What is the future of online display advertising?
What is the future for banner advertising online? With banners weighing in with a whopping 0.04 click through rate, what is the future for this ever present ad format which can take up 30% of the screen? Firefox's ad blocker makes light work of diluting even the most sophisticated brand message and the more savvy the surfer, the less they attention they pay to online advertising. Will banners develop into a brand awareness tool or will there be another use for the format that brought us "shoot the duck"?
The future is zero.
Online banner advertising has never paid any dividends for 99% of advertisers.
A few have used outrageous claims to land a few prospects, but most have failed miserably.
Avoid it like the plague. No, avoid it like AIG.
Search advertising pays much better per dollar spent.
I disagree with Jeffrey W in many respects. I don’t believe display advertising is not long for this world but think that it will adapt and become more relevant to the page and user.
Display advertisers need to take a lead out of Google Adsense’s success by realising that relevance is the key to interaction and subsequently conversions.
I used to work on the booking of display advertising for a price comparison website and I learnt that sometimes it’s a situation of the right banner for the right site and when you get this you make shed loads of money since display is a fairly cheap medium.
So basically I think display needs a few things to prosper:
1. A far greater level of variation
2. Easier testing and tweaking of creatives
3. More accessability to the ordinary site owner….everyone can use Adwords but how many people can design good display creatives?
4. #3 would mean a greater level of competition which would in turn lead to #2 and #1 as site owners try to optimise their banners to the top.
5. Interaction with the creatives themselves to get people engaged with them not only as advertising mediums but also things of use.
Just my 2 cents