How effective are banner ads

How banner advertising works

"According to a research done by Russell Gould, Coke saw a 10% sales lift after posting brand videos on YouTube, and a 9% lift when ads ran on television at a separate time. When the ads ran simultaneously, Coke saw a 97% sales lift."

The major benefit reaped from a banner ad is brand awareness and not traffic. Banner blindness or the internet user's ability to ignore repetitive patterns has made the click through rate of banner ads become lower however recent researches has shown that the presence of a banner ad results in strengthening the brand even if no body clicks on the ad.

How banner ads can help your site become popular

In a world where the competition is fierce only those who develop strong brands survive. The main reason large companies are using twitter accounts and getting involved in social media is that they understand how their presence in different mediums affect their brand.

As you saw in the previous example I provided about coke, when ads appeared in different mediums simultaneously the sales increased. This happened because:

* Repetition programs the mind: According to psychology the more we get exposed to a certain message the more we tend to believe in it even if it wasn't logical!!

* Multiple sources strengthen the message: Repeating your message in different ways can make the customers believe in it much more. If your message was displayed on your website, in a display ad and on ads in the real world then it will become much more convincing

Should you use banner ads?

Yes you should but don't expect to get much traffic out of the money you are going to pay for the banners instead put in mind that the money you are spending will strengthen your brand.

I don't need to tell you about the importance of a strong brand but the following are few of the numerous advantages a strong brand can bring you:

* Company's die brands live: What if an earth quake swallowed all of coke's factories? Will it disappear? of course not because as soon as the factories are rebuilt coke will be sold once again. A company is not its assets!! A brand can survive even if the assets died

* Recurring visitors: Any popular website in the world is popular because it has recurring visitors. Branding increases recurring visitors because people visit the website on intention instead of bumping into it accidentally

* Branding reduces competition: the stronger your brand the harder it is for someone to compete with you

So the conclusion is banner ads can be used to strengthen brands which is something that will surely help your online business succeed on the medium term.