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Journal tomhudson's Journal: Banner ads are dead - but try explaining that to people 39

Journal by tomhudson
Poll: Banner ads experience
Part 1: Purchasers:

[ ] Waste of money
[ ] We're trying to "build a brand"
[ ] Used to work, but don't any more
[ ] They work(ed) for us
[ ] CowboyNeil IS my banner ad

Part 2: Users

[ ] Click on them (how often and why)?
[ ] Blocked - so I don't see them
[ ] Not blocked, but ignored
[ ] Only click on ads promising Nathalie Portman naked pouring hot grits down my jockeys

Background: I've been arguing with our suppliers (and the boss) about the effectiveness of banner ads. Specifically, we've been wasting money on them, and my daily review of the server logs proves it. --------------

So, what happens when I show the discrepancies between their stats and the actual logs (I filter out duplicates - I want to know how many UNIQUE referrals from each banner; plus, even taking into account dupes, their stats are bogus).

Well, I'm told I'm being too harsh. I challenged them to come up with a single independent study, just one, that shows banner ads are effective. They can't find any. Ha! Harsh? I have barely begun ...

In contrast, I see study after study that proves they're a total waste of money. For example:

  1. The standard top-of-the-page 468x60 banner ad is the LEAST likely to even be seen (eye-tracking study shows the eye never even passes over it in 80% of all cases)
  2. Click-thru rates have been in constant decline; from 2% at the start of the "banner boom" to 1%, then 0.5% in 2000, then 0.3% in 2002. They're realistically around 0.1% today (in other words, 1 in 1000).
  3. Conversion rates (the percentage of clickers who will actually take some action - buy, sign up, whatever) are also low - 0.5% to 1%. So, you need to show between 100,000 and 200,000 of the "standard banner ads" to actually get 1 result.
  4. TV, radio, and print media all have lower cost -per-result and higher retention than web advertising
  5. Animated ads (flash, gif, etc) are all less effective than plain text (by a factor of 7).

That last one was the biggest surprise, but it makes sense. People have adapted to web advertising, just as they have to all other forms of advertising - they can "tune it out" very effectively. And lets face it - if you're surfing the web for info, flashy ads just scream "WASTE OF TIME!"

We're spending thousands on this shit. Supposedly, one of our suppliers will be in tomorrow to try to justify our continued presence. Fuck that!

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Banner ads are dead - but try explaining that to people More

Banner ads are dead - but try explaining that to people

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  • A couple of times i have decided to go with competitors products after crappy ads from certain companys.
    Even the less well educated people i know nowadays just avoid all banner ads and block them out either with an ad-block extension or mentally(or witha CSS file).
    They are a scurge that will not die and they really need a beheading
  • > if you're surfing the web for info, flashy ads
    > just scream "WASTE OF TIME!"

    Indeed. I have followed a couple of ads in the last few months, and they've all been plain text. FLash and strobing animations basically say "Ignore me!" as far as I'm concerned.

    • It depends on your audience.

      I've clicked on a couple of "banner ads" -- although I must say that the last ones I clicked were on craftster, and at 125px x 125px are much less intrusive than what is normally considered a banner ad.

      • Re:Flash(iness) (Score:3, Informative)

        by tomhudson ( 43916 )
        From what I can tell, it seems that, in the case of ads directed at the general populate, the top banner position isn't even looked at (the eye never goes there) in 80% of cases.

        Also, that to be effective, it's got to be a much larger block than in the past (higher-res monitors, I guess). Seems like 250x250 is about borderline.

        So here's the questions

        1. on the ads that you clicked - did you do anything (was there any conversion from click-through to consumer action)?
        2. was it for something you already recog
        • I have purchased some items after following text ads.

          I can recall ever 'converting' only one banner ad -- other than copping a couple of downloads for software demos -- I thought the original Dreamweaver "For people who see the world in code" ads were pretty cool, tried the pre-release, and bought the 1.0 when it came out.

          I guess that would have been in 1998 or so?

        • 1. I bookmarked the page for payday. While I didn't buy at that exact moment, I saw things that I will buy once I have the money.

          2. No. The ads are for things not generally recognizable by brand name, including hand-spun fibers, handmade crafts, and knitting needles.
    • I've taken to adblock'ing *anything* that moves ... or blinks ... or makes noise.

      To get me to click, you've got to make me *want* to see what's on the other end of the link. Most ads fail rather miserably at that. If the ad does not leave the viewer with with a "pressing question" that will only be answered if they click, they won't click.

      As for conversions, that's up to the site, not the advertiser. I've never understood why doubleclick, et al, get paid for those. Getting someone to my site, sure, but

      • Part of the debate over conversions goes along the line that if you "trick" someone into clicking something.

        For example, I can guarantee you LOTS of clicks for your site if you run an ad saying "Looking for free porn, booze and drugs? Click here!" But this won't help if you're not selling porn, booze, and drugs, but are instead selling Brand A Widgets.

        This is why conversion rates are important. If the ad, through deception, generates clicks from people who are NOT interested in your product, its worthles

  • ces, but I generally tune them out.
    The real art form is in dropping enough subtle fact bombs in the face of the opponent that they get the picture themselves.
    The frontal assualt, like a banner ad, hardly ever achieves results.
    • I'd have to agree - the whole "content is king" thing.

      Unfortunately, when you're purchasing ad space, its because you are hoping the current content will benefit you. Seems that in many/most cases, there is no "halo effect". Either that, or, unlike other media, there are even MORE /distractions/shiny clicky things/ on the net.

  • Its all a question of context. If you have a fairly plain site or one that uses variations on a single colour (note slashdot as a good example, the diamond among the coals advertising model), one banner advert stands out and draws the eye. If you have a webstrosity with bouncing gifs, many-hued fonts, and banners strewn about with gay abandon, your banner advert isn't going to get much if any notice.

    Also it depends on what the site is about. If for example, you are posting to a forum, you stop and think

    • I'd agree with most of what you're saying, but oddly enough, the only proper studies (as opposed to "webmaster hype") indicated that text was more likely to be clicked on than graphics-only ... even putting a "click here" resulted in a 15% improvement. Whodathunkit?
  • I dont click on banner ads out of principle, but that doesnt mean I ignore them.
    They sometimes act as reminders to websites I havent been to for a while.
    For example, recently on slashdot There was a thinkgeek ad and i though "hmm, I havent checked that out for a few weeks, maybe they have someting new".
    I ended up buying something, but it was not because of a new company, simply a reminder of one i have used before.
    • I first heard about Thinkgeek because of the ads I saw on Slashdot... every once in a while I head back to check it out.

      Now I just block the ./ ads. :)
      • I'll bet you that for eveery person who goes to thinkgeek because of an ad, there's at least one who goes because of word-of-mouth.

        Look at Apple - seems you can't go anywhere on /. w/o hearing something about the iPod or the MiniMac. Microsofts' response - "Hey tell us why you're so pASSionate about Windows and you'll get to meet BillyBoy" ... and look at us all laughing in derision.

        ... if somebody gave me a choice between a free Windowx box and a free Mac, I'd take the Mac. My bet is most people would

  • Banner advertising died like 2 or 3 years ago. Anyone who is still inclined to use it is too delusional to listen to reason. Nothing you can do.
  • I seldom perceive them at all. They might as well not exist.

    It does make sense that "hiding" the nature of an ad by making it text would gather more attention.

    Good luck getting a better solution implemented at your company.
    • I'm just trying to get them to drop banner ads altogether. We were all set to do that last week, but the rep started to cry ...

      ... Afterwards, the boss went on about how he hates dealing with women in business because of things like that - and, no, before you ask, I have no problem with women in business ... but it *was* embarrassing for everyone involved ...

  • I block _all_ Flash adverts and flashing/animated advertisements.
    • I don't bother blocking them on most machines. It's not like I notice them any more, anyway ...

      This way, they're serving their ads, but their click-thru rate is falling off the face of the earth.

      I've clicked on 2 or three in the last decade ... from IBM, iirc.

      One thing I've noticed is that some of the sites that let us upload product pix and descriptions don't escape the text we send up, so I can include javascript to make our own popover layers with text ads that don't scroll, that cover up their bann

  • I don't know how "normal" I am, but I have used WebWasher on my Windows computers, haven't quite found a good cookie/popup/animation/flash blocker for Linux yet.

    I reset the statistics in January, because it had wrapped around, and wasn't providing useful numbers any more, but it now tells me that I have filtered:
    ~23K images, ~10K popups, ~14K scripts, ~10K cookies, ~700 forms, ~2K frames.

    I never see ads any more. When I go to someone else's computer and something pops up, I assume it is something real, a
  • I've used a program called Ad Muncher for over two years now. The footprint is very small (130kb install file, 800kb installed), and it doesn't slow down my connection at all. It does a very good job at blocking most stuff, and is easily configurable for the rest.
  • I think I'll block the slashdot ads now, since it seems like the javascript doesn't display ads anyway.

    Maybe falk-ag in their infinite wisdom decided to not support firefox? Or are they being polite?
    • Trying to be nice to slashdot, I turned ads back on .. and then I discovered why I had turned them off .. and turned them off again.

      Really, I wouldn't object if they made one or all of the "search on topic" images lead to an ad instead, but the way it is done is just plain ugly.
      • One of the better things is that the ads in the right sidebar are fixed-width, so at 1600x1200 they're pretty much inobtrusive.

        Of course, you can also just make your browser a couple hundred pixels wider than the screen ...

  • I have been running the Proxomitron for several years now, and have been blocking most banner ads by default. I've gone through and made sure that doubleclick and most of the other banner companies resolve to nothing in my hosts file.

    And I have flashblock on full-time. I loathe blinky-flashy.

    It's also happened that my wife has said "Oh, I clicked on the greenhouse", but I couldn't find the link she clicked on because it never occured to me to look at the banner ads.

    However, I don't block ALL banne

  • Know how you feel. Been there myself, trying to explain that banner ads are dead to a room full of bosspeople. In the end it took a dozen client openly complaining that they would switch suppliers if they ever saw our ad again on that page before they did something.

    Good to have a dozen or so friends in these situations. ;)

    Anyways... now being a person surfing the web all day long (when not warcrafting) I can easily answer like so: If it is not already adblocked I most happily and joyously clicks... the ad
  • I have set up a proxy server blocking any site that serves adverts. For awhile, I even had a dial-up line offering advert-free web surfing ..... that kind of went T.U. when my main customers either got broadband, or found insecure wireless connections they could ride on. Then I had to rebuild the server and couldn't remember for the life of me how I had configured mgetty. So now it's lying unconfigured. Shame, really; because, being an otherwise normal phone line, it's considered as a voice call for th
  • I run a website with about 8k unique / day, I have ~2-3000 clicks on my banners every month (to advertisers). Sure, I dont know how many sales it generates, but it surely is real traffic that can be bought.

    How many visitors do you get from a television ad? In percentage? What is the effective cost compared between banner ads and a television ad in visitors generated to your website?

    Websurfers are already "at" the computer, hence they are much easier to convince to go somewhere else than someone sitting i

    • Sure, I dont know how many sales it generates,

      ... that's a problem. w/o conversion rates, the stat just sits there in a vacuum ...

      How many visitors do you get from a television ad? In percentage? What is the effective cost compared between banner ads and a television ad in visitors generated to your website?

      We've found tv to be much more effective in getting the phone to ring ... our cost per sale is a lot lower using tv.

      You cant really say "banners suck" without giving an alternative.

      TV, rado,

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