context-sensitive display advertising based on the Maps current viewport.
  •  Interstitial ad: Interstitial ads are full screen ads that cover the interface of their host application. They’re typically displayed at natural transition points in the flow of an application, such as between activities or during the pause between levels in a game.
  •  Polite ad: A polite banner is a flash-enabled banner that uses polite loading. A sequential downloading process which allow large file sizes to fit with visitors’ experience.  A polite ad consists of an initial lightweight file that waits for the web page to fully load before loading in additional files.
  • Expanding ad: An expanding ad is a rich media frame ad that changes dimensions upon a predefined condition, such as a preset amount of time a visitor spends on a webpage, the user’s click on the ad, or the user’s mouse movement over the ad.[31] Expanding ads allow advertisers to fit more information into a restricted ad space.
  •  Floating ad: A floating ad is a type of rich media Web advertisement that appears uninitiated, superimposed over a user-requested page, and disappears or becomes unobtrusive after a specific time period (typically 5-30 seconds).

 

First Ever Online Banner Ad

The first ever Banner add was created by Joe McCambley in October 1994 hosted on hotwired.com. The advertisement had received 44% clicks. The ad simply said” Have you ever clicked your mouse right Here? You Will”

 

How Does Online Banner Ads Work?

The banners placed on a website are linked to the website that is advertised. Even though most online banner ads have clickable links, there are yet others which simply promote products or a service and the purpose would be just to create brand awareness rather than clicks to the website. The space for online banner ads are usually taken up on high ranking websites, but a good online banner advertising agency would ask its advertisers to consider other factors like target audience. The banner ad placement website should have a similar target audience as required for the product promoted; else the purpose of placing the ad will not be rightly served.

 

Effectiveness of Online Banner Ads

There are several ways by which the advertiser takes note of the success of an online banner ad placed on a publisher website. These are measured by CTR, page views, and amount spent per sale.

  • Clicks from banner: These are measured with specific inbuilt codes in the banner through which the advertiser can get to keep a count of the number of visitors that have gone to the advertiser website through the banner ad on the specific publisher site. Advertisers use this to pay the publisher on a CPC (Cost per click) method. Click through rate is evaluated with a ratio of the number of clicks against the number of publisher page impressions. This gives the efficiency of the banner ad in terms of the number of visitors who clicked the banner ad after coming to the site.
  • Page Views: This is measured as impressions received in situations where the advertiser measures the success of the banner ad based on the number of visitors that have seen the website with the banner ad on it. Even though this does not give an exact measure of the number of visitors that are interested or encaptured by the ad, this method is preferred by some advertisers as they pay the publisher site based on the cost per thousand impression method.
  • Cost per sale: Advertisers use cookies to keep a measure of the sale that takes place through a banner on a publisher website. There are mostly used in affiliate tracking method where the shopping history is linked with the source of the banner link.

 

Tips to Create Luring Internet Banner Ads

The increasing amount of annoying internet banner ads are making people skip the banners which keep popping up on pages. The reason for this is mostly because of the spammy look of the banner or its irrelevance to the viewer. This has also been referred to as banner blindness and the need is to create luring banner ads which can make people interested in clicking at them. Simple tips to a good banner are

  • Keep the banner simple and clean without too many images and colors.
  • Explain the ad in clear with a button for call to action.
  • Redirect the click to the exact purpose website as provided in the ad snippet.
  • Place the ads on the right websites what come in the same niche segment or target audience.
  • Try innovative and interactive banner ideas
  • Keep the content precise.

Conclusion

Even though reports say that banner ads are losing its effect in the advertising industry, a well planned and executed online banner advertisement can prove its effectiveness. Creativity and specificity can play key roles.