Web banner
Online Advertising
Web banner
A web banner or banner ad is a form of
advertising on the
World Wide Web. This form of online advertising entails embedding an
advertisement into a web page. It is intended to attract
traffic to a
website by linking them to the web site of the advertiser. The
advertisement is constructed from an image (GIF, JPEG), JavaScript
program or multimedia object employing technologies such as Java,
Shockwave or Flash, often employing animation or sound to maximize
presence. Images are usually in a high-aspect ratio shape. That is to
say, either wide and short, or tall and narrow, hence the reference to
banners. These images are usually placed on web pages that have interesting
content, such as a newspaper article or an opinion piece.
Typical web banner, sized 468x60 pixels
The web banner is displayed when a web page that references the banner is
loaded into a web browser. This event is known as an "impression". When the viewer clicks on the banner, the viewer is directed to the website
advertised in the banner. This event is known as a "click through". In many
cases, banners are delivered by a
central ad server.
Many banner ads work on a click-through payback system. When the advertiser
scans their logfiles and detects that a web user has visited the advertiser's
site from the content site by clicking on the banner ad, the advertiser sends
the content provider some small amount of money (usually around five to ten US
cents). This payback system is often how the content provider is able to pay for
the internet
access to supply the content in the first place.
Web banners function the same way as traditional advertisements are intended
to function: notifying consumers of the product or service and presenting
reasons why the consumer should choose the product in question, although web
banners differ in that the results for advertisement campaigns may be monitored
real-time
and may be targeted to the viewer's interests.
Many web surfers regard these advertisements as highly annoying because they
distract from a web page's actual content or waste
bandwidth. Newer web browsers often include options to disable pop-ups or block
images from selected websites. Another way of avoiding banners is to use a proxy
server that blocks them, such as Privoxy.
History
The first clickable web ad (which later came to be known by the term "banner
ad") was sold by Global Net Navigator (GNN) in
1993.
Founded by O'Reilly and Associates, Global Network Navigator (GNN) was the
first commercially supported web publication and one of the very first web sites
ever. Dale Dougherty was GNN's developer and publisher. O'Reilly and Associates
sold GNN to AOL in
1995 and the site was discontinued a few years later.
The first web banner sold by HotWired, an important early pioneer in
commercial web publishing started by Wired Magazine, was paid for by AT&T, and
was put online on October 25, 1994
[1].
HotWired was the first web site to sell banner ads in large quanities to a
wide range of major corporate advertisers. Andrew Anker was HotWired's first
CEO. Rick Boyce, a former media buyer with San Francisco advertising agency Hal
Riney & Parnters, spearheaded the sales effort for the company. When HotWired
was sold to Lycos, Boyce
became its Vice President of Sales.
HotWired coined the term "banner ad" and was the first company to provide
click through rate reports to its customers.
Standard sizes
The
Interactive Advertising Bureau has released a set of sizes which it has
designed to make ad sizing more predictable and better for both consumer and
producer. It calls these web advertisements "interactive marketing units". The
sizes are as follows (measurements in pixels):
- Sizes for rectangular/pop-up
ads
- Medium Rectangle: 300 by 250
- Square Pop-Up: 250 square
- Vertical Rectangle: 240 by 400
- Large Rectangle: 336 by 280
- Rectangle: 180 by 150
- Sizes for banner/button ads
- Full Banner: 468 by 60
- Half Banner: 234 by 60
- Micro Button: 80 by 15
- Micro Bar: 88 by 31
- Button 1: 120 by 90
- Button 2: 120 by 60
- Vertical Banner: 120 by 240
- Square Button: 125 square
- Leaderboard: 728 by 90
- Sizes for "skyscraper" ads
- Wide Skyscraper: 160 by 600
- Skyscraper: 120 by 600
- Half Page Ad: 300 by 600
The IAB has also
further standardized four of the sizes (Medium Rectangle, Rectangle, Leaderboard,
Wide Skyscraper) into a set of guidelines it calls the "Universal Ad Package".
Types of web banners
Message Plus Unit (MPU)
A Message Plus Unit takes the form of a square advert that usually
occurs in the middle of ordinary page content.
In the UK, "The
Guardian" newspaper claim
[2] to be the first site to employ technology to automatically hide MPU
slots that are not in use.
See also
External links
Home | Up | Online advertising | Advertising agency | Ad filtering | Ad serving | Advertising network | Classified ad | Direct navigation | Pixel script | Pop-up ad | Web banner | Flyposting
Online Advertising, made by MultiMedia | Free content and software
This guide is licensed under the GNU
Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.
|