Market Research Study Shows Website Advertising Formats to Be Missing Their Targets

The website advertising formats you’re used to seeing may be gone in a few years because they’re not getting the job done. A 2008 study by iPerceptionsAdvertisers, surveying over 14,000 August visits at top media sites, discovered that rich media and video internet advertising scored very poorly compared to text advertising. Even banner ads trounced rich media and video website advertising.

Text advertising garnered clicks 25% of the time. Right-side banner website advertising scored clicks 20% of the time; top-of-page banners registered at 12%, and rich media and video website advertising trailed behind at 11% and 7% respectively.

How Website Advertising Fails

In the study, the researchers were also surprised to see that video website advertising was roundly shunned by well-heeled visitors. A whopping 87% of surfers who clicked on video website advertising earned less than $150,000 per year, and nearly half less than $50,000 per year. Many of these surfers were under age 25. Clearly, website advertising campaigns that spend heavily on video and rich media ads are missing their target market.

iPerceptions vice president of marketing Jonathan Levitt also points out the limitations of the “pay-per-click” advertising measurement, citing the data on the inverse relationship between a viewer’s income and willingness to click on video website advertising.

We agree: it’s always been our opinion that all clicks are not created equal. That’s why our website advertising and internet marketing model integrates search engine marketing, search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising, link building and careful content aggregation.

Why Text Website Advertising Works

Levitt attributes the success of text website advertising to “Google conditioning,” saying, “Consumers respond best to this particular ad format because they’re used to seeing it when they search.”

I think he’s only arriving at half the truth here. When I’m on the web, I almost never intentionally click on an ad. I’m seeking content. If I want to buy something, I want content about the thing I plan to purchase. I know that website advertising leads to irrelevant sites 99.9% of the time. And video and rich media advertising is clearly advertising.

I think text website advertising is successful because people don’t want to see advertising. They click on text website advertising because it looks like it leads to legitimate content.

In other words, these website advertisements are successful mostly because they deceive people into clicking on them. If you ask me, that’s a pretty shaky business model.

Why Website Advertising Needs Search Marketing

At Get Page One, we’re firm believers in the power of organic search engine optimization. Certainly, website advertising plays a role in brand recognition and sales conversions, and it does attract good numbers of people who really want to view advertising. But we believe website advertising’s complimentary to a strategy that achieves strong rankings in popular search engines.

If your website ranks well in the search engines, your webpages don’t appear as website advertising. They don’t even appear to be like content, as text ads do. Instead, they are the content that the customer is seeking.