Are banner ads nearing extinction?

The other day my fiancee clicked on a Youtube video - the advert at the start was from a local company.

She was both freaked out and amazed.

To you and me, that's nothing special, but for most people, they are experiencing this kind of targeting for the first time. And they're noticing.

Banner ads might be on the decline, but new, better methods, are rising.

Soon your TV will show adverts that appeal specifically to your interests.

But there's a long way to go, I think.

Paid advertising is always advancing and traditional media buying is no where near extinction as it may seem. I do however believe Native will surpass banners eventually but thats a long way to go. Also consider that banned advertising is a very blanket term. I still get amazing results doing media buying on both mobile and desktop

Static banner ads are currently beginning to be rarely used, ads that come from adwords have started using many rich media banner.

Even google itself facilitate this rich media banner ads by creating a free software called Google Web Designer.

With Google Web Designer you will be able to create very rich ads. Not just Clicks to websites, you can also make Phone Calls, SMS Submissions, Insert Videos, Maps, even you can get leads by inserting optin there.

Rich media banners are more engaging, AdRoll found that rich media banner ads have a 267% higher click-through rate than standard static banners!

Hi QualityCopywriting,

In the early days of the web, banner ads were the norm, then they nearly died out due to banner blindness. Banner ads were mostly replaced with text ads that blended more with the website content.

Banner ads never completely died, however, far from it. While out of favor, text ads and in-text content ads dominated. Then, along came dynamic content banner ads and they rose in popularity again,

Now, as you point out, banner ads are in decline due to the use of ad blockers that make them less effective for publishers. Some publishers have responded by placing even more ad units on pages to try to compensate,. This highly abusive tactic has accelerated the pace of users implementing ad blockers.

Many publishers are now utilizing native ads that are disguised as content to avoid the ad blockers. So, soon you will see technology that blocks users with ad blockers from viewing certain content on websites unless they disable the ad blocker, or pay for the content. That technology already exists, but is rarely used. As ad blockers grow in popularity so will the use of content blockers. When that happens, banners are likely to rise in popularity again.

Another advertising innovation that I predict you will see at some point in the future is the use of ad platforms to deliver content. This will effectively defeat ad blockers because all content will be served within ad units. If you block the ad unit you will see nothing. except a request to disable ad blockers to view content. Soon, you may see content disguised as ads, to completely defeat ad blockers.

We are already seeing this to some degree with the native ad formats. Native ads are disguised as content, with the intent to defeat ad blockers. native ads are rapidly replacing the use of banner ad formats, to get around ad blocking technology.

I don't know how other people feel, but I avoid visiting websites that use native ad formats, especially if the ad to content ratio is high, I might even block the website in my banned websites list in the browser so that I don't accidently visit that website again.

What I would really like to see developed, instead of an ad blockers, I would love to have a publisher blocker so I can block abusive publishers automatically. Something that would automatically warn me that the website I am trying to visit has hundreds of ads on a single page, or the ad to content ratio exceeds 1:1, something along those lines.

Another trend you are likely to see in the very near future is native ad blocking technology built into all popular web browsers. Google has already announced plans to include an ad blocker in Chrome, the most popular web browser. Presumably this will only block ads that don't meet ad industry standards and practices, which should make the 3rd party ad blockers less necessary.

Display ads will remain, in some form or fashion, as long as free enterprise exists. It may morph into something dramatically different over time. Perhaps we will call it something other than "banner ads", but it isn't likely to go away anytime in the near future.

That's my thoughts.

Don Burk

I've heard that banner ads are not as effective anymore due to ad-blocker programs.

Banner ads are not as common but as far as my ads on my blog sidebar, more people than ever are seeing them. Because it's just a subconscious belief which determines if more folks seem them or not. Try to get clear on whatever you are advertising, and you will see better results.

It's not the ad so much, but the site where you're advertising. Or more accurately, if you are offering mega value, and your readers dig your content, they will tend to click on your ads.

Banner ads are not being clicked a lot on my site. What people seem to be clicking on is links that I ask them to click on after I build some rapport by offering them some value.

Text and 'Calls to Action' work the best for me.

The human mind and the way it makes decisions KEEP changing.

And marketers have to adapt.