Banner Advertisement In Business Promotion

If you've spent any time surfing the Internet, you've seen more than your fair share of banner ads. These small rectangular advertisements appear on all sorts of Web pages and vary considerably in appearance and subject matter, but they all share a basic function: if you click on them, your Internet browser will take you to the advertiser's Web site. But how do they work and why are they there?

Banner ads are usually relatively simple pieces of HTML code, but their presence on the Web and their importance in Internet-based business is immense.

How it works

• A website owner can make an agreement with other website owners to place their ads on their website and vice versa.
• An advertiser can pay publisher sites to place their ads on certain websites.
• An organization can be paid to place an advertiser's ads on several websites that have a relative target market.

Types of banners

Like print ads, banner ads come in a variety of shapes and sizes. The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) specifies eight different banner sizes, according to pixel dimensions. A pixel is the smallest unit of color used to make up images on a computer or television screen. The IAB's standard banner sizes are:

• 486 x 60 Pixels (Full Banner)
• 392 x 72 Pixels (Full Banner with Vertical Navigation Bar)
• 234 x 60 Pixels (Half Banner)
• 120 x 240 Pixels (Vertical Banner)
• 125 x 125 Pixels (Square Button)
• 120 x 90 Pixels (Button 1)
• 120 x60 Pixels (Button 2)
• 88 x 31 Pixels (Micro Button)

Effect of banners

Advertisers generally hope a banner ad will do one of two things. Ideally, a visitor to the publisher site, the Web site that posts the banner ad, will click on the banner ad and go to the advertiser's Web site. In this case the banner ad has brought the advertiser a visitor they would not have had otherwise. The banner ad is a real success if the visitor not only comes to the site but also buys something. Failing a click-through, advertisers hope that a publisher site visitor will see the banner ad and will somehow register it in their heads. This could mean the visitor consciously notes the content of a banner ad and decides to visit the advertiser's site at some time in the future, or it might mean that the visitor only peripherally picks up on the ad but is made aware of the advertiser's product or service.

This second effect of advertising is known as branding. We've all experienced the effects of branding before. Say you see ads on television for Brand X glue all the time. The ads don't seem to particularly affect you -- you don't leap from your couch to go buy glue -- but down the road, when you're at the store shopping for glue, they may affect the decision you make. If you don't have any other reason to choose one type of glue over the others, you'll probably choose the one you're most familiar with, Brand X, even if you're only familiar with it because of advertising.

How to make users click

Be compelling

Banner ads have to be eye-catching enough to attract attention. Only then does your marketing message have the opportunity to break through. Things like animation, the use of faces, brand colors, and clear text help banner ads stand out.

Be concise

At any given moment, someone might see a banner ad and only pay attention to it for a moment. In that moment, be concise to make sure your message sticks.

Be clear

Banner ads tend to be relatively small, so you don't always have a lot of space to work with. Don't try to say too much; the ad may just end up looking cluttered. Instead, clearly communicate a single marketing message about a single product. The need for clarity goes for call-to-actions, too.