Keep It or Lose It?

Yuke Tjandra

Banner Ad

Overview

• Banner ad: what is it?• How successful is banner ad?• Banner blindness: what is it?• What can be done about it?

What is Banner Ad?

A graphic image or other media object used as an advertisement displayed on a Web page.1

A special sort of hypertext link that instructs a Web server to bring up a particular Web page when a user clicks on a certain piece of graphics (usually with textual elements) and sometimes animation.2

1 Adapted from: Glossary of Interactive Advertising Terms v. 2.0. 2007. Interactive Advertising Bureau. 24 March. 2008.

< http://www.iab.net/iab_products_and_industry_services/1421/1494 >

2 Harris, Tom. “How Banner Ads Works”. How Stuff Works. 2008. HowStuffWorks, Inc. 24 March. 2008.

< http://money.howstuffworks.com/banner-ad.htm >

Types of Banner Ads

• Originally, banners were non-interactive and relatively unintrusive--static GIF or JPEG image linked to advertiser homepage.

• Nano-site banners: consist of a small HTML page (IFRAME) that can contain an HTML form of interaction.

• Flash-based banners: can play animations and sound, and often interact with the user.

• Intrusive Flash-based banners: play a full-screen overlaid animations when loaded and then shrink to original size. Some banners expand when the user hovers over them with the mouse.

1 Krammer, Viktor. “An Effective Defese against Intrusive Web Advertising”. 2007. 24 March. 2008.

< http://www.quero.at/papers/web_advertising.pdf >

The Objectives of Banner Ads

Bring visitors they would not have had otherwise to the advertiser’s website

Get visitors to take action on the websiteIncrease brand awareness

Harris, T. “How Banner Ads Works”. How Stuff Works. 2008. HowStuffWorks, Inc. 24 March. 2008.

< http://money.howstuffworks.com/banner-ad.htm >

Measuring Banner Ads Success

Clicks/Click-throughsThe number of visitors who click on the banner ad linking to the advertiser's website.

Page views/page impressionsThe number of times a particular Web page has been requested from the server. This may indicate the number of people who have been exposed to the banner ad.

Click-through rate (CTR)The ratio of page views to clicks or the percentage of total visitors to a particular page who actually clicked on the banner ad.

Cost per saleThe measure of how much advertising money is spent on making one sale. Many advertisers keep track of visitor activity using Internet cookies (shopping history + how visitor come to the website).

Harris, T. “How Banner Ads Works”. How Stuff Works. 2008. HowStuffWorks, Inc. 24 March. 2008.

< http://money.howstuffworks.com/banner-ad.htm >

One of the First Banner Ads

A web banner ad from AT&T placed on HotWired in 19941

Clickthrough rate: 100%2

1 “Web Banner." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 22 March 2008. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 25 March. 2008. < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_banner >.

2 Sterne, J. World Wide Web marketing: integrating the web into your marketing strategy. New York: J. Wiley. 2001.

Banner image taken from: http://commercial-archive.com/node/114815

Internet Advertising Revenues by Ad Format

“2006 Full Year Results”. IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC). 2007.

Interactive Advertising Bureau. 24 March. 2008.

< http://www.iab.net/media/file/resources_adrevenue_pdf_IAB_PwC_2006_Final.pdf >

Click-through of the Banner Ads

Nielsen (1997; 2000) reported:click-through rate have decreased from 2.1% (1995) to 0.5% in Oct 1998, and reached 0.2% in May 2000.1,2

DoubleClick (1996) reported:The probability of clicking on a banner drops from a maximum of 2.7% to less than 1% at the fourth exposure 3

1 Nielsen, J. “Methodology weaknesses in Poynter Eyetrack Study”. May 14, 2000. Alertbox. 15 March. 2008.

< http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20000514_weaknesses.html >

2 Nielsen, J. “Why advertising doesn’t work on the Web”. September 1, 1997. Alertbox. 15 March. 2008.

< http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9709a.html >

3 DoubleClick. “Research Findings: Banner Burnout”. 1996.

< http://www.webreference.com/dev/banners/research.html >

Acceptance of the Banner Ads

An internet survey by COBUS (2001) showed:- Nearly half of the respondents reported that they looked at advertising banners if they were well-designed- Less than 25% felt that banner ads were disruptive- Only a third said they ignored banners altogether

The Internet Advertising Bureau (1998) reported:

60% to 70% of survey respondents approved advertisement on the internet

Pagendarm, M. and Schaumburg, H. “Why are users banner-blind? The impact of navigation style on the perception

of web banner”. Journal of Digital Information, Volume 2 Issue 1 Article No. 47 (2001).

Why the Low Click-through Rate?

Users not interested in the advertised product and thus have no reason to click on a banner.

Users have learned that advertising banner often does not deliver its promise and hence chosen to ignore them.

Users have experience with ads that direct users to sites with malicious code or other undesirable results.

Users simply do not notice banners on Web sites, i.e. the banner blindness phenomenon.

Pagendarm, M. and Schaumburg, H. “Why are users banner-blind? The impact of navigation style on the perception

of web banner”. Journal of Digital Information, Volume 2 Issue 1 Article No. 47 (2001).

What is Banner Blindness?

A phenomenon in web usability where Internet users tend to overlook banner-like information.

The term is coined by Benway and Lane (1998)1

1 Benway, J. P. and Lane, D. M. (1998) "Banner Blindness: Web Searchers Often Miss "Obvious" Links" http://www.internettg.org/newsletter/dec98/banner_blindness.html

Research on Banner Blindness

Heatmaps from eyetracking studies by Nielsen Norman Group

Nielsen, J. “Banner Blindness: Old and New Findings”. August 20, 2007. Alertbox. 15 March. 2008.

< http://www.useit.com/alertbox/banner-blindness.html >

Research on Banner Blindness

When participants of Benway’s study were asked to find specific information on a web page, the information was not found if it was embedded in a banner.

Banner located a the top of the page tended to be ignored more often than banners located lower from other links.

Benway, J. P. and Lane, D. M. (1998) "Banner Blindness: Web Searchers Often Miss "Obvious" Links" http://www.internettg.org/newsletter/dec98/banner_blindness.html

What the Researchers Found• People read Web pages in an F-pattern, narrowing their focus as they

scroll down a page of content.• Quick scanning is more common than reading.• On hundreds of pages, users show almost no fixations within

advertisements.• User also do not fixate within design elements that resembles ads, even if

they are not ads.• However, people do look at sponsored links on search pages and images

on search pages.

Nielsen, J. “Banner Blindness: Old and New Findings”. August 20, 2007. Alertbox. 15 March. 2008.

< http://www.useit.com/alertbox/banner-blindness.html >

Research on Online Ad Effectiveness

IAB's cross media optimization studies (XMOS) reported: McDonald's traditional TV and radio campaign increased brand awareness by 187% during the two-week ad blitz, the extra 12% devoted to online ads yielded an increase of 232%.

McDonald's also said it found the Internet an effective tool for reaching its target 18-to 49-year-old target market.

Morrissey, B. “Net Ad Industry Pushes for Bigger Slice of Media Pie”. October 21, 2002. ClickZ. 15 March. 2008.

< http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=1485531 >

Argument for Banner Ads

It is effective for increasing brand awareness and brand recognition, given enough repetition, especially among the 18-to 49-year-old target market

They don’t bring in tens of thousands of leads every hour, but they can find themselves in front of the right people, at the right time, with the right message

Website is not ready to give up key revenue source.

Nielsen, J. “Banner Blindness: Old and New Findings”. August 20, 2007. Alertbox. 15 March. 2008.

< http://www.useit.com/alertbox/banner-blindness.html >

Steel, E. “Marketers seek a banner-blindness cure; videos, mini web sites help steer eyes to ads often ignored by

users”. Wall Street Journal (Eastern Edition). New York, NY: June 20, 2007. 15 March. 2008.

Improving Banner Ads Effectiveness

Banner ads need to be well-placed and contain relevant information to targeted visitors

Incorporating live video campaign creatively (e.g. GE’s ecomagination campaign promoting green energy)

Incorporating mini-Web sites within the box of a banner ad.(e.g. http://imdb.com/)

Make use of 3 most eye-catching design elements: plain text, faces and cleavage (or other “private” body parts)

Nielsen, J. “Banner Blindness: Old and New Findings”. August 20, 2007. Alertbox. 15 March. 2008.

< http://www.useit.com/alertbox/banner-blindness.html >

Steel, E. “Marketers seek a banner-blindness cure; videos, mini web sites help steer eyes to ads often ignored by

users”. Wall Street Journal (Eastern Edition). New York, NY: June 20, 2007. 15 March. 2008.

Avoid the Unfavorable Practices

Putting up excessive ads in one web page.Making the ads look too much like content to trick visitorsMaking the banner ads look like dialog boxes complete with

fake OK and Cancel buttonsPutting banner ads that distract user from reading or navigating

through the main content

Nielsen, J. “Banner Blindness: Old and New Findings”. August 20, 2007. Alertbox. 15 March. 2008.

< http://www.useit.com/alertbox/banner-blindness.html >

Conclusion

Banner blindness is realBanner ad is here to stayDesign carefully to avoid the banner blindness effectJazz up and redesign banners to attract users in a fresh,

innovative wayUsers’ distrust is not helping advertisers’ cause

Nielsen, J. “Banner Blindness: Old and New Findings”. August 20, 2007. Alertbox. 15 March. 2008.

< http://www.useit.com/alertbox/banner-blindness.html >