by John Young

This article originally appeared in Advertising Age

Banner ads suck. Or not. It depends on what you expect and how you go about delivering. No matter whether your objective is awareness, engagement or click-through, you can improve performance over time. This strategy takes rigor: in the forms of measurement and analytics, multidisciplinary collaboration (strategy, creative, analytics) and the long-view. Not to mention a client willing to embrace all three.

The idea sounds simple and it may seem obvious — build a library of banner ads — but none of the many Fortune 500 clients I’ve worked with have done it well. Most marketers are reactionary and opportunistic with a short-term vision. If it worked, good. If it didn’t, kill it and give me something new. But no one spends the time to really learn much or record what they did learn.

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