Web Banner (Banner advertising)

What is banner

Banner is a digital marketing tool and a unit of online advertising that works based on the so-called click-through rate or CTR.

Banners grab attention. The audience gets interested and clicks on it.

Potential customers land to a different page to explore more of a product or service advertised through that banner.

So, banners increase brand awareness, create traffic, generate leads and sales, and more.

According to the most recent studies in digital and online marketing, banners are not that efficient anymore.

It is the annoying part of the social activities, and many users install special hiding software or just ignore them.

However, it is one the means to advertise online, and this is where the banners come in handy.

Popular types and sizes

The creativity of digital marketers and advertisers has no limits, however, banners still have the same main four types and very distinctive sizing and placement pattern more or less.

As of usability there are four main types of banners:

• Static image – mainly these are JPEG imagery files
• Animation – these include GIF-files, HTML5 animated elements (sometimes includes a video inside)
• Richtext – Text or Graphical-text blocks
• Interactive banners

Mostly advertisers and digital marketers define banners as follows:

• Rectangles and Pop-Ups which include the following types of banners
  • Medium Rectangle (size 300x250px), Square Pop-Up (size 250x250px),
  • Vertical Rectangle (size 240X400px), Large Rectangle (size 336x280px),
  • Rectangle (size 180x150px)
  • Rectangle (size 300x100px)
  • Pop-Under (size 720x300px)
• Medium Rectangle wins 40% of popularity among all banners and it undoubtedly is a headline tool for all marketers and advertisers.
• Banners and Buttons section includes these types:
  • Full banner (size 468x60px)
  • Half banner (size 234x60px)
  • Micro bar (size 88x31px), Button 1 (size 120x90px)
  • Button 2 (size 120x60px)
  • Vertical banner (size 120x240px)
  • Square button (size 125x125px)
  • Leaderboard (size 728x90px)
• Skyscrapers are categorized as such:
  • Wide skyscraper( size 160x600px)
  • Skyscraper (size 120x600px)
  • Half page ad (size 300×600)
• Leaderboard is normally placed on the header of the page and has a size of 728×90 px and wins 25% of popularity rate

As for the sizes, the mobile ones are taking over and becoming more viral, especially in social media.

The primary differences of placing the mobile banner is that it normally takes over the entire screen rather than a part of it.

Banner placement

There are few areas where you can normally find them and rarely realize this is a banner.

First, it is the header or the leaderboard of the main page. Normally it is located right on the top of the page. It is one of the most popular ways of banner placement as it immediately attracts a potential client.

Another way is to place banners on the side panels of the page; this is where you find skyscrapers mostly.

Skyscrapers are vertically oriented banners (see the parameters above).

Pop-up banners appear on the screen when the user completes the target action – for example, reaches the middle of the article or stays on the page for a specific time.

This is the most annoying type of banners, and many users do not permit the pop-ups on the pages, with the negative impact on banner effectiveness.

Last but not the least means of banner placement is within the text of an article. It can be placed in any part of the text.

Where to check competitors banners

Online resources are offering several handy tools to check what is trending at this moment. It is necessary to understand that the web is live.

So, the new skyrocketing methods appear, and old methodologies die.

You can use AdEspresso, iSpionage, SERankings and WhatRunsWhere to learn more about why, how and what people are using to promote their online business.

Besides, there are dozens of less popular services that can be helpful or not.

Please be aware that any service does not reveal the truth and all competitor’s banner networks for 100%.

The most reasonable strategy is to find 2-3 trusted services and compare the results.