Imagine this scenario: you launch two advertising campaigns for the same project. One of them achieves a 20% CTR and a 150% ROI, while the other flops, barely converting any leads. What makes the difference? The answer is banner blindness.
This phenomenon can make or break your marketing and business success, and it has been around for a long time. Yet, many entrepreneurs (and even some marketers) don’t know how to handle it. To avoid fading into the background with your ads, let’s explore what banner blindness is and how to fight it.
Banner Blindness: What Does It Mean?
It is a psychological phenomenon that allows us to filter out irrelevant information. Our brain cannot process everything that comes from the environment: sounds, images, visuals, information that requires analysis. To cope, it creates priorities, which leads to selective perception. We ignore what we don’t need. And what do users not want to see on a web page? You guessed it, ads.
So how do they spot the ads? Experience and memory – users remember the common signs of an ad, such as placement, format and style. And blocks them out.
The effect of banner blindness was officially proven by the Nielsen Norman Group project in 1997. But the effect itself has existed for thousands of years: the ancient Romans already knew how to tune out the cries of street vendors in the market. In 1997, it was shown that people simply do not notice certain areas of web pages during usability tests.
An interesting aspect was confirmed by the Census Bureau with the banner blindness study based on placing important information in blocks that looked like ads. And only 14% of customers noticed this information. This phenomenon is ruthless, it prevents you from seeing not only ads, but any data that resembles advertising content.
That means, if you run your advertising campaign on the same old banners without considering the visibility zone, your ads will be seen by only 14% of web visitors. That’s money down the drain.
What Makes Us Skip Ads on Web Pages?
Our brain has a mechanism that helps us filter out unwanted information. We noted that web visitors block what they don’t want to see – ads. But why don’t they want to see them? Here are some reasons:
Mismatched target audience and ad content. Poor targeting is a common problem for many advertisers. Not only do they waste money by showing ads to the wrong people, but they also contribute to banner blindness. People get used to the fact that the advertised product has nothing to do with their needs or interests. And they assume that any product display is irrelevant to them. Many marketers do not segment their audience into narrow groups (which they should), but some of them even limit their targeting to age and gender. They don’t even use all the demographic options, and that’s a mistake;
Overloaded advertising content. Another reason for banner blindness is that even if the ads and offers are good, there are simply too many of them. In industries where there is high competition, the user is bombarded by multiple companies, and many of them don’t track the purchase stage. And after buying a laptop, the customer continues to see ads for laptops from other companies. The result is a negative impression;
Annoying effect. It’s clear that to attract attention, content must stand out, and many marketers advocate for brightness, for the “wow” effect, for a splash of colours. In pursuit of clicks on banners, websites increase the number of integrations and some formats don’t allow the user to skip them, such as popups and popunders. Users get used to the fact that such content is their enemy, that it is harmful, irritating. The result in the form of banner blindness is natural. Only in this case, it’s not natural advertising blindness, but intentional. That is, the user deliberately ignores the intrusive ad, and doesn’t even pay attention to its loud appeals, and in no case becomes a customer, even if the offer interests them;
Identical visuals and layout. This is the biggest reason why our brain identifies banners so easily, why we don’t even literally see them, even though they are in front of our eyes. Ads are often placed in the same areas of the page (top bar, bottom, right sidebar), and look alike. Bright banners, “screaming” teasers with flashing images, familiar video sequences of ad inserts in sidebars, and so on. The brain remembers all this and then confidently blocks it.
How to Fight Banner Blindness in Advertising
If we use the reverse logic, then all the causes of banner blindness become “weak spots” in our hypothetical sales funnel. And we need to address them. By eliminating these weak spots, we will reduce blindness by a significant percentage (but not completely, it is impossible by definition).
Choosing the Type of Ads
If you think that avoiding banner ads is enough to counter the effect, you’re wrong. This is just a term, the effect applies to any kind of advertising, whether it’s on Google search, email, billboards or YouTube videos. So you need to change the principle and approach, not the promotional channel. Still, some advertising formats are more susceptible to blindness, so marketers often consider them outdated:
Classic banners. Rarely used, highly prone to blindness. Therefore, their use depends on a smart placement. Yes, they also vary depending on the specific channel of promotion. The banner needs to be placed wisely, as well as adapt the content. We’ll talk about this later. But for now we assume that this is an acceptable option;
Teasers. The most exposed to blindness, plus, they are placed in blocks. Which means that you can’t rely on a smart placement. The worst option, not recommended for use;
Push notifications. 100% delivery, a kind of automatic bypass of blindness. After all, users, receiving push notifications on their smartphones, often don't know the content until they open it. And to skip it, they still need time, and for 2-3 seconds users do focus their attention on the push notification. With proper targeting and good text – it is one of the most effective ways. But getting a client to agree with receiving such notifications is a challenge;
Popups and popunders. It’s a double-edged sword. Yes, 100% visibility, the ad pops up over the whole screen, you can’t close it without viewing it. But because of this intrusive format of presentation, it causes the greatest irritation, bordering on anger. It is used only for shady offers, such as gambling. And also with orientation on inexperienced target audience. In a classic ad campaign both formats will fail;
Video formats. Almost always – high resistance to banner blindness. Whether it’s in-stream inserts, separate panels for players or inserts in various ad managers on social networks. Good to use;
Influencer Ads. Not bad at avoiding banner blindness. But in this case, the result depends on the influencers themselves. With a high level of trust from the audience, fans will often (up to 80%) watch the integration and study it. But at low trust – banner blindness will reach the level of teasers. Integrations will be swiped, paid stories will be skipped.
Targeting Your Audience Accurately
We mentioned that one of the reasons for banner blindness is poor targeting. And this is not a matter of professionalism, but rather – carelessness. Whether you promote through advertising or social networks, Google or other platforms, you will have access to very advanced ad managers. Yes, an experienced marketer can target better than a beginner or a business owner without much marketing knowledge. But with these “machines”, anyone can set up basic targeting.
The main thing is to:
Create a general profile of your target audience;
Define age groups;
Specify gender;
Consider GEO factors;
Analyse behavioural factors;
Identify interests;
Choose the most suitable placement and ad format.
And the first rule is that the more target groups you segment, the better. Customise your ads for each group and the conversion rate will always increase. Targeting solves half of the marketing problems with your target audience.
Look at this: Netflix is recommending movies to me, knowing that I’m into Korean cinema.
And it’s right, I am interested in that kind of promotional content. My brain won’t automatically ignore it. But Netflix is a big site with a huge customer database, so it’s easy for them to target - right?
This is an example of a Guardian news site:
A simple banner ad, but shown to me personally on the platform that has nothing to do with web design and development. But since it knows my interest in this topic, the ad slot was automatically filled with a relevant ad. Targeting easily helps to identify the interests and occupation of a person, allowing to target with 60-70% probability, as in this case, people who are involved in internet marketing.
Making Your Banners Noticeable
Noticeable does not mean bright, colourful or loud. According to a study by Nielsen Norman Group, ads that differ from the text by contrasting layout, colour or text on the image are ignored. Visitors recognize them as ads and block them out. Noticeable means to stand out from the other information on the page, but not to cross a certain line that indicates advertising content. Here’s an example of an ad that blends in with its surroundings:
But this is only one approach, there is another one. Where the banner, on the contrary, is deliberately eye-catching and prominent. In this case, blindness will work to the fullest, unless you use two tricks. Smart targeting, that is, showing a relevant offer, and a suitable channel for promotion. In other words, a site where such ads have proven to be effective, authoritative or having a low number of total ads.
To achieve the desired effect, you can follow these tips:
Use warm and contrasting colour schemes. The absolute favourite is red, but if your product or brand has its own palette, match it;
Implement gif or video formats where possible. We are all animals and live by instincts, any movement in the corner of the screen draws our attention unconsciously, “what’s that crawling there”, it is human nature to look at the moving object;
Avoid sound effects until the user manually activates them – otherwise you will cause annoyance;
Engage leads with short text messages that contain the main point. This is the A from the AIDA formula (A – Attention, I – Interest, D – Desire, A – Action). But don’t use clickbait elements, they are penalised on almost all platforms. Unless you are working with shady offers, of course.
Don’t be lazy to change the banner after a certain number of views. It also has its own lifespan, and the more often it is shown, the faster it wears out, becoming a kind of a trigger of blindness. The average frequency of change – 1-2 months.
Arranging Your Blocks
Let’s look at the eye-tracking studies that have been conducted on banner blindness research and see what they reveal about how web users perceive and interact with online ads.
Most of the time, our eye traces a small letter F on web pages. We scan the left side of the page first, go lower and leave a lot of white space.
Our eyes are drawn to faces, visuals and large headlines.
We tend to look for navigation options, menus, advanced features and transition buttons on the page. Mostly, the top of the page gets our visual attention.
The classic positions for banners on the right and bottom are in the blind zone – proven by all the studies. But with the top banner ad, it’s not so simple. Many product sites use this space to display the main information like price, bonus programs and rules. And also, this is where they usually put current discounts and promotions.
Therefore, the top advertising block has gained the trust of visitors – it is acceptable, as well as any blocks on the left side. But the blocks on the right and bottom – show the worst results. It is logical to place information for cross-selling, links to go to adjacent pages, navigation options, but not sales content.
Using Native Advertising
We did not mention the center block in the last paragraph. And rightly so, because this kind of placement already belongs to native advertising.
Native advertising is a marketing trend that has been considered the most successful strategy in the field for more than a decade. Native means hidden, subtle. It is a way of presenting advertising information in such a way that potential customers do not realise that they are dealing with ads. They should perceive it as a recommendation, just general information. And then make an independent conclusion that this product will be useful.
Native advertising can be divided into two types. The first is purely native. This is really hidden marketing, where the influencer talks about the product, as if it’s not a paid integration, but just a friendly advice. For example, blogger Stan says that he ate Viennese waffles at the place “N”, and he has never tasted anything better. Pure native includes text integrations, paid posts in blogs and communities and influencer advertising. And now this type is almost never used.
That’s because customers have become smart, they will easily spot native advertising, feel deceived and change their attitude from positive to negative. And the second type of native (ordinary) ads does not claim that this information is not advertising. No, it simply does not emphasise the fact that there is an ad in front of you, disguised, but not lying.
Some examples of ordinary native advertising are:
Placing banners in the same colour scheme as the web page itself, with a similar or identical font;
Using a center block, right in the middle of the text on the page;
Influencer advertising, where the influencer admits to integration, but also personally tests the product and gives their (positive) evaluation, assuring the audience of the quality;
Advertising with automatic targeting, showing relevant users the information they are interested in at the moment.
Here is an example of the native ad campaign that used Spotify’s data to create personalised playlists based on the characters from the Netflix show Stranger Things:
The campaign matched the user’s listening habits with the personality and preferences of the characters and invited them to enter the “Stranger Things mode” on Spotify. The campaign was relevant, engaging and memorable for the fans of the show.
Another good example is a native ad article that was sponsored by the shoe company Allbirds on The New York Times website:
The article was about how to reduce carbon footprint and live more sustainably and featured Allbirds as an example of a company that uses natural materials and renewable energy. The article was informative, credible and aligned with the editorial style of the website.
Why Testing is Important
You may have noticed how many “ifs” and “maybes” there are in this reasoning. As in all marketing in general, we can create the best conditions from the theoretical point of view, but how they will work in practice – we can only find out through testing. There are too many factors that we can’t account for, such as the specifics of the business, product, price, target audience, timing or trends.
Only usability testing can tell you for sure if you have placed the banner well, if it has a suitable colour scheme. The difference between an experienced professional and a novice marketer is only that the former has to make fewer adjustments after the testing.
Therefore, don’t skip the stages of usability testing, evaluate user actions, CTR, time on page, demographic and other characteristics of customers who clicked on the ad. Try to change the placement and content, and track conversion changes after each edit.
Conclusion
Not everything that shines brightly and shouts loudly is quality advertising. By ignoring the principles of banner blindness or not relying on them at all, you’re potentially losing over 80% of your audience. Or wasting your budget on irrelevant target groups. Any marketing strategy and advanced tactics should come into play only after you have dealt with banner blindness.
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