Back The Importance of Banner Advertising as Part of your Online Strategy

When going digital, you want to employ as many effective measures as you can to drive traffic to your website to boost sales, awareness and activity. One such method that works wonders is banner advertising. Known as the equivalent of newspaper and magazine advertising for the online world, when used correctly, banner advertising is a powerful online marketing tool.

The presence of a banner ad on the web contributes significantly to the marketing of a website - especially for online business. Because of the highly graphical nature of banner ads, they are somewhat similar to traditional printed publication advertisements, but have the added ability to bring potential customers directly to your website - instantaneously in just one click. You could think of it something like touching a printed ad and being teleported straight to the advertiser's store! Above and beyond traditional print, banner ads also differ in that they have dynamic capability. Instead of just the one single, static image and content, a banner ad can present multiple images, including animation, to create a truly intriguing and captivating advertisement, enticing users to click through. Interactivity is an essential part in captivating the viewer to engage with the advertisement, and follow through by clicking. Encouraging the user to participate through creative elements works well - especially by rolling over sections, multiple choice questions, mini games etc.

Banner ads generally result to two outcomes for advertisers;

Click-throughs: Once a person sees the banner ad on a publisher site and is interested, they will take action and click through to the website. In this case, the banner ad has brought the advertiser a visitor they would not have had otherwise. Furthermore, the banner ad is a real success if the visitor decides to purchase (or sign up - whatever the advertiser deems as a conversion). Failing a click through, the banner ad content may provoke the viewer to consciously note the brand / product for future reference.

Brand Awareness: Banner ads can effectively heighten brand awareness, and build a brand in the consumers mind. It is a well known concept that word of mouth is undeniably an effective form of advertising, and banner ads can begin to get the advocacy ball rolling. If a person continually sees marketing messages from a particular advertiser, but does not necessarily take action at that point in time, the intention of that ad is by no means wasted. They may in fact recall your message in the future, and take action. This is the power of branding.

Banner advertisings ability to incorporate creativity through design and animation makes for an interesting and highly interactive form of advertising and works extremely well as part of any integrated online marketing campaign.