Is The Traditional Standard IAB Banner Ad Dead?

I know you hear a lot of talk about how the standard traditional IAB banner ad unit doesn’t convert, click-through rates CTR is down or very low.  But I say NO, the regular 160 x 600, 300 x 250, and 728 x 90 standard IAB banner ad unit is NOT dead.  Here are some things to consider about banner advertising both for marketing and monetization.

Mobile, Desktop, and Tablet Banner Ad Monetization & Marketing

This conversation has been going on for about 10 years or more.  The subject is old hat.  We need solutions and answers, not questions.

Also, people that say the banner ad is dead or no good are wrong.  Banner ads are effective.  Why would anyone NOT run a banner ad?  Let me ask you this question?

1. Should we stop selling banner ads to the to people that want to buy them?
2. Do people that buy banner ads compliment their effectiveness?
3. The problem isn’t the ad, it is the marketer.  If you are not good at marketing you run poor ineffective campaigns.
   

   If you are good at what you do, you have success.  Allow me to elaborate briefly:

   1. If you own a automobile tire shop and you spend big bucks to advertise on bicycle tire websites, how effective do you expect the ads to be?  But if you run that same ad on Ford or the Auto Trader, I bet it will convert much better.
   2. Successful Internet Marketing for Zappos made it so huge.  It was done well and smart, that is why it was so successful and was bought out by Amazon.

Additionally, there are many, many, highly effective alternatives to banner ads.  Banner ads don’t have to look crappy.  I think in many cases they make a site look better.  Look at many sites. I think the ad placements add to the overall look of many websites.  The ads have graphics that often look nice and if you didn’t have them, in many cases you would just have a bunch of content.  BORING!!!!!  Yuck!

So my conclusion is simply this:

1. When done well and right, banner ads add and enhance the overall look of the website.
2. Banner ads make you big $$$ as the in-house sales do and even the remnant 3^rd party makes good additional income.
   

   When the marketer is good and develops a successful marketing campaign, the money is well spent and the ROI is favorable.

1. And if you don’t like the banner ad, then you don’t have to use it.  There are literally 30+ different types of monetizeable ad formats on the Internet right now and they all tend to convert better then the banner ad.
2. Also, people that buy and sell banner ads know that the click-through rate is low.  They are ecstatic if they get a 1% CTR.
3. And, the more A/B testing you do, the better the CTR, conversion, and ROI.

And if they were doing so bad, then please explain why there are over 1,500 ad networks.

It is tough to run effective Mobile ads there.  But with the phones getting bigger I bet you will see those same ads start converting much more and better.  Think about it this way, how good did you really expect a banner ad to convert on a BlackBerry Pearl?  Really?  I bet that the same ad will convert much better on a Samsung Note 4 or iPhone 6 Plus.  Also, they do have some highly effective banner ads for mobile devices.  In many ways, they are better than regular ads.  But Mobile is continuing to grow and so will the ad unit creativity.