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Question: How many of us really look at thoselittle banner ads floating at the top of Web sites?
Answer: It's hard to tell.
Most Web advertisers agree banner ads are an excellent way forgetting company names and messages out to the masses, and studieshave linked Web banners to higher brand awareness andconsumers' incentive to buy.
A January 1998 report by Forrester Research, however, showedadvertisers are baffled by the impact of their banner ads andunsatisfied with the methods sites use to track responses."Media sites and advertisers resoundingly agreed: Admeasurement on the Internet is a mess," the report states.Reasons cited for messy ad tracking included: hyped expectations, alack of agreement on standards, technology obstacles and afragmented ad delivery process.
Online ad agencies and ad software companies are pushing forstandards to resolve these issues. In fact, a bona fide movement isunderway-these specialists are perfecting technology that wouldmeasure ads' effectiveness and count the number ofclick-throughs (people who click on a banner ad to reach anadvertiser's site). Soon ad software companies will be able totrack users' demographic and behavioral characteristics aswell.
Does the Internet provide a foolproof way of measuring the adresponsiveness it initially promised? Obviously not. But withindustry standards and technology hurdles being addressed, Webadvertising may soon live up to advertisers' highexpectations.
Bronwyn Fryer writes about technology for Newsweek, C/NET andother publications from her office in Santa Cruz,California.
