Startup Blog

Uncertain Future for Online Display Ads

Posted by Mike Volpe on 2/20/09 1:17 PM

The Wall Street Journal predicts an uncertain future for the display ad market (basically banner ads).  Why?

  • More inventory/content - People (both big media companies and people like you) are creating more and more content online, so there are lots more places to put ads
  • Low performance - most banner ads get a click throgh rate of 0.2%, meaning that most people don't look at the ads much, they are there for the content
  • Inbound marketing transformation - It is now cheaper to publish your own content (blog) and promote it (social media) than it is to buy ads (that people ignore) next to someone else's content

Because of these trends, ad prices fell 54% last quarter (according to the WSJ article).

Mike Volpe

Written by Mike Volpe

Mike Volpe is a startup advisor and angel investor based in Boston.

Topics: advertising, disruptive

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