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Are banners a waste of time?
UK-Netmarketing Weekly Round-up - September 22, 2000

Although they seem to be the common currency of advertising on the web, the effectiveness of banner adverts appears to be plunging, particularly if they are measured on click-through rates. So, how much, if any, of your hard fought-for marketing budget should be allocated to banner advertising?

Sarah Thomas posted, "I've just read an article in Internet.Works about how search engines are the main method to generate traffic and that banners are a waste of money. Is there any other way of getting listed on main search engines apart from manual submission? What's the secret? And are banners a complete waste of money?"

Tim Ireland suggested, "To answer your questions in order: Yes, but this is not *always* better. No secret: http://www.topdog2000.com/topdog/freetrial.html. For small to medium businesses - yes. Go to www.searchenginewatch.com to learn more about search engines, directories, hybrids etc."

Emma Hoyler added, "Try www.uk-website-promotion.co.uk. Loads of handy hints plus a free checker of where you are at present."

Richard Bailey shared his experience from launching a search engine website, writing, "I agree with some parts of the article. ... Banners are an expensive but I do not see them being a complete waste of money. We used them to kick-start [our] site and get some start up traffic. Banners get under 1% click through and our search results' first page of links get 47%. About 80% of users take our first five links. So you would need a hell of a lot of banner ads to direct the same traffic as a listing in our site or any other search engine."

D. Dias did the maths, "Whether banners are a complete waste of money or not depends on your goals and what you are trying to sell - I'm surprised to see such a sweeping and unqualified generalisation. If you're an e-tailer selling low ticket and low repeat purchase items then yes, banners are probably a complete waste of money if your goals are customer acquisition and sales. e.g. let's say you sell posters for around £4, and the average order comprises two posters, giving you a total of £8 per average order. You then buy 100,000 banner impressions at a CPM rate of say £25. Which costs you £2,500. You get a click thru rate of [optimistically] 1%. Of these 1% [1000 people], 2.5% actually make a purchase [25 orders]. It doesn't take a genius to work out that banner advertising in this instance isn't a particularly cost-effective way of generating sales. e.g. spend £2,500 to get £200 worth of orders. If you were selling PCs at £1000 per system then based on the conversion rates above, then of course it would make sense."

Jonathan Forster had a different approach, "While I'd be the first to admit a vested interest, I think its rash to say outright that banners are a waste of money. When it comes to quoting figure - a cost-per-visitor, (CPC) model makes even more financial sense, pure response, lots of free reach and I guess as platform which has more of a direct marketing element ..."

Potentially banners could be effective, but a good search engine ranking should generate traffic without parting with any cash. Will Rowan had some tricks up his sleeve, "Here's a real easy & effective 'secret' - register plenty of topic related domain names that people are likely to search for - so if you're selling floor mops, register 'cleanrfloors.com', 'hygenicflooring.com' and 'floormops.com' as well as any brand names. Then point them at short, topic specific web pages. Register these with the main engines that deliver traffic to you. For the right topics to register, check log files for the most common search terms."

K. Polley: "Banner ads are often just viewed as an irritant or detractor on many website pages. I gather their placement on the web page is also an issue, as if they are at the top of the page, people often scroll down to read information and their impact is lost. Many web design companies are now advocating their placement in the middle or lower down a page. I think the most 'friendly' banner ads are of the call back variety where you click on the ad because you are interested in the product, a box pops up and you enter your details and when you want to be contacted re. the enquiry. Once you have submitted the details you are directed back to the original site and can carry on browsing. This is good for the user - you aren't moved from the site of primary interest - and good for the host site as the traffic is not directed away from it."

David Mill outlined a different philosophy, "... [I] believe the most successful strategy for Search Engines and Directories is to always submit manually to the top sites. This avoids the danger of Search Engines 'seeing' a software submission as 'spamming' and allows individual submissions to be tailored. In the case of Directories, tailored submissions are, in our view, essential and require hand-crafted methodology. ... With regard to 'link popularity', search engines are giving more 'weight' to sites that are linked to from others in their catalogues. The only successful way of becoming very 'popular' is through an Affiliate Link campaign. That is through the ongoing identification of relevant/symbiotic sites and discussion with site owners regarding links (often reciprocal)."

The line between editorial and advert is blurred in traditional media, the quantity of information on the average web page makes this distinction even more difficult. Leslie Bunder posted to the list asking, "We all know about printed advertorials, but anyone on the list use or worked with online advertorials? Are there any case studies or examples of good/bad examples of an online advertorial? Any thoughts on this?"

Casper Moller replied, "The closest to online advertorial/product placement I can think of is the campaign that we're running for Adidas on our NBCOlympics.com site. Just click on the advert in the top right hand corner when it rotates by, and you'll see what our press release about our partners describes as 'Get a hold on the biomechanics of weightlifting' brought to you by Adidas, is an up close look at the force and strength behind U.S. Olympic contender Cheryl Haworth's weightlifting manoeuvres. In addition to the in-depth analysis of the lift, the viewer is also instantaneously able to review Adidas Olympic weightlifting gear and can choose to make a purchase."

Richard Bailey took a different perspective, "From my view the idea of an advertorial seems wrong and the sell-out of any writer. If it is paid for, then it is an advert, if it's worth selling then say it, for no money. Conning the user into thinking that an advert is real content is not good from a moral stand. You would hope that the content of any news, reviews or info site would be honest enough to say when something has been paid for. For example the ITC don't let you do that in a TV program, even product placement has a limit."

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