with a banner advertisement, and the remaining half were shown a nearly identical
image with web sponsorship identifications (such as ‘Sponsored by’, ‘Powered By’ and
‘in association with’). The results were illuminating. Of the 500 respondents, ratings for
different aspects of perception were:
Trustworthy (28% for sponsorships to 15% for ads)
Credible (28% to 16%)
In tune with their interests (32% to 17%)
Likely to enhance site experience (33% to 17%)
More likely to consider purchasing a sponsor’s product or service (41% to 23%)
Less obtrusive (66% to 34%).How positively do you view interactive advertising as a communications tool? Even
today, there are relatively few advertisers who have used interactive advertising, partly
because of myths promoted about interactive advertising and possibly because of bad
experiences. The first 468 by 68 pixel banner ad was placed on Hotwired in 1995 and the
call-to-action ‘Click here!’ generated a clickthrough of 25%. Since then, the clickthrough
rate (CTR) has fallen dramatically with many consumers suffering from ‘banner blind-
ness’ – they ignore anything on a web site that looks like an ad. The Doubleclick
compilation of ad response (www.doubleclick.com) shows that today the average CTR is
between 0.2% and 0.3%. This low response rate combined with relatively high costs of
over £20 per thousand ads served has seemingly made some marketers prejudiced
against interactive advertising. But we will see that there are many innovative
approaches to interactive advertising which are proved to increase brand awareness and
purchase intent. For example, there are now many other ad formats such as Skyscrapers
and MPUs (multi-purpose advertising units) and rich-media ads with animation, audio
or video or data capture and interaction. This is indicated by Figure 8.18 which uses
large rectangle MPUs as well as some traditional banners which will receive lower click-
through rates. Given these limitations to banner ads, most media owners, digital
marketing agencies and industry bodies now refer to ‘Interactive advertising’ which is
more suggestive of the range of options for rich-media ads, data capture ads and large-
format ads such as skyscrapers.Fundamentals of online advertising
Advertising on the web takes place when an advertiser pays to place advertising content
on another web site. The process usually involves ad servingfrom a different server from
that on which the page is hosted (ads can be served on destination sites in a similar way).
Advertising is possible on a range of sites in order to drive traffic to an organisation’s
destination siteor alternately a micrositeor nested ad-content on the media owner’s site
or on the destination site. The destination page from a banner ad will usually be
designed as a specifically created direct-response page to encourage further action. For
example, the nappy supplier Huggies placed an advertisement on a childcare site that
led the parents clicking on this link to more detailed information on Huggies contained
on the site and offering them opt-in to a loyalty programme.4 Interactive advertising
4 Interactive advertising
Ad serving
The term for displaying
an advertisement on a
web site. Often the
advertisement will be
served from a web
server different from
the site on which it is
placed.
Destination site
The site reached on
clickthrough.
Microsite
A small-scale
destination site
reached on
clickthrough which is
part of the media
owner’s site.