Is it time to invest in banner ads? This is the question many marketers are considering as the Internet and its influence grows daily.

Entrenched in direct mail and print advertising for the past thirty years, most marketers have realized that marketing on the Web has many advantages over the direct mail piece and print ads - principally, the cost of printing a piece and paying the postage. As a result, both horizontal and vertical audiences can be reached at a fraction of the cost.

The best thing about banner ads is that their effectiveness can be tracked so accurately. Of course, you’ll need to be running some Web tracking software. I recently purchased five or six banner ads on media sites. WebTrends, our tracking software, told us how many click-throughs each banner received. This is a luxury we don’t have for newspaper ads we regularly place. We code our newspaper ads and instruct our customer service representatives to ask how inquiries or callers heard about our product. Still, the tracking for newspaper or direct mail has always been limited and subject to human error.

Webtrends indicated that our banners had done extraordinarily well in comparison to our newspaper ads. This isn’t to say they were more effective; it is pretty easy to click on a banner and sneak a peak. Many who read our newspaper ads or direct mail will make a mental note of them and contact us later, and that is difficult to track.

Many sites target Web banners in incredible ways. It can be set up to appear on demographic selects such as education, income, age or psychographic selects such as career oriented, outdoor types, green thumbs and so on.

What does a banner ad cost? It is estimated the same as print ads - a set cost per 1,000 page views. For example, if you purchase 20,000 page views at $20.00 per 1,000, your cost will be $400.00. One advantage to purchasing a banner ad is that you can usually purchase as many page views as you want. When purchasing a print ad, you don’t have a choice. Some Internet advertising companies such as ValueClick charge by the click-through rate. For example, you can set a rate such as 45 cents per click on your banner. A great idea and much fairer to the advertiser. LinkExchange and LinkTrader are creative sites that set up banner exchanges with like-minded or related products and sites.

Of course, there is some production time involved in producing a banner ad. The best ads are often simple and easy to understand. Remember that you only have a few seconds to capture a Web surfer’s attention. A wise strategy is to analyze the posting site. If the colors on the site are light, make your banner dark. If the site design is weighted to the left, weight your banner to the right. Also, remember the basic rules of print ad design such as title length, font size, and color coordination. And remember to make it legible. If you use animation, it should be no more than three seconds.

The word on the street is that banner ads are drawing a one-percent click-through rate on many of the major sites. Nevertheless, you’re reaching a rich and diverse crowd and for branding purposes it is a terrific vehicle. My feeling is that if you target your banner ads wisely, you are going to receive a rewarding return on investment.

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