Nobody Clicks on Banner Ads

Well that’s not entirely true. According to a new study, 6% of people online contribute to 50% of display ad clicks.

“Heavy clickers skew towards Internet users between the ages of 25-44 and households with an income under $40,000,” the study said, and they “are also relatively more likely to visit auctions, gambling, and career services sites ? a markedly different surfing pattern than non-clickers.”

“While the click can continue to be a relevant metric for direct response advertising campaigns, this study demonstrates that click performance is the wrong measure for the effectiveness of brand-building campaigns,” said Erin Hunter, executive vice president at comScore. “For many campaigns, the branding effect of the ads is what?’s really important and generating clicks is more of an ancillary benefit. Ultimately, judging a campaign?’s effectiveness by clicks can be detrimental because it overlooks the importance of branding while simultaneously drawing conclusions from a sub-set of people who may not be representative of the target audience.”

Let’s just pay special attention to part of this quote; “clicks are more of an ancillary benefit”. Wow!

This study is interesting as it was actually sponsored by one of the largest media agencies in the US. They are effectively trying to justify low clickthrough rates (CTR) on banner campaigns. This is positive that they are trying to address the issue, but it leaves us with the reality that banners are simply a brand spend and are not really appropriate for direct response. With the lack of clarify around the effectiveness of brand advertising online, this just makes the return on investment calculation even more grey not less.

So in summary:

Don’t buy banners for direct response – it won’t work – the people who make millions from selling them to you are saying so.

Do buy banners for brand advertising – but make sure you have specific criteria agreed on how you will measure success.

Or, even better, why don’t you put that budget into creating or sponsoring some really compelling content online that will actually provide value to the consumer and associate this with your brand? Whichever way you spin it, the banner ad days are limited, you need to start thinking differently about this.