Most people will agree publicly that they never click on banner ads. Then they go home and click on
them without even knowing it. Banner ads today are all about creative placement which can work well when done right.
It’s true that they’ve lost their effectiveness significantly… In 1994, webmasters could EXPECT 5% or more clickthru rates for semi-targeted banner ads! We were in the infancy of marketing on the internet and back in those days we all thought that Advertising wouldn’t go very far online! How naive we all were…
But in 2000, Harvard University did an in-depth experiment on web surfing with the conclusion that we had trained ourselves to avoid looking at banner ads. Specifically, the strip across the top 10% of the screen was virtually invisible to us already.
It’s true that they’ve lost their effectiveness significantly… In 1994, webmasters could EXPECT 5% or more clickthru rates for semi-targeted banner ads! We were in the infancy of marketing on the internet and back in those days we all thought that Advertising wouldn’t go very far online! How naive we all were…
But in 2000, Harvard University did an in-depth experiment on web surfing with the conclusion that we had trained ourselves to avoid looking at banner ads. Specifically, the strip across the top 10% of the screen was virtually invisible to us already.