How Banner Ads Changed Digital Campaigns Forever

Back in 1994, hotwire.com needed a way to generate revenue to pay its writers. So they came up with a plan set aside portions of their website to sell its space to advertisers for a set time period. They called them banner ads. AT&T was the first to sign up and drop $30,000 to run their you will campaign for three months. When users clicked on the ad, they'd be taken to an AT and T landing page. The banner ads would be part of a larger integrated campaign highlighting actions customers couldn't do yet but soon would. Have you ever borrowed a book from thousands of miles away? You users could click links highlighting virtual art museum visits, as well as taking a survey asking how they'd like to see at&t use the Internet. The ad had a click through rate of 44%. For comparison, the average click through rate on display ads today is closer to 0.06%. The banner ad concept blew up soon. Other companies were looking for advertisers to lease their banner space as a sustainable way to pay their employees and scale their sites. For more marketing examples, subscribe to the HubSpot Marketing channel.