How creatives can burn out
Creative burnout is a natural decline in advertising performance. When a campaign launches, algorithms display a banner to the most loyal website visitors. They actively click on the ad, so the conversion rate to the company page is high, and the cost is low. However, after the first two or three weeks, all interested users have clicked on the banner, and it is no longer displayed to them.
Since the target audience is finite, users see the same banner multiple times. Over time, banner clicks and conversion rates decrease, leading to banner blindness.
Causes of banner blindness
Banner blindness is a common phenomenon; according to a study by Infolinks, it affects 86% of users. Furthermore, 50% of them never click on banner ads, and 35% do so no more than five times a month. More than 50% of smartphone users click links accidentally, after brushing against a banner with their finger. One cause of banner blindness is selective perception. People process only the information they find relevant or useful. To avoid unnecessary overload, users have learned to focus only on those areas of the page where the information they need is likely to be found—headlines, navigation bars, or search bars.
One study created heatmaps using eye-tracking technology. This experiment tracked eye movements across the page. In the photo with the heatmaps, we see that none of the participants paid attention to the advertising banners at the top and right of the page. Users most often looked at the main text—the reason they visited the site in the first place—as well as images and headlines.
Users aren't clicking on banners: why and how to combat it
Heat maps show how exactly we perceive information: in the first photo – at first glance, in the second – at a quick glance, in the third – at reading.
Visual memory is another cause of banner blindness. Users are accustomed to the information they need—for example, a website menu—being located in the same places: at the top or left of the page.
Another cause of this phenomenon is tunnel vision. This is a phenomenon in which users only perceive information within their central field of vision. Objects in the periphery are easier to ignore—hence banner blindness.
How to understand that a banner is in a blind spot
"Blind spots" are those parts of a page that users pay the least attention to. The main sign that a banner is in a blind spot is a significant decrease in clicks to the advertised website. There are several ways to analyze the effectiveness of banner ads:
Click maps allow you to see how many clicks were made and where on the page they were made over a certain period of time. There are dedicated services for this purpose, such as Plerdy , Hotjar , or Inspectlet . They help determine which parts of the page are regularly viewed and which are ignored by users.
Google Analytics Behavior Map
Google Analytics tools help track which links users click most often. To do this, event tracking and content groups must be configured on your website. To open the Behavior Flow report, select the desired view , then open reports and click "Behavior," then "Behavior Flow."
How businesses can address banner blindness
Banner blindness is a widespread problem, kenya telemarketing database but businesses can combat it. Here are six methods that will help increase conversion rates for visitors to an advertiser's website:
Create banners that don't look like ads.
Users immediately perceive a banner that differs from the main page design as an ad. They ignore it, avoiding unnecessary clutter. Users immediately access the information they came to the site for.
An alternative is native advertising, embedded within the content. This could be a partner post, a product review, a sponsored post, or a product placement. Users view native ads 53% more often than banner ads. Furthermore, native advertising increases brand awareness by 9% compared to banners.
Use non-static banners
. Videos and motion content attract visitors' attention more than static photos or designs. This is confirmed by a 2018 study , which found that rich media ads attract 267% more attention than banner ads. Users click on video ads approximately 27.4 times more often than on standard banners.