I was browsing muti (a social bookmarking website) and I noticed a story that iAfrica has redesigned. I was curious to see the new design, so I clicked through to see it. Once the article about their new design had finished loading, I was presented with the usual banner ads but there was one new advert that completely threw me off the content.
Whenever I talk or consult with a client, I stress the fact that banner ads are dead. Now I know this a sad fact, as a lot of online publishers generate the majority of their income from banner ads. I have some faith in a certain type of banner ad, an interactive rich media banner ad, but it’s not that much faith. So let me break it down.
- Ad Blindness
Ad blindness can be loosely defined as a condition (or skill) that people have developed over time that subconsciously allows them to ignore advertising. It’s been a hot topic for ages and is becoming increasingly more common among digital natives. - Ad Blocking
Ad blocking tools and techniques that allow people to block advertising from web pages. People can even block your spam attempts at becoming interactive, in the wrong way. - Content Interruption
As you can see with the example above, a lot of publishers insert adverts within content. In this particular example, I am talking about the effects of using rich media banner ads that run across the screen and disrupt the view of the content. Isn’t the content more important than the adverts? People come to your site to view information, not to view adverts. - Poor Results
If you think getting between 10% and 15% click through rate is a success, then I think you need to your definition for success. Instead of wasting the other 85% of your budget on serving wasted ads, you could have invested in marketing to the right people. Facebook might be one of the most trafficed sites in South Africa, but you certainly won’t get the click through rates you hoped for. Digital natives just don’t click on ads anymore.
The demise of banner ads is two fold. Internet marketers aren’t getting the results they used to when using banner ads and publishers aren’t making the same amount of revenue from banner ads that they used to, with the few exceptions. The only way to prolong the existence of the banner ad is to invest more in relevant and contextualized serving of banner ads to the reader. Other than that, I they will die a slow death. New ways of marketing need to be investigated, but more importantly, new revenue models for publishers.
