Banner Ads

By Carly

We all have seen them. Sometimes (and more often than not), they are those cleverly designed boxes above, below, or to the side of our favorite Web pages. Sometimes (unfortunately), they are those awfully annoying pop-ups that prevent us from seeing what we visited the Web site to see in the first place.

What am I talking about? Banner ads, and it can be an efficient and cost-effective form of marketing. It’s important to continue to look for ways to pinch pennies but also maintain, promote, and improve your brand identity during the recession, and online marketing can be a great way to do so.

It’s easy to track banner advertising by noting how many people click your ad, and then tracking where they go from the landing page. I would say that this is the main benefit. However, an equally important benefit of banner ads is their ability to create an impression of your brand upon impressionable minds of Internet surfers.

Just because someone doesn’t click on your ad doesn’t mean that it doesn’t register in their minds. And it’s a risk you might have to be willing to take, and you also must be willing to look at the entire picture – if you don’t see a noticable uptick in Web site hits, but you notice a marked improval on sales or visits to your business, then those are also very good ways to see if your marketing is working.

Just … please, none of those pop-ups that don’t offer an option to exit out, leaving you helplessly watching some ad while just waiting to see the weather radar? That most likely will not instill any positive feelings toward your brand. You’ll instead get a countless number of people across the world shaking their fists helplessly at their computer screens, and NOT excited to check out you and your brand.