Online banner ads have been taking a beating.  Not just recently, but over the past few years.  Click-through rates on banner ads stink in the metrics-heavy world of online advertising.  The experts will tell you that search advertising is the place to be.

Then comes a new study, released on Friday afternoon, that draws a connection between click-through rates on paid and organic searches and the presence of display ads for those brands.  According to the study conducted by Specific Media, the results showed a 155% performance improvement by search ads when display ads promoting those brands were running.  The greatest impact on search was in travel and tourism, where exposure to display ads boosted click-throughs by nearly 300%.

Here’s a link to the story that ran on the BtoB Magazine website.

So the question is “why”?  How can this be explained?  And for the easiest – and best – answer, I suggest you turn back to our advertising experiences in the non-virtual world.  Look at how radio, television, billboards and print work together and I think you can start to legitimately draw some conclusions.

Judgements about brands (i.e. “recommendations” and purchasing decisions) are made through a series impressions made on the consumer.  Some of those impressions are experiential in nature (i.e. the consumer sampled the product on a previous occassion), but a vast majority of those impressions are made through the media via advertising, public relations or word-of-mouth referrals.

But what’s the best “mix” of media – or, in the online world, the mix of banner and search advertising?  The answer is “it depends.”  Each person has their own, personal “tipping point” where impressions of one brand or another are strong enough to compel a behavior that favors that brand.  Reaching that tipping point may require an emotional connection in some and a more visceral reaction from others.  Some consumers are swayed by bulleted copy points listing features, others are more influenced by a recommendation from a trusted friend or endorser.

One thing is for sure, any advertising campaign – virtual or not – that relies on only one type of marketing methodology is not getting the most mileage out of its brand’s story.  Using a combination of methods to deliver a consistent message is your best bet for influencing those who matter most to your brand.

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