Banner Blindness, or Why So Few People Click on Online Ads

Do you suffer from banner blindness?

If you said yes, don't worry. Most people do.

What is banner blindness? It's a condition where people fail to notice banner ads on websites--much less click on them.

For those who buy advertising, including non-profit groups, banner blindness is an important issue.

It's doubly important for non-profits, since we have so little to spend on ads. 

Which is why buying banner ads on websites seems like such a good deal. Compared to print ads, they cost a fraction of the price.

The only problem is that they don't seem to work.

According to Infolinks, a digital advertising company, 86% of visitors to websites don't notice the ads. Of those who do notice them, 50% never click on them. 

Or, as Solve Media puts it, you are more likely to win the lottery, become a U.S. Navy Seal, or climb Mount Everest than click on a banner ad.

So why don't banner ads work?

One reason is they don't attract our attention. We see them, but we don't "see" them.

This is partly because they are small, and there are lots of them. With all that clutter, they just don't catch our attention.

Plus, that's not why we came to the website in the first place. We came there because we needed information, not to buy a product or give to a charity.

In 2007, Jakob Nielsen studied eye patterns.  His research concluded that banner ads simply don't work.

In an article on his study, he "confirmed for the umpteenth time that banner blindness is real. Users almost never look at anything that looks like an advertisement, whether or not it's actually an ad."

At all levels of user engagement, he wrote, "the finding is the same regarding banners. If users are looking for a quick fact, they want to get done and aren't diverted by banners; and if users are engrossed in a story, they're not going to look away from the content."

And even when viewers noticed a banner ad, they usually didn't remember the advertiser's logo or name.

The best way to engage viewers, he found, is to make the ad look like content--so-called "Native advertising."

"The more an ad looks like a native site component, the more users will look at it," he said.

What does this mean for non-profit groups? 

First, be careful when offered great deals for banner ads. They may not be worth it.

Second, if you offer the media what they need and want for their websites--news--they may gladly use it on their as part of their regular content.

Which isn't to say you shouldn't buy website ads. If you think it is right for you, and will reach the intended audience, you should give it a try. 

Just don't be surprised if the viewers you are trying to attract have banner blindness, too.