Tenth birthday of the humble banner advert

When the banner was first sold, it was sold mainly in CPM (cost per thousand banner impressions), and average banner rates sold in this way reached an all-time high of around UKP75 before the bubble burst. It is unlikely that average banner rates will ever reach such levels again.

Similarly, advertising on the internet is now increasingly sold on a performance basis (mainly straight pay-per-click and hybrid performance reward schemes.

And whereas the fledgling industry of 1994 had trouble explaining what the internet was, a decade down the track global internet advertising expenditure will account for 3.5% of all advertising spend in 2004 according to Zenith Media.

What's more, the internet has already grown larger than the outdoor advertising market in some countries and is expected to pass radio advertising expenditures in the key UK market within three years.

Just where internet advertising will stand in the ad expenditure mix a decade from now is debatable. Newspaper and TV revenues seem certain to fall as a percentage of the overall spend and mobile media will no doubt fragment expenditure in myriad ways over the next ten years.

The banner advert will almost certainly still see its 21st birthday though.

The Internet Advertising Bureau has very useful internet advertising statistics available free of charge at http://www.iab.com/. The most recent full-year report has some fascinating information showing the rise and fall and subsequent rise of internet advertising revenues in its first ten years, illustrating the devastation of the tech wreck, and the recovery which now sees the internet returning to favour with marketers.

Equally fascinating is the accompanying chart, also from the IAB report, comparing growth over the first decade for Internet Advertising (1995-2003) charted against broadcast television (1949-1957) and cable television (1980-1988), presented in current dollars. Internet advertising revenues surpassed cable television revenues in its fourth year of growth, and broadcast television revenues in its fifth year of growth. However, broadcast television revenues regained the lead in year eight.