Are Banner Ads Here to Stay?
Ad banners work poorly for traffic building but well as a branding tool. They also fit into a Web page fairly neatly so I suspect they'll be around for quite some time. It's becoming apparent as people use more imagination with banner-sized 'rich media' or 'HTML banner' ads that Web banner ads aren't really all that restricting. In general, banner ads as we know them work OK.
As the simple browsers of today are replaced by whatever high-bandwidth browser technology comes up in the next few years, new types of ad presentation will become more popular. As more whizzy TV-like advertising things are possible on the Web, piles of money will be spent on advertising in that new media type. According to an IAB study, online banner advertising is more likely to be noticed than television advertising. Additionally: "the brand enhancement value of ad exposure is significantly greater than the value of clickthrough". In other words, the branding value of banner ads is more powerful than the traffic-building value. Banner ads or something very like them are here to stay because they work. Put them together with visitor profiling and personalized content and you've got the most powerful marketing tool ever available to Madison Avenue. The possibilities are exciting and frightening at the same time.
I hate to throw this suggestion out and possibly poison the whole pond but let me suggest that the regular old TV shows we see today might learn something from the Web and start showing rotating banner ads on The Simpsons or Dynasty. Convergence can work in both directions right? Why not reserve a strip at the top of every TV screen for banner ads? Just like on the Web! It could happen. It could fall under the whole yak about media convergence. It’ll be sold as a feature.
Still, average CPM is going down and probably will continue to drift downwards for awhile. As more and more pages of content come online, advertisers have more and more choice. Almost all sites have piles of unsold banner inventory. That drives average CPM down. Sites with quality content, a quality audience and technical advantage will get the ad money in the next few years to come.
Banner ads are all well and good and will probably be around for quite a while in one form or another. But laser-point personalisation is going to spawn a whole new advertising industry that might truly eat St. Louis.