Online Creative Suffering from Banner Blindness and Display-Ad Fatigue?

In the world of traditional advertising (i.e. television and radio), reach and frequency are benchmark measurements that gauge not only the effectiveness of a campaign but also determine when an ad reaches the point of saturation. Advertisers have asked if there are similar benchmarks in the digital space that can forecast market saturation, which begs the question, do you know when your online creative has reached the point of burnout?

Banner blindness describes a users’ tendency to ignore ads when they have grown accustomed to the same old format while ad fatigue refers to the decline of click thru rate. Yahoo Labs partnered with several retailers to perform studies on how display ads affected sales and determined that the average online consumer sees just over 1,000 banner ads in a month. Despite the volume of ads, the study was able to show that retailers did see a lift in sales from their online campaigns.

Display advertising remains an efficient and cost effective way to reach an audience at all levels of the sales funnel so it is important to be vigilant with reporting and tracking to guard against banner blindness and ad fatigue. While there are no industry standard measurements such as reach and frequency to assess over-saturation, monitoring of key performance indicators (KPI), such as click thru rates combined with tagging and analytics to track users through your site, can help you determine whether it’s time for a strategic or creative refresh. So fear not! With the right mix of strategy and stewardship, you can utilize display campaigns to the tune of increased business and ROI!