Banner adverts are one of the most popular forms of online advertising. They can help you increase traffic to your website, generate sales and increase brand awareness.
In its most basic form, a banner advert is a rectangular image which appears alongside the main content on a website. They are usually tall and thin (appearing at the side of the page), or short and wide (appearing at the top or bottom of the page).
Banner adverts tend to appear on websites that have interesting and relevant content – for example, a blog or news site.
Banner adverts are measured in ‘impressions’ – that is, every time your banner advert appears on a web page to a potential customer, this is a single impression. If that person clicks on the advert, they will be taken to your website. This is called a ‘click through’.
Instead of paying a one-off fee to advertise, banner adverts are usually paid for on a ‘cost per click’ (CPC) basis. This means that for every visitor that arrives at your website because they clicked on your advert, you pay a small fee – perhaps a few pence.
Why should I use banner advertising?
The purpose of web promotion using a banner advert is the same as for any traditional ad – to attract attention, explain the basics of your product or service and encourage the reader to come and find out more. However, there are a number of key features specific to a banner advert:
- they can attract attention – you could use bright colours, animation, sound or video to encourage people to look at your advert
- they can be targeted – you can advertise on niche websites which attract the right audience for your products or services, and even use different adverts for different sites
- they can be monitored – you can easily keep track of how many people see your adverts, how many click through to your site and how many convert to a sale
What are the drawbacks of banner advertising?
Although banner advertising can be a simple and cheap way to reach prospective customers, you should be aware of the potential problems:
- you will have to pay every time a reader clicks though, even though this might not convert into a sale
- some online readers find banner ads distracting or annoying, and may ignore them or even block them from appearing
