10 Apr Banner Advertising ClickThrough Vs. Target Market Interest

A recent colleague was talking to me about the clickthrough rate of his ads on a targeted niche market site.  By looking at just the number of click throughs, he was able to make a blanket statement about the inefficacy of his banner ads.  Interactive Marketing Professionals can help by setting proper expectations.
After 1 week of testing 1 banner, (with poor stock photography), he quickly made faulty presumption about Target Market Interest without a full assessment of his offer presentation.  Bad move.

What he really needed, was a full assessment of his banners.  Here is what I suggested.  Maybe you can comment further and add more.

1. Calculate a true click through rate. Understand the number of banner impressions FIRST.  Then calculate the number of click throughs.
2. Compare call to action messaging, banner animation styles, and of course, aesthetics.  Run MULTIPLE tests/banners to see what resonates in this particular space.
3. Get creative in banner placement with your ad publisher.  Ask to see if that same banner could be “sprinkled into”  existing contextual content that would boost the importance and thus the probability of his banner click through.
4. Analyze full stats. I heavily use OPENX for the SMB space publishers.  This helps them to measure their own efficacy of B2B and B2C CPA offers as well as “sold” remnants.    It also allows them to price remnants in several formats including cost/thousand, click through, and even flat rate ads.
5. Reduce dependancy on ubiquitous stock photography.  Research your stock photography vendor.   It could be beneficial for one to consider a half day with photographer, several models to fit your demographic, and a green screen to allow your designers to place your models on different backgrounds.

Oh, and by the way… Here is a quote I found online for average click through rates for banner assets.

The publisher of this article states that the data comes from MarketingSherpa.  See the article here for full citation.

160 x 600: 0.14 percent

300 x 250: 0.37 percent

120 x 600: 0.18 percent

728 x 90: 0.27 percent

468 x 60: 0.10 percent

Overall average: 0.21 percent

So from my calculation, his click through rates of 0.25 for a 468×60 banner was 150% better than industry standard (EVEN WITHOUT testing) and a cool 4% over industry overall banner click through.

While next steps would be to understand click through rates for similar offers in this demographic, which may vary, it is clear that an overall percentage is well within the expected range… and better.