Does Banner Advertising Help or Hinder you?

Man head (Photo credit: @Doug88888)

The question often asked does banner advertising help or hinder you is debatable and answered in a number of ways. The basic answer is simple: it depends on where you display your advertising banner. 

Like all advertising methods, there is little point in showing your ads to people who simply aren’t interested. To display your advertising banner in such a way as to gain a return on your investment you will need to show it to people who are interested and who are likely to buy your product or service. Casting “pearls before swine” is not beneficial to you or to them. All it does is annoy the swine.  

Advertising banners need to meet the need of the people who are viewing it and are able to pay for your service or product.  People who are continually seeing a banner that is of no interest to them remember the product or service and are less likely to buy from you in the future if they ever do need your service or product. It tends to leave a ‘bad taste’ in their mouth and has exactly the opposite effect of what your banner is trying to achieve.   

Brand recognition only really works if there are some good reports from social proof to back it up.

Media Buying

The recommended procedure for banner advertising is to do what is known as a media buy. Media buying is where you find your target market through a process of elimination. There are numerous providers of this information on-line today where they show you proof of readership, market demographics and all the information that you are likely to need to make an informed decision as to where you want to place your advertising dollars.

To make an informed decision on media buying you will need to know and be more aware as to exactly who is your target market. When you place an ad in your local newspaper you are doing broad advertising to your community. This is untargeted market apart from geographical location. If that is the only segment of the market you want to reach then that is a business decision and choice.

Banner advertising through your local newspaper will still work – but it is horrendously expensive – if that is the only market you want to reach and in some industries and businesses that is enough. It will depend on what your business marketing plan is for your business.

On-line Banner Advertising

However, if you are an on-line business today you will need to do a lot more research if you are to get a good return on investment into banner advertising on-line. If you do a Google search you will find many media organizations selling the information that you will find very useful. These media pools have already done much of the research and verified claims made by those publishers who sell advertising space on their blogs and websites.  You just need to know who your target market is and where they are most likely to congregate on-line; then look for a publisher that sells advertising space on their blog or website who has a good reputation and a good readership. Forums are very good for finding this information.

A word of caution

Once you have found a suitable publisher that sells banner advertising space on their website/blog at a price you want to pay, check the terms and conditions associated with the media buy. Some sell monthly space while others will sell annual space.  Then keep an eye on both the ROI and on the blogs reputation. After all, you will be labelled by the company you keep and if your banner ads are appearing in a ‘bad neighbourhood’ it can be very damaging to your reputation and business.

Banner advertising can help you and it can hinder you if you are not constantly aware.