Banner Ads: Death and Resurrection

Back in the 90's, many internet companies were making their money solely off advertising. They would create content for a site, but then not sell anything but advertising on the site. And the companies paid for the advertising. Any company would advertise on any type of website. The point of the game back then was getting your banner on as many sites as possible. Then came the dot-com bubble bust. And companies started pulling out everywhere. Investments, staff, everything. Paying for banner ads was no exception to the rule. An overall lack of effectiveness of remaining banner ads caused the advertising method to slowly die out. Well, almost. Crafty marketing individuals had watched the whole thing carefully. With banner ad pricing dropping across the board, now was the time to get the best bang for their buck. But how could it possibly work? Banner ads had been shown to be largely ineffective. Two words: Targeted marketing. These advertisers knew that it was just plain dumb to advertise your Christian a cappella group's website on a flash games website. No, you needed to advertise it on the website of a Christian publication. See, those who make banner advertising work for them today knew the whole time that banner ads are, in many ways, no different from other types of advertising. Mass marketing to the population as a whole is largely unsuccessful. Banner ads were no exception to the rule. However, careful, selective targeted marketing can prove useful in any form. So if you are thinking about getting a banner ad on a website, consider the following: 1. Is the demographic of this website the same as the demographic of mine? 2. Does this website get enough traffic to make the cost worth it? 3. Is your target demographic large enough to make banner ads wise? As with any marketing plan, banner ads should never be your only method of promotion for your website. However, combined with other methods, targeted banner ads can still prove effective.