Online marketers could learn a thing or two from local radio D.J.’s

I am not easily impressed with online banner ads. I often find them intrusive, cluttered, and remarkably out of context from what I am typically reading. Rarely do they capture my attention and even less often do they induce a click from my mouse. But every now and then, they get me and subsequently are rewarded with my click. Score one for the advertiser.

When you look at it, advertising is just that—a game. For years, marketers, designers, and even psychologists have brainstormed, researched, and tested theories on the most effective ways to get us consumers to buy. This is obviously nothing new. Advertising campaigns have become exponentially more sophisticated than they were, say thirty years ago, mostly because consumers are more reluctant to open their wallets now more than ever.  Advertising has become a part of our daily lives and unfortunately for marketers, not in the most productive way. Consumers have become blind to many traditional forms of advertising: ads in the newspaper, billboards on the way to work, you get the idea. The same holds true in the online world—we call it ‘banner blindness’.

So how has this affected the game plan of marketers? Well if YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter have taught us anything, it’s that everybody (and their dog) has a voice. Not too long ago, I had lunch with a blogger here in Ottawa who brought up a neat idea: how cool would it be if you could go back and see all the banner ads you’ve ever clicked on?

At one point in time, I dare to say we’ve all been held captive to an ad that’s either made us laugh, given us goosebumps, or generated an immediate click. Personally, I like the feeling of connecting with an ad, mostly because so few of them capture my attention. That being said, I’d have no problem taking two seconds out of my day to "like" or "dislike" ads I came across and share them with my friends and followers.  This notion has already spread across YouTube, extending the lives of hundreds of television ads—Reebok’s Terry Tate and Old Spice’s "Man your man could smell like" are two popular examples of ads that have taken their million dollar Super Bowl investments viral through social media.  

These heatmaps shows eyetracking that evidently proves "banner blindness." Study associated with Jakob Nielson, a world-leader of web usability.

This brings up a major advantage in online advertising; the opportunity for an effective feedback/loopback system. Traditional media has always run into the obstacle of how to accurately assess the success and overall effectiveness of its advertisements. As much as I’d love to climb up the scaffolding of a highway billboard and press a "like" button, it’s much too dangerous. But the online world is much different. With social media vehicles like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, marketers can easily follow the emotional roller coasters of consumer life. Just as YouTube has propelled the world’s most liked commercials to viral status, with the right outlet the same could certainly be achieved for banner ads.  While assessing the effectiveness of an ad is still a challenge, ad agencies could feel much more confident in advertisements knowing one million fans and followers are providing feedback every step of the way.

Involving the social community into online advertising provides advertisers with yet another valuable analytic: "likeability."  The "likeability" factor of an ad, along with common online metrics such as the number of page views, the number of unique visitors and the CTR (click-through-rate) provide far more detail for advertisers than the classic "reach times frequency" of traditional channels.  Although this sounds extremely beneficial, the by-product of having so much data has caused information overload, a problem that has plagued both publishers and developers in online banner advertising since its inception.

With so much data, the goal is to make sure these statistics provide relevant information that corresponds to the ad’s overall objective.  For example, an ad designed to increase brand awareness should be more focused on "page views per unique visitor" and less concerned with the ad’s CTR.  On the other hand, an ad with a "call-to-action" (e.g. encouraging viewers to click for a free coupon) should use CTR as its primary indicator. Believing a successful banner ad campaign is the result of every statistic being above normal is a common misinterpretation.  Unfortunately, the adverse experience of a banner ad not achieving the anticipated outcome often results in advertisers ‘giving up’ on online advertising - quitting the game for good.

Knowing which analytics to decipher is important, but achieving the statistics you desire is a whole other ballgame. That’s why it’s important to look at advertising as a team sport.  Who else knows the readers, watchers, or viewers better than person whose job it is to produce the content for them?  We know radio ads sometimes use the station’s D.J.’s as spokespeople. Why? So the message sounds trustworthy and resonates with listeners.  The same logic can be applied to banner ads.  A publisher might suggest the ad be designed with red and white to emulate the design of the website making it a more natural extension of the content. They may also suggest the ad be featured on the right margin instead of the bottom leaderboard so that it’s closer to popular links. These kinds of suggestions can be the difference between a wasted investment and finding a hidden gem.