Advertisers invest billions of dollars per year on banner ads but the “banner blindness” problem has only worsened since the appearance and delivery of banners has hardly changed in decades.
Our team at Sharethrough set out to study consumer behaviors as they browse and scroll through the internet to understand if and what could be done to banner ads to improve their performance and decrease banner blindness. This research led to a first-to-market product that automatically improves the performance of banner ads.
Eye-Tracking Studies Hint at A Potential Solution
Despite the massive growth of ad spend in highly publicized categories like video, social, native and CTV, advertisers still spent an estimated $46 Billion on banners in 2021, which is 30% growth since 2020 and 22% of overall digital ad spend (eMarketer). Yet numerous eye-tracking studies show people do not look at the banners, leading to inefficient or wasted investments.
However, those same eye-tracking studies, including one we conducted in 2013 with IPG Media Labs, confirmed that consumers focus on scanning headlines while scrolling through a site. This study ultimately led to the development of native ads that deliver better performance because they fit in with a headline.
So we wondered if the same logic would apply to banners. That is, if we added a headline to banners that matches the aesthetic of the site would it improve attention, boost message comprehension and improve the ad performance?
Testing Banners with Headlines
To test the impact on awareness and message comprehension, we tested multiple banners on 400 consumers as they scroll through content sites and broke them out into equal control and exposed groups. Control groups saw standard banners and exposed groups saw the same banners but with a headline that matched the look of the site. The headlines used the same exact text as the banner text to verify if people were more likely to read the same text as a headline.
At the end of the browsing session, we asked the participants simple comprehension questions. Like if they saw an ad for the "top SUV of the year", and if they comprehended the messaging. And to measure awareness, we asked if they remembered which brand advertised.
Comprehension Improves by 2.5x
The improvement was stunning. People were 2.5x more likely to comprehend the message of the ad when we added a headline underneath the banner.
And they were 17% more likely to remember the advertised brand.
Enhanced Banners Launch and Improve CTR by 7X
After these results, we decided to officially launch the product called “Enhanced Banners” that automatically adds either a default or customized headline to banners running on the Sharethrough Exchange. Since our mission is to improve performance of all ads, we do it for free without any additional CPM markup.
To date, Enhanced Banners with default headlines are delivering a CTR average of 0.24%, which is 3X higher than industry average but Enhanced Banners with headlines that simply match the copy of the banner are delivering a CTR of 0.62%, which is 7X higher than industry average.
Simply Target Sharethrough in Any DSP
Applying headlines to banner ads can grab a user’s attention, increase their message comprehension and motivate them towards action, improving brand awareness and performance of display ad campaigns.
Start adding headlines to banners ads and improve the performance of your ad campaigns. Simply target Sharethrough with your banners in any DSP and we can automatically add headlines to your banner ads using approved brand copy, or you can send us the approved copy and we'll add the headlines for you.
Contact us for more information or if you have any questions.
Advertisers invest billions of dollars per year on banner ads but the “banner blindness” problem has only worsened since the appearance and delivery of banners has hardly changed in decades.
Our team at Sharethrough set out to study consumer behaviors as they browse and scroll through the internet to understand if and what could be done to banner ads to improve their performance and decrease banner blindness. This research led to a first-to-market product that automatically improves the performance of banner ads.
Eye-Tracking Studies Hint at A Potential Solution
Despite the massive growth of ad spend in highly publicized categories like video, social, native and CTV, advertisers still spent an estimated $46 Billion on banners in 2021, which is 30% growth since 2020 and 22% of overall digital ad spend (eMarketer). Yet numerous eye-tracking studies show people do not look at the banners, leading to inefficient or wasted investments.
However, those same eye-tracking studies, including one we conducted in 2013 with IPG Media Labs, confirmed that consumers focus on scanning headlines while scrolling through a site. This study ultimately led to the development of native ads that deliver better performance because they fit in with a headline.
So we wondered if the same logic would apply to banners. That is, if we added a headline to banners that matches the aesthetic of the site would it improve attention, boost message comprehension and improve the ad performance?
Testing Banners with Headlines
To test the impact on awareness and message comprehension, we tested multiple banners on 400 consumers as they scroll through content sites and broke them out into equal control and exposed groups. Control groups saw standard banners and exposed groups saw the same banners but with a headline that matched the look of the site. The headlines used the same exact text as the banner text to verify if people were more likely to read the same text as a headline.
At the end of the browsing session, we asked the participants simple comprehension questions. Like if they saw an ad for the "top SUV of the year", and if they comprehended the messaging. And to measure awareness, we asked if they remembered which brand advertised.
Comprehension Improves by 2.5x
The improvement was stunning. People were 2.5x more likely to comprehend the message of the ad when we added a headline underneath the banner.
And they were 17% more likely to remember the advertised brand.
Enhanced Banners Launch and Improve CTR by 7X
After these results, we decided to officially launch the product called “Enhanced Banners” that automatically adds either a default or customized headline to banners running on the Sharethrough Exchange. Since our mission is to improve performance of all ads, we do it for free without any additional CPM markup.
To date, Enhanced Banners with default headlines are delivering a CTR average of 0.24%, which is 3X higher than industry average but Enhanced Banners with headlines that simply match the copy of the banner are delivering a CTR of 0.62%, which is 7X higher than industry average.
Simply Target Sharethrough in Any DSP
Applying headlines to banner ads can grab a user’s attention, increase their message comprehension and motivate them towards action, improving brand awareness and performance of display ad campaigns.
Start adding headlines to banners ads and improve the performance of your ad campaigns. Simply target Sharethrough with your banners in any DSP and we can automatically add headlines to your banner ads using approved brand copy, or you can send us the approved copy and we'll add the headlines for you.
Contact us for more information or if you have any questions.
Behind Headlines: 180 Seconds in Ad Tech is a short 3-minute podcast exploring the news in the digital advertising industry. Ad tech is a fast-growing industry with many updates happening daily. As it can be hard for most to keep up with the latest news, the Sharethrough team wanted to create an audio series compiling notable mentions each week.
Advertisers invest billions of dollars per year on banner ads but the “banner blindness” problem has only worsened since the appearance and delivery of banners has hardly changed in decades.
Our team at Sharethrough set out to study consumer behaviors as they browse and scroll through the internet to understand if and what could be done to banner ads to improve their performance and decrease banner blindness. This research led to a first-to-market product that automatically improves the performance of banner ads.
Eye-Tracking Studies Hint at A Potential Solution
Despite the massive growth of ad spend in highly publicized categories like video, social, native and CTV, advertisers still spent an estimated $46 Billion on banners in 2021, which is 30% growth since 2020 and 22% of overall digital ad spend (eMarketer). Yet numerous eye-tracking studies show people do not look at the banners, leading to inefficient or wasted investments.
However, those same eye-tracking studies, including one we conducted in 2013 with IPG Media Labs, confirmed that consumers focus on scanning headlines while scrolling through a site. This study ultimately led to the development of native ads that deliver better performance because they fit in with a headline.
So we wondered if the same logic would apply to banners. That is, if we added a headline to banners that matches the aesthetic of the site would it improve attention, boost message comprehension and improve the ad performance?
Testing Banners with Headlines
To test the impact on awareness and message comprehension, we tested multiple banners on 400 consumers as they scroll through content sites and broke them out into equal control and exposed groups. Control groups saw standard banners and exposed groups saw the same banners but with a headline that matched the look of the site. The headlines used the same exact text as the banner text to verify if people were more likely to read the same text as a headline.
At the end of the browsing session, we asked the participants simple comprehension questions. Like if they saw an ad for the "top SUV of the year", and if they comprehended the messaging. And to measure awareness, we asked if they remembered which brand advertised.
Comprehension Improves by 2.5x
The improvement was stunning. People were 2.5x more likely to comprehend the message of the ad when we added a headline underneath the banner.
And they were 17% more likely to remember the advertised brand.
Enhanced Banners Launch and Improve CTR by 7X
After these results, we decided to officially launch the product called “Enhanced Banners” that automatically adds either a default or customized headline to banners running on the Sharethrough Exchange. Since our mission is to improve performance of all ads, we do it for free without any additional CPM markup.
To date, Enhanced Banners with default headlines are delivering a CTR average of 0.24%, which is 3X higher than industry average but Enhanced Banners with headlines that simply match the copy of the banner are delivering a CTR of 0.62%, which is 7X higher than industry average.
Simply Target Sharethrough in Any DSP
Applying headlines to banner ads can grab a user’s attention, increase their message comprehension and motivate them towards action, improving brand awareness and performance of display ad campaigns.
Start adding headlines to banners ads and improve the performance of your ad campaigns. Simply target Sharethrough with your banners in any DSP and we can automatically add headlines to your banner ads using approved brand copy, or you can send us the approved copy and we'll add the headlines for you.
Contact us for more information or if you have any questions.
Founded in 2015, Calibrate is a yearly conference for new engineering managers hosted by seasoned engineering managers. The experience level of the speakers ranges from newcomers all the way through senior engineering leaders with over twenty years of experience in the field. Each speaker is greatly concerned about the craft of engineering management. Organized and hosted by Sharethrough, it was conducted yearly in September, from 2015-2019 in San Francisco, California.
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