Refrencing: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2007/08/21/if-it-looks-like-an-ad-theyre-not-looking-at-it

 Yup! Well, only kind of. See, the thing that these ads bring is brand awareness. It's realitvely hard to slap a price on brand awareness, but what do I mean?

Simple, according to the article, internet users fail to click ads on web sites. This includes banner ads, google ads, etc... Well, all I can say is DUH! This isn't exactly new information for those who pay attention. This has in fact been an ongoing trend for many years now. The reason is because to many people have over-saturated the online advertising market. Every site we go, advertisers throw up a banner. I can't ecen search my favorite online computer parts etailer without seeing ads from manufacutres. I also can't go to my favorite news site with out seeing ads for home loans finding old classmates.

 So yes, we've been trained not to look at them anymore.  Not a big suprise to me, an in fact, i've told clients not to advertise on banners because they are not affective.... unless you are just looking for brand awareness.

So, what does this do for brand awareness? Well, it makes people aware of your products or your brands. Notice how I said I see links for home loans and old classmates. I don't click them, ever. I mean, I have a nice loan and I don't care about old class mates. But I never said I didn't see the ad. I obviously remember they were for home loans and  classmates, and now I will always remember Lending Tree and Classmates.com. So you see, banner and site ads are more like billboards than they were before. Sure, you can click on them and it may lead to a sale, but more importantly, they let people know you exist. 

But at the end of the day when choosing if and where to place banner and on site ads, you just have to ask yourself one thing; Is this where MY customer would be visiting and would they click this link?... the answer to that, could save you a lot of money.