Why Big Skyscraper Ads are Replacing Banners--and How YOU Can

In the early days of the Internet, banner ads quickly became the prime advertising method. Most major companies still pour millions into banner ads, but results have steadily dropped.

Banner ads that once pulled in business now get ignored. And so it often goes with advertising. The first rule of making a sale is for your ad to get attention. Once banners became commonplace and consumers got used to them, they stopped noticing them (and clicking on them) altogether.

All that was turned on its head recently with the creation of very large skyscraper ads. Just like the name implies, a skyscraper banner ad extends up and down along the right side of the web page. They are usually 120 pixels wide by 600 pixels tall.

The use of skyscraper ads has exploded, nearly tripling to 6 billion skyscraper ads being put to use every month. Major sites like Yahoo Finance, CNET, MSN, and Alta Vista routinely feature them.

Why? In this case, bigger is definitely better. While more than half of all the ads on the Internet are still the old 468 x 60 banners, the much larger skyscraper ads get noticed. Thus, click-throughs and resulting purchases are dramatically higher than traditional ads. We have seen some sites experience click- through increases of nearly 1000 percent.

Skyscraper ads let you give more information. It's the difference between a one-inch display ad and a quarter-page ad in your local paper. Skyscrapers give you plenty of space to include product photos and more detailed text. Aside from that, they're just plain easier to see.

One benefit that generally isn't mentioned is that skyscraper ads look like a regular part of the web site. Many of them could easily be mistaken for a highly attractive menu. This phenomenon takes clever advantage of the way users naturally perceive and use web sites.

Be careful, however. Bigger can also mean slower to load. Tests show that users will wait for large skyscrapers to load, but it makes sense to keep your ad as fast-loading as you can, without sacrificing too much quality.

Use a headline that gets attention and relates to the most important benefit that your product, service, or idea gives people. Have a graphic that helps people immediately understand what you do. List several of the other benefits you provide in bullet style.

About the author: Chris Moran created the Net's only FREE skyscraper ad exchange at http://SkyscraperAds.com Your big ad gets attention on thousands of targeted sites in the network. Join now and SkyscraperAds.com will create your skyscraper ad for free. Reach Chris at info@SkyscraperAds.com or (225) 387-8700.