Online advertising has been around since the mid 1990s, when people first started getting connected in significant numbers. As early as 1995, banner ads and other web advertising were ubiquitous; and it still is, but things have changed quite a bit since the early days of the internet. Technologies have advanced and the design of internet banner advertising has grown right along with the web and the changing ways that consumers respond to online advertising.



When the World Wide Web was still a novelty to many people, the response to banner advertising was far higher than it is now. People would click on almost anything which got their attention; so ads which flashed, bore garish color schemes or featured animation got results.

However, people have gotten their fill of these sorts of banners by now and most of us would rather not be flashed by web advertising every time we navigate to a site. The response rate to internet banner advertising has declined across the board in recent years. Does this mean that banner ads are a moribund format for online advertising?

According to the web advertising experts on the advertising news websites and forums, there is plenty of life in banner ads yet. Rather, it's a question of what kind of internet banner advertising will and will not work with today's savvier web users. While some of the media buying and advertising agencies out there find it a bitter pill to swallow, a consensus is emerging that simple banner ads which don't intrude on the user experience are the way forward for online advertising.

Banner ads which integrate well into the sites where they are placed (and importantly, do not annoy readers) still work – and some publishers are doing very well indeed with these types of banners.

Getting results from internet banner advertising just requires careful attention to design and an understanding of consumer response on the sites offering placements. Before you deploy a campaign of banner advertising, look at the publisher's statistics; you'll want to see the average click through rate per 5,000 impressions.

Publishers will use systems to track ad response (if they don't, you may want to reconsider this placement), so this information should be available.

When you find a site which you're confident is popular with your target demographic, you may want to try out a banner for 10,000 impressions to see the response rate for yourself. If the response is in line with the statistics the publisher has provided and meets your own expectations, then stick with this placement. It can be challenging to find effective online advertising placements, so a site which gives you results from your internet banner advertising is a valuable resource indeed.

There is still a place for internet banner advertising; it's just a matter of finding the best placements for your business and matching the design to your audience.