A lot of marketers today think of banner ads as the advertising tool of yesterday. When the internet first took off, banner advertising was the “in” thing. But as people started to develop “banner blindness” and started ignoring ads, the popularity of banner advertising took a nosedive.

However, the reality is that not only do banner ads still work – they’re one of the most powerful mediums to advertise online.

Often times the only way to get your brand in front of a lot of people is through banner advertising. If you want to advertise to medical sites, for example, banner advertising is the only way you can get on WebMD and the Mayo Clinic.

While “banner blindness” is still an issue, there are now tools to combat that. For one, prices of banner ads have drastically dropped since the old days, more than compensating for the reduced visibility. Furthermore, tools like retargeting can help you get your banner in front of just the right people.

==> Getting Started with Banner Branding

To get started with banner advertising, first begin by figuring out your target demographic. Get as specific as you possibly can.

Then head over to the Google Ad Planner and punch in your demographic, as well as the type of site you want to target.

Browse through all the high traffic sites this brings up. Visit the sites and evaluate whether or not it would make sense for you to advertise on that site.

Contact the site directly and ask for a rate card. The rate card will contain the website’s advertising rates. Keep in mind that nobody pays the amount on the rate card and the discounts can absolutely be negotiated.

Once you’re ready to place an ad buy, you’ll need to sign what’s called an insertion order. The insertion order, or “IO” as it’s called in the industry, will have all the details of your deal’s terms.

Instead of dealing with individual sites, you can also choose to deal with large advertising networks. These networks will place ad buys for you instead of you doing all the work of figuring out site demographics.

==> The Magic of Retargeting

Want to give the impression that you’re a big brand advertising all over the internet – without having to spend money? Use retargeting.

Retargeting is when you use a small snippet of code to place a cookie in your visitor’s browser when they visit your website. You can also place the code on your Facebook page, so anyone who visits your page will have the retargeting cookie.

Then using the Google Content Network, bid on ads that only appear to people who have that cookie. To these people, it’ll seem like they’re constantly seeing your ad. For you however, you’re still only paying a very modest CPM.

Banner advertising is here to stay. It’s one of the fastest and most effective ways to reach a broad audience online. With retargeting, you can make your brand seem extremely large without having to actually blanket the web with advertisements.