Banner Ads

All of us use the Internet for various reasons. The Internet, being a freely accessible form of communication has gained a global acceptance with millions of users being introduced to it every day. This universal acceptance and widespread usage of the World Wide Web has led to the development of a phenomenon which is known as Internet advertising. The Google Adsense program has successfully popularized the concept of advertising through the web.

Web Banners
For the sake of better understanding, let's classify Internet advertising into 3 categorizes, namely textual ads, non-textual or pictorial/graphic ads, video ads and email ads however, some websites and web pages also contain textual advertisements. In maximum cases, these ads are graphic ads with video elements and moving images. They are typically placed on the first few lines of the web page.

In some cases, these banners are placed in the right or left panel of the web page. The use of software such as Java, Shockwave, Flash, is widespread in making the ads attractive and catchy. It's a perfect combination that successfully attracts shoppers, consumers and potential customers towards a product or brand.

Banner Sizes
Banner ads are rectangular in shape and are measured on the basis of their size of pixels. Some conventional advertisements are used by advertisers. A leaderboard is a 728×90 rectangular banner that usually appears in the topmost panel of the web page. A similar but smaller advertisement is the full banner and half banner ad. A pop banner which measures 720×300 appears somewhere in between or near to the textual content. The skyscraper is a long vertical advertisement that measures 120×600 and is placed on the sides of the content of the page. A button is a small advertisement that measures 120×90. Some other larger ads include a half page ad or a large rectangle. Banner designs basically depend upon the size of such ads. The common advertising technique that is implemented in the process of generation of such ads is that when an Internet user clicks on such ads, he is redirected to the website of the marketer or the person who has posted the ad. Such a technique plays a highly instrumental role in Internet marketing and promotion of the product.

Banner Cost
There are two principal ways in which the cost of one advertisement is derived by advertising agencies . Advertisers usually charge revenue to their clients by using pay-per-click advertising. Some others use the size of the ad to determine the cost of advertising. In some cases, a combination of both is also employed.

Apart from promoting Internet shopping and other sales, these ads can also help in creating awareness. In the right sense, it would be appropriate to say that banners are an advanced yet cost-effective method of advertising. A merit of such ads is that they tend to promote the sales of a product in a cost-effective manner, yet do not irritate the users.