4 key strategies for overcoming banner blindness

Ad fatigue and banner blindness are common problems associated with online advertising  – particularly for boring, standardised banner adverts. In fact, The Drum recently reported that “73% of UK consumers had seen the same ads ‘over and over again’. And as a result, just 11% said they ‘enjoyed’ advertising.”

Does this mean that online advertising is no longer effective? On the contrary, we argue it simply lacks the right tools and tactics. Bannerflow data shows ads that those who apply the latest in rich media and personalisation technology have far higher engagement and click-through-rate (CTR) than those without.

We wanted to show you what these tactics are and how to apply them to your own display advertising strategy. Read on to discover our top 4 tips for overcoming banner blindness…

What is banner blindness?

Banner blindness is defined by a user willfully or unconsciously ignoring a banner advertisement display on a webpage. It can also be referred to as ad blindness, banner noise or ad fatigue.

Since 1995, CTR rates have dropped from over 2% to on average 0.05%. Indeed, studies have shown that you’re more likely to climb Mount Everest than you are to click on a banner ad.

Many banner ads have become simply boring, annoying or intrusive.

Until now.

Display advertising trends 2019: what does the data show?

We analysed Bannerflow platform data on millions of banner ads over the course of 2018 to provide useful insights on how to improve display advertising conversion. Here were the results:

1. 82.7% of ads could benefit from live rates, odds, and product feeds.

2. Ads have 18.4% higher click-through-rate when they use in-banner video.

3. 55.2% of all weekend ad impressions happen on mobile – making it the preferred out of office device.

Personalisation is the key to conversion

A recent report by Mary Meeker suggested that personalisation was the key to overcoming banner blindness or ad fatigue. Marketers now have the ability to target audiences on a far more granular scale than before. Yet, as many as 82.7% fail to use personalisation with their banners to increase conversion.

This can be something as simple as an outdoor store ad including snow in a banner in wintery Chicago, or a fast-food company displaying the location of the nearest store after office workers clock-out at 5 pm.

Technology also offers the possibility to provide data feeds that link directly to your product inventory or a feed that display live market data. This is more commonly referred to as dynamic creative, where an ad can be tailored in real-time to display different messaging or creative depending on the viewer.

Personalisation comes in many forms and offers marketers the opportunity to provide consumers with hyper-relevant advertising as well as driver higher engagement.

Read this blog to learn more about dynamic creative and its uses. 

Video improves engagement and click-through rates

Our spring display ad of the season winner demonstrated the effectiveness of in-banner video with this powerful campaign.  Better yet, Georg Jensen discovered that their ads engage six times more viewers than their standardised campaigns.

Video is proving successful across online advertising formats in encouraging engagement and interest – why should it be any different for display advertising?

Adding rich media elements such as animation, interactivity, or video are simple ways to lead the eye. Plus, it doesn’t have to be difficult either. With a creative management platform (CMP), designers can simply drag and drop the video element into a banner in a matter of minutes.

Find out about video advertising with Bannerflow here.

Think mobile-first for better CTR

Today, mobile already makes up 67.3% of all digital ad spend and by 2022, this is predicted to account for an astonishing 71.5%. More importantly, mobile banners have a higher CTR than their desktop counterparts.

According to a survey by Sizmek, expandable and polite mobile banners show a remarkably high CTR of 0.63% and 0.28% respectively. Whereas standard mobile banners around 0.09%  – still higher than the industry average of 0.05% across all formats.

To get the most out of your display advertising, use a mobile-first strategy when it comes to designing your ads.

Daniel Jacobsson, Bannerflow co-founder argues “Today, browsers for mobiles are just as competent as those for desktop and advanced features should be embraced in mobile ads. Really, there’s no excuse for mobile ads being more static and lifeless.”

To learn more about creating engaging ads for the smaller screen check out our ultimate guide to mobile banner ads. 

Test, optimise, sleep, repeat.

Optimisation and testing are essential for learning exactly what works and what doesn’t work for your particular audience. You can create the most beautiful, engaging banner in the world but at the end of the day, it might be an ugly banner with a powerful CTA that gets your audience to click.

A/B test specific design elements, CTAs, placements and offers to find the ideal combination. Unsure how to pull off A/B testing effectively? Heatmaps are a great tool to use to see which areas in your banners attract the eye.

Plus with a CMP, versioning your banners doesn’t take more than a few seconds – no matter how many sizes you have. Create iterations of the same banners with new creative, copy, or CTAs with Bannerflow’s simple versioning feature.

Get the full how-to guide to A/B testing here.

What next?

Banner blindness is an issue for advertisers, but only for those who have yet to use the right strategies for increasing engagement from their audience. Display advertising that leverages rich media, personalisation, mobile-first strategies, and A/B testing will convert far more than a simple static banner in a crowd of competitors doing the same.

Get in contact with us or book a demo with us to discover how Bannerflow can help you increase your display ad performance.

To learn more about how in-house marketing is evolving in Europe, click the image below to download your copy of the ‘State of In-housing’ report!