Banners Are For Branding

New research from AdRelevance suggests that banner ads function in a branding role rather than simply driving surfers to a site.

"Online advertising is no longer just about click-through," says Charlie Buchwalter, AdRelevance vice president of media research.

Though click-throughs are relied upon to gauge the effectiveness of online ad campaigns, many are now realizing they might not be an appropriate metric for brand-oriented ads.

Some advertisers have already drifted away from the click-through mentality of pure direct response marketing.

AdRelevance data shows that a full 63% of ads are brand-oriented (i.e. positioning, awareness and feature/benefit) and account for 63% of all online ad units and 54% of all impressions.

Within the branding category, ads generating awareness enjoy the most impressions (33%), followed by ads positioning the brand (20%) and ads promoting a feature or benefit of a brand (1%).

Entertainment leads in branding, devoting 73% of its impressions to branding, followed by hardware/electronics (83%), retail (64%), Web media (63%), automotive (56%), and travel (54%).

And, as streaming media comes more into play, the Internet will increasingly function more like a traditional branding medium -- making advertising on the Web more appealing to all, especially traditional companies who have mastered offline brand strategies.

So when you think of banners, don't just think of click-throughs -- think of branding too.