Human attention has always been limited. The difference is that now everything is fighting for our attention – and we’ve become quicker at ignoring most of it. For companies still investing in display ads, the statistics are not looking good. They’re alarming.
Banner blindness is a budget problem, not a design problem
It is easy to think of underperforming banners as a problem with creativity. You might assume that with better copy, more vivid colors, and a clearer call to action, the issue would be solved. However, the problem is more complex than simply blaming the design team.
Banner blindness is a reality and it is a cognitive process. Our brains are wired to automatically ignore the information that is considered unnecessary to accomplish a specific task. When a user arrives at a website to read an article or make a purchase, their attention is focused on that goal and anything that distracts them or appears in typical locations where ads are usually placed is ignored. This doesn’t mean that users are consciously deciding to ignore the banner ad – their brain doesn’t even process the information because it has learned to filter it out.
And the numbers don’t lie. The average click-through rate for display ads is naturally going to be very low, especially when so many people are techn literate these days. In reality, this means nearly zero engagement for most ads. And the numbers have only continued to decline for years.
Static banners, even if they render in the right way and look great, hardly ever dominate the display, a page can render 2 or 3 banner displays at a time, all while showing editorial and other navigational UI/UX. The ad is in a competition where it never had a chance at winning.
A full-screen ad changes the game. When an entire ad takes up 100% of the viewport there is no competition at the edges, the users’ attention is forced to the center. It’s not sneaky – it’s just math. Share of voice at 100% unlocks ad recall and user engagement that’s vastly different from share of voice at 10%.
Thus, to leap over banner blindness and get your money’s worth, many companies are re-allocating budgets towards interstitial ad networks that deliver full-screen ads between natural pauses on a site, i.e. between articles or while waiting for content to load.
Timing, not format size, determines user acceptance
The resistance to full-screen formats typically relates to the user experience. It is assumed that larger ads are more disturbing, and that disturbance leads to users leaving the site. Generally, full screen ads can be very effective, but it depends on when and where they are shown.
In this case, two different factors are typically mixed-up: the size of the format, and the timing in which the format is shown. When a full-screen ad is shown to the user while performing a task – e.g. during an active search, while filling out a form, or reading a paragraph – the user really is interrupted and will likely respond negatively. This does not result from “big” ads being bad, but from bad timing of the ad.
If the same full-screen ad is shown at an appropriate point, thus a ‘natural’ breaking point – e.g. between game levels, while a new page is loading, or at the end of a video scene – the psychological situation can be completely different: The task is complete, users cognitive load is decreasing, the brain is seeking for new inputs and the ad doesn’t interrupt the user but is shown in a time slot where no own activity is happening.
This is why interstitials, if positioned in a tactful way, are not only creating the best CTRs but the highest conversion rate and best brand recall. The format creates the chance. The timing determines whether users receive it or resent it.
Matching format to cognitive state
A user-centric approach to modern business advertising does not begin with the ad formats that the publisher makes available, but rather with the states of mind the user moves through in a typical session.
At high-focus decision/action moments like active browsing, content access, or a checkout flow, low-effort low-friction formats like banners are fine. They’re easy to ignore even for people looking straight at them, making for excellent ambient brand exposure. We ruin them by demanding performance. We just can’t demand presence at the high-impact transition moments they were never intended to fill.
At the high-impact transitions, full-screen formats are unbeatable, but ideally infrequent and in demand, since they yank the user forcibly out of one state and into another, leaving neither the advertiser nor the publisher looking good if that wasn’t a welcome interruption. The user has made an implicit agreement to experience advertising in return for some utility, and the interruption if done poorly leaves a bad taste in the users mouth.
Where budgets need to go
Although static banners will not completely disappear as there are situations in which ambient display is still reasonable. However if you continue to consider them as a performance channel, you will have to disregard decreasing CTRs over the past decade, and disregard the psychological explanation that shows why they are unlikely to increase again.
