Do Banner Advertisements Work On Blogs?

Tee Riddle Old Archives

Mar 13

Do Banner Advertisements Work On Blogs?

image - ad tracking and short URLI stopped selling banner ads on this blog over a year ago because I didn’t feel I could give the advertisers their money’s worth. The click-through rate (CTR) was always super low and it didn’t seem to matter what image or ad was displayed. That’s why this site is third-party banner free, not because I don’t want your money.

I have also been a blog banner advertiser for years now. I have advertised various sites, programs and products using banner ads on blogs and websites. For the most part, I hate to say this, they have failed miserably. I could just be very bad at banner advertising but I think blog banner advertising probably isn’t the best use of our advertising budget. Sure, it’s relatively inexpensive unless you are going after the really large sites and design and setup are a breeze.

I haven’t given up yet. I have several banner advertisements running on a few blogs right now and I’m determined to make banner advertising work. I will stop all current campaigns and try smarter ad practices.

Blog Banner Advertising Challenges

image - fake adChallenge #1: There are several challenges to running banner advertisements on a blog. First of all, the layout. We all love our beautiful blog themes but most of us have become immune to the 125 pixel banners grouped in that right sidebar with one or two larger banners. Yes, bloggers get banner blindness very quickly.

Solution:
Contact the blogger directly and ask if you can advertise on a particular, upcoming blog post that will be relevant. Ask if your banner ad can be embedded into the post it’s self, the same way we do for our own ads from time to time. For example, a banner ad designer promotion would fit nicely with this post. This obviously takes more effort but I believe it will pay off.

Challenge #2: The second challenge is the ad getting stale. Most blogs sell banner ads by the month yet in the video below Mike Blinder says, “If it goes stale it will fail”. Referring to banner ads he says online ads die after nine days.

Solution:
This can be corrected if the ad image remains on your server and in your control. We can update the image on the fly without waiting to renew the ad. The links will stay the same but we are in control of the image and landing page. Weekly changes and lots of testing are the solution I think.

Your Thoughts? Do you offer banner advertising? Are they selling? Are they effective? Do you buy banner ads? Is banner advertising dead?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrSQ5SqwgIk

Keywords: banner ads, banner advertising, banner advertisements

About the author

Tee Riddle wrote 33 articles on this blog.

Tee Riddle is a social media enthusiast and co-founder of a weekly Twitter chat, dubbed #gardenchat. He has many hobbies and also blogs about vegetable gardening at Veggie Gardener.

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  • Summertime film
    Banner advertisements works really well at low prices. Benefits of advertising banners includes its being inexpensive, whether you select pay per click or flat rate payment.This means that for just a few dollars every month you can have your banner out on hundreds of sites or may only pay a few pennies for every visitor that clicks on your banner.
  • Banner ads are a cost-effective and efficient way of marketing products and services of a company. Banner ads provide direct traffic to your website as just one click of a mouse button give them information on a company's products and services.
  • Despite some of its downsides, banner ads are here to stay, largely because they can promote your offerings in a productive manner and give you your desired results.
  • 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.
  • I find leads from text ads to be more targeted.
  • The difference between banner ads today and 5 years ago is that today advertisers usually pay on PPC basis instead of PPV.
  • Banner advertising is much more mainstream today than what it was 5-10 years ago. With more and more placements available on major portals and increasingly on social networks, users are being bombarded with offers. Flash today is also much more mainstream.
  • A click through rate of .5% means for every 200 people looking at your page, only one will click on the banner.

    If the %'age of the number of people who actually click on the banner, buy something - is in the range of 2% - 5%, then you need about 10,000 views of the page to get 50 click throughs to get one buying customer.

    Obtaining 10,000 views is not an easy thing to do in a competitive environment where the number of web pages and the amount of content is growing very fast.
  • Well as always the visual advertisements create more effect on any individual than the other mediums. People have more positive evaluations toward the target banner ad and surprisingly, show high levels of tolerance for banner ads on which they are not directly focused. So, I feel that Banner Ads Work Even If You Don't Notice Them At All.
  • Great blog! I have also been given my
    fair share of banner ads from my uplines.
    I know firsthand how powerful banner ads
    can be. Especially if your blog or wherever
    you decide to place them is very popular.

    As long as your banner ad is targeting the same
    types of people your blog is targeting then
    I believe you can be very successful with them.
    Hope this helps and keep on rocking mr.!
  • Great blog! I have also been given my
    fair share of banner ads from my uplines.
    I know firsthand how powerful banner ads
    can be. Especially if your blog or wherever
    you decide to place them is very popular.

    As long as your banner ad is targeting the same
    types of people your blog is targeting then
    I believe you can be very successful with them.
    Hope this helps and keep on rocking Tim!
  • I also tried to cover a similar aspect of this topic on my website. From an advertiser's point of view, a good banner is one that gets him clicks and visitors. Although there are “branding banners”, that only have the purpose of displaying a promotion or building up brand image, 90% of the banner advertising industry is dominated by clickable banners. Most banner ads are promoted through affiliate programs, but you can also make an individual deal with a web master if you wish to promote a particular offer on a particular site.
  • I guess people should not think only about the blogs and advertisements from profit's point of view. But they must consider people like us also who surf blogs for finding information and not advertisements....!!!!! It really uses more internet usage in terms of downloads and we are charged more because of it.
    .-= Maria@Handle Stress´s last blog ..How to Deal with Financial Stress? =-.
  • Isn't it easier and more profitable to install Adsense instead of dealing with banners?
  • Not everyone has an Adsense account nor does everyone likes to deal with Google
  • No, I've been planning to do do away with banner ads from my blog for a long time but didn't have the opportunity to do so. You're one of the two advertisers who were "filling up" those spots regularly.

    The other advertiser (site5) has taken up one of spots on the top menu for better visibility.

    I agree, unless someone iron out the details, it might be a little inconvenience to give prior notice to potential advertisers of the upcoming post which may or may not be of any interest to them.

    Anyway, if you like to test, let me know what you want me to do as my new post (on the topic of adsense) will be live in say 6 hours from now. And yes, it's free.

    Cheers
    Yan
    .-= Yan@Blogging Tips´s last blog ..How Blogging and Dropshipping Go Hand in Hand =-.
  • <img style="border: 0px solid ; width: 125px; height: 125px; float: right;" alt="image - The Keyword Academy" src="http://extremeezine.com/images/banners/125/TKA.jpg">Thanks Yan, a good one to use for an AdSense article might be The Keyword Academy. Just our luck their site is down this morning but perhaps it will come back up in a few minutes. If it does then you could insert this 125 banner I made a while back http://extremeezine.com/images/banners/125/TKA.jpg Feel free to use on my site or upload to your server, either way. I'm pretty sure you are a member so use your affiliate link. If not you can use mine http://thekeywordacademy.com/coaching/453.html or tracker http://4u2bn.com/ku40 and I will pay $20 for the advertising :)
  • In response to your article, I'm redesigning TSB and removing any banner ad from my site.

    I'm testing the possibility of using one prominent ad placement that according to Google heatmap has the highest CTR. And I'd like to think that it's gonna be effective in maximizing the advertiser's dollars.

    The ad will be visible from all single posts. Let me know what you think, Brian?

    Yan




    .-= Yan@Blogging Tips´s last blog ..How Blogging and Dropshipping Go Hand in Hand =-.
  • Your site is looking good Yan. I see you're using the Thesis Theme. I hope my article is correct and I'm not leading you in the wrong direction :)

    I would actually be more interested in a single ad on a relevant post. For example, a ezine banner or subscription box inserted into a post on email marketing. Or an ad tracker banner embedded into a post on split testing. The difficult thing about this type of ad is I would need to be given prior notice of an upcoming post topic and then purchase the ad before it was published.

    If one could iron out the details and figure out an effective way to offer per-post advertising, I believe it could prove extremely profitable. Think about it like this...

    6 spots @ $20/month = $120/month potential
    20 posts @ $20 each = $400/month potential

    And if I'm right and embedded per-post advertising is more effective, advertisers will start lining up to buy the ad space.

    I would love to test this theory. If you want to get a little creative, let me know before you publish your next email marketing or list building post. You can embed my Aweber subscription form (javascript). Aweber will track the signups easily enough. That is, of course, if your pricing is within my reach ;)

    This is how I eventually plan to offer advertising on the Extreme Ezine.
    .-= Brian D. Hawkins´s last blog ..Joining Google’s PageRank N/A Club =-.
  • "The difficult thing about this type of ad is I would need to be given prior notice of an upcoming post topic and then purchase the ad before it was published."

    This is exactly what I'm trying to work up also.
    .-= Dennis Edell @ Direct Sales Marketing´s last blog ..If You’re in a Contest, Subscribe to the Blog. =-.
  • I have personally not had much success with banners on any of my sites - AdSense seems to work much better. However I do agree it's probably got a lot to do with niche and audience - nothing has worked very well on my blogging-related site, whereas AdSense works pretty well on more consumer-oriented sites. Come to think of it, I probably haven't really tried banners on these type of sites - maybe I'll give it a go and see.
    .-= Rod@solar panel electricity´s last blog ..Solar Power Economics: the costs and benefits of residential solar power - part 2 =-.
  • Robert@New Forest Hotels
    I like your attitude. As far as I know, blog banner advertising is not a bad idea. A few failed attempts must not dissuade you from not trying this.
  • I leave that for advertisers and they will choose where they think best fit their interest. 125x125 seems popular nowadays but not really profitable but affordable for most bloggers
    .-= Tinh´s last blog ..HostGator Released New Affiliate System! =-.
  • I think the problem is that people have simply become blind to these ads. I wrote about this in a post called AdSense and Ad Blindness where I questioned the entire future of online advertising. However, I do believe that the advertisers have become more savvy because I find myself more tempted these days to click on ads than in the past...
    .-= Richard@How To Videos´s last blog ..How To Make Money With AdSense =-.
  • Nice post Richard, it's a never ending debate but I think the future of online advertising is strong.
  • Don't feel bad about you not giving the buyer the value of their money. To me you are still giving them value, because you are giving a dofollow link (if you didn't make it nofollow).
    .-= Zack´s last blog ..White Background =-.
  • Good point Zack but as a general rule I usually use the no-follow tag for advertising to stay within Google guidelines.
  • I find that banner adds on the sidebar sometimes work. Mostly they have to catch my eye. Then again it seems everyone has the same ones. So I almost never click on them anymore.

    Right now I only have one banner add that could make money for me. It doesn't. The rest I display on my site for sites that I like and want to promote.

    Eventually I will remove some of them for paid sponsors but right now, if someone asks to place a nice 125 banner on my site and I like their site or I think it will be good fit I might add them to sidebar. They just have to contact me and we can talk.
    .-= element321 @ evolutionary designs´s last blog ..How Add Author Bio to WordPress Without a Plugin =-.
  • That's very generous James. That's a good point too, everyone seems to run the same banners.
  • I had very little success running banner ads on one of my blogs.

    If you are selling your own products on a blog, having banner ads or Google Adsense will distract readers from purchasing.
  • I agree John, we shouldn't have outside ads running on a product site. That would be like trading dollars for pennies.
  • I think when it comes to any type of advertisement it needs to be targeted. If the user found your site through a highly specific keyword and they land on a page that offers what they are looking for it increases dramatically your chances for a sale.
    .-= Danny @ DoFollow Blogs´s last blog ..DoFollow Vs NoFollow Debate =-.
  • Exactly Danny, targeting a specific post is surly better than targeting an entire nice.
  • Hi Brian,

    I don't sell ad space on my blog yet ... first the traffic has to increase big time, but it is something that is in the plan for the future.

    I do carry affiliate ads though and have noticed that this month the clicks have been nonexistent which gives me the impression that yup Banner blindness has set in. Good idea about changing them - both in terms of placement and images.
    .-= Valentina´s last blog ..The Week That Was: Mar 14 – 20 =-.
  • It may not be all about banner blindness Valentina, it could be about getting new people to your blog. If you're getting the same readers who have already clicked on an ad, the chances of them clicking on the same ad is vastly reduced. That's why I use rotating banners so people get to see new banners each time they log on.
    .-= Sire´s last blog ..How The Things I Like Can Make Me Money =-.
  • Hi Valentina, you have a nice blog and I'm sure the traffic will build. Commenting on other blogs, as you are doing, is a great way to build friendships and regular visitors. I have subscribed to your feed.
  • No sound = no video for me, but good points when applicable.

    That would also mean some cash if one wanted multiple versions of the same banners, and some time if one advertised on multiple blogs at once.

    The 3rd thing is, everyone is so used to "monthly", you might have a hard time convincing them into buying "only weekly".

    Other then that, yea I think they both could work well.
    .-= Dennis Edell @ DirectSalesMarketing´s last blog ..Would You Like a FREE Banner Ad Position? =-.
  • I figured I'd return the favor and now our commentluv links match. lol

    As for challenge #2, what about weekly?
    .-= Dennis Edell´s last blog ..UPDATED: Theme Customization Part 3 – Banner Advertising NOT for Sale! =-.
  • I think weekly ads might work well or even monthly if the image was updated every once in a while, according to the video.
  • That is an awesome video Brian I have some banners on a few sites Actually I should say buttons I don't know if I changed them out maybe they would grab some traffic from the sites. I basically have them for the link and they seem to be doing very well so far.

    Probably put changing them out on the list though.
    .-= B rad West´s last blog ..Thunderstorms - what a show~! =-.
  • Hi Brad, it's an interesting theory. I guess a little testing could go a long way with something like that.
  • If someones going to pay me for a spot I reckon I'll sell it to him, after all you have to give the customer what he wants. ;)

    I agree that banners within a post may have more value if that post is well indexed getting a lot of exposure otherwise once it disappears in the archives it's pretty well gone forever. That being the case I reckon banner ads in the sidebar may be of more value.

    On a side note, can you shoot me your email address so that I can send you that photo file.
    .-= Sire´s last blog ..How The Things I Like Can Make Me Money =-.
  • That's true Sire, per post banner ads would be short lived for the most part but like the video shows the banner ad already has a short life span.

    On the other hand, the search traffic later might actually be better for clicks/sales than our regular readers.

    My email is admin@extremeezine.com
  • Sent you that photo Brian, I hope it doesn't crack your monitor mate. :D
    .-= Sire´s last blog ..How The Things I Like Can Make Me Money =-.
  • billiathern @ business website
    I would like to say yes Banner Advertisements really Work On Blogs but a little bit.The text links are more useful from banner links. Banners makes your site more attractive.
  • Agreed. It would seem to be very difficult to come up with any kind of pricing that makes sense. Sites like TextLinkAds do this for text links on individual posts, but I think they typically do it with more mature posts that have been around for a bit.
    .-= Joshua Dorkin´s last blog ..Honestly, I’m Not Making This Up: MLS Rants =-.
  • I've been blogging for five years now, and have yet to think of inserting an ad banner directly within the content of an individual post. That's a great idea! I guess the big question would have to be how you would determine the price for such an insertion.

    Otherwise, banners on blogs do work . . . you just need to be certain to place them in a prominent position. You also need to experiment and tweak your placement to determine what gives the best returns.
  • I've been wondering about the price/value too Josh. Something like that would need to be done manually and would only work as long as that particular post remained active.
  • This will help us to promote programs and products using banner ads on blogs and websites. Every blogger knows whats going on.If put our banners to our site we should be creative and unique from others.We make sure our banner is more interesting more power to your site! G-d bless ;-)
  • Like some of the above comments I think that banner ads should be on related sites and unique. They should catch the eyes without being annoying to look at. Let us know what type of ad platform you end up going with and the results you get!
    .-= Thomas´s last blog ..Magento Email Templates =-.
  • Absolutely Thomas, I'm going to be playing with this for a while. I'm such a nerd this kind of testing is actually fun to me.
  • I think that as long as banners are relevant to your topic and not crowding the content - they get the clicks. Perhaps not too many but because relevance comes into play - those are more targeted clicks.
    .-= Alex Sysoef@WordPress Guide´s last blog ..5 Stats Tracking Plugins For Your WordPress Blog =-.
  • Hi Alex, that's why I think they would run better on independent posts rather than site wide sidebars.
  • Most of advertisers wan to show their ads on all pages and or the main page (unless they are smart), this is why displaying ads on side bar (125 ad images) is the most popular, so probably the challenge number 1 will not be solved by this way (inside the post way unless you are selling text ads)!

    There is also another solution for this by using a rotating banner ads for the same link, you can upload it and forget it and it will rotate automatically, the "125 WP ad plugin" can do that!, so if you uploaded 4 images for each advertiser and let's say you have 4 advertisers to rotate their links, I bit that your blog visitors (maybe your readers also) will think you have new advertisers everyday they visit your blog :) I actually like this idea!

    This is just my opinion, and one thing before I hit the submit button, good advertisers is those who you go look for them, bad and cheap advertisers who contact you, so my coming challenge actually is finding advertisers!
    .-= Hesham @ FamousBloggers´s last blog ..How to use Social Media as Unlimited ideas Generator to boost your blog Organic Traffic? =-.
  • A couple of good points Hesham. I hadn't even thought about the sidebar showing on every post. I know it does, of course, but that kind of proves my point. I'll check that plugin out.
  • So many times I am not sure of results because it's all depends on your site and the way you are dealing with it and managing the advertising!

    The good thing is you have tons of ideas on this post which makes me return to it to read what's new here ;)

    I like this kind of posts because you can take the idea you think it will best work for your site.

    Good luck Brian!
    .-= Hesham @ FamousBloggers´s last blog ..10 Ways to make your Website more User Friendly =-.
  • I believe most people who visit a lot of blogs and websites are immune to the ads at this point, yet they're still affective for folks who aren't as savvy or jaded yet. Obviously Adsense still generates income, so that proves audiences will click on something.

    On my blog, as you know, at the end of every post I have something, often a product, but sometimes a banner ad just to shake things up. I can't say I've been overly successful, but at least it's not the same ad each time.
    .-= Mitch´s last blog ..Meatloaf; My Story =-.
  • Actually Mitch, your site is one of the ones I was think of when I was looking at ads being more effective in the post. I always notice yours, I don't even see the sidebar banners most of the time.
  • It's not a bad way to go, Brian, but I might be more successful if I were promoting one or two products all the time, which of course I'm loathe to do.
    .-= Mitch´s last blog ..What Will You Go Out Of Your Way To Do For Your Blog? =-.
  • BTW, your sidebar is broken. Check for misbehaving div tag.
  • Your the 2nd one to say that. What browser are you using? It looks fine on all three computers here in FF, IE, Chrome and Safari. Hard to know what to look for. I may have to find another theme.
  • Brian, my banners ads are actually affiliate links, and they convert very poorly.

    However...

    I am definitely in this game (which I love, BTW), to make money. Quite a bit of money if possible.

    So I have left the ads in place to ensure that readers understand that I really am a commercial operation. They may not "see" the ads, but they know they're there. And that's good enough for now.
  • Thanks Dave, I totally understand.
  • Brian- You have got me thinking. I think you are right about the need to change up the look of ads periodically. I agree that having in post ads are probably a good way to go. Perhaps using a banner rotator might help with stopping it from being the same thing people see all the time. Perhaps pricing on a per view basis is the way to go in that case. I believe there was a program that you can use to help with that. Although, I can't remember the name of it now!
    .-= Onna@toddler crafts´s last blog ..Crafts for Preschoolers – Make a music instrument =-.
  • Hi Onna, The problem with a banner rotator might be the ads won't be as relevant as they could be unless every post was exactly the same. I guess it could be set into groups to be more effective. I use to have an awesome HTML rotator when I was running safelists but I lost track of it.
  • I just want to start put banner on my blog an invite the advertiser :D
    I think one week is enough for a banner and we can change the banner for the next week, but it still lead to the same direction.
    What do you think?
    .-= Latief@AnotherBlogger´s last blog ..How To Removing CommentLuv Error Message =-.
  • Sure Latief, a banner that says something like, "Advertise Here", and/or setup a page just for advertisers. There you could give your stats and prices.
  • I don't run banner ad campaigns for my sites, but I do sell them. My first one is in the header on Hot Blog Tips now, they paid for a month of advertising and I think it is a good fit for my site because it is for a premium WP theme. We will see next month if they think the same thing!

    I agree that bloggers are almost immune to ads, search traffic is not though. That is one reason adsense only shows on posts over 5 days old on my site...
    .-= Keith@ Blog Tips´s last blog ..Blog Tip: Keyword Research =-.
  • Great point Keith, I almost brought up search traffic but ended up leaving it out. Search traffic is more likely to read and click-out or just click-out than read and subscribe or comment.

    I don't run AdSense on this blog yet I do earn decent revenue from it on niche sites. I would be more open to AdSense on older posts, that sounds like a great idea. Is that a plugin?
  • Yeah, it is called WhyDoWork Adsense Plugin I think, it allows you to determine what "channels" you put where, as well as tell it for posts only. I like it so far...
    .-= Keith@ Blog Tips´s last blog ..Dell 23inch Monitor Review =-.
  • I'd like to think that ad-blindness does apply only to the mainstream bloggers but the average Joes who are looking for real info are more likely to click on your ads (if it is eye-catchy enough, just like the one above).

    However, I like the idea of embedding the ad into the post or place it strategically after the post to increase the CTR.

    I've been experimenting with my Adsense placement and I do notice that one that's placed right after the post (just before the comment section) has the highest CTR across multiple niches. (here I'm talking about 15%-20% CTR)

    Yan

    PS: A couple of days ago I received an email from someone who takes the time to check which of my posts has the highest search engine rankings and offer to place an advertisements for a fee. We have yet to come into an agreement but that proves pretty much what the market is looking at right now.

    PSS: By the way, Brian. Apparently, your sidebar is messing with your theme. It drops to the bottom of the page. At least, that's what my browser shows. Email me if you need a visual confirmation.
    .-= Yan@Credit Score Scale´s last blog ..Vantage Score vs FICO Score =-.
  • Thanks Yan, it's been a while. I think it would work best to setup an ad ahead of time but it's hard to know what future posts are going to relate to.

    I think, for example, I would approach a couple bloggers and ask to advertise in their next ad tracking post. Agree on a price, send the links and wait for the post.

    Another solution could be to write the post our self and submit it as a guest post. That would increase the exposure and the relevancy. The author info and the embedded ad.

    That's the first I've heard on the sidebar problem. I'll email you and see what browser you're using. Hopefully it's an easy fix because I really like this clean theme.
  • Great video by Mike Blinder. I'll make some changes to my banner advertising. I like the way you have the video embedded in the post. Very helpful from a readers perspective.
    .-= Gregg Zban´s last blog ..Domain Name Search Becomes Fast and Easy =-.
  • Thanks Mike, video are an easy way to enhance our posts when we're using other people's videos. I like to share the ones that I learned something from.
  • The Problem is that you have to stop thinking like a Blogger and think like the Average Joe surfing for How to Fix his Car.I think 125 Ads do not Work very well but on sites like Mashable I find them much more appealing because they are Blogging Related. I do not Buy Banner ads apart from Adgitize and Entrecard sometimes but these are cheap. If I am to make a real Banner campaign I will also have to pay for a professional banner.I use Adsense and Sometimes just Blame the Ads when my earnings go down because they are poorly written or the same ads are running for months take Artisteer for example that same ad has being running on all Blogs with Adsense for months now that is not going to earn anyone anything because every Blogger knows what it is
    .-= Roezer´s last blog ..Make life Easier for Visitors using Wacom Tablets =-.
  • Exactly right Roezer, a great reason not to run the same ad month after month on the same blogs, especially when we tend to get a lot of repeat traffic.
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