kicking puppies is bad

I hate banner ads. The crazy blinking text and strobing colors stating YOU WIN! routinely threaten to send me into severe epileptic fits (or murderous tazing rampages). In fact, everyone I know says they hates banner ads. But advertisers wouldn’t use them if someone didn’t click on them. Who are these people? And do they actually believe they will win a three hundred billion gazillion free gummi bears if they click the elusive purple spider that is quickly scampering across their monitor? Or do they not realize that the banner is advertising? I suppose it is possible they are thinking: “Oh what a fun game! I want to click on the pretty purple spider! Yay! Spider!” Seriously. Why would you click it?

Dave Morgan provided me with some insight:

Ninety-nine percent of Web users do not click on ads on a monthly basis. Of the 1% that do, most only click once a month. Less than two tenths of one percent click more often. That tiny percentage makes up the vast majority of banner ad clicks.Who are these “heavy clickers”? They are predominantly female, indexing at a rate almost double the male population. They are older. They are predominantly Midwesterners, with some concentrations in Mid-Atlantic States and in New England. What kinds of content do they like to view when they are on the Web? Not surprisingly, they look at sweepstakes far more than any other kind of content. Yes, these are the same people that tend to open direct mail and love to talk to telemarketers.

But are these the people that advertisers want to have clicking their banner ads? A friend of mine who works at GreenDimes (a very cool company) was recently expressing excitement about an advertising campaign on one of the social networking sites. But I don’t think the lonely midwestern housewives who won’t let the telemarketers off the phone are the demographic that GreenDimes is seeking. In fact, it seems like the people who click on banner ads are the people who like junk mail. And they would be unlikely to pay $15 to GreenDimes in an effort to stop it.

So why do so many companies (especially ones that make intelligent products) use banner ads? Is Dave Morgan right? Are the people who click on banner ads the same crazy people who fill out the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes every time it arrives in the mail in some desperate hope that Ed McMahon will show up on their doorstep in the “Prize Patrol” van? Are they the crazy cat ladies who won’t let the telemarkers off the phone? And if they are, can banner ads really be an effective form of advertising (especially for companies that wouldn’t appeal to crazy midwestern housewives)? I mean, I could understand it if the ads were for Veggie Tales (Eek!) or the Creation Museum, then the creepy midwestern ad-clickers would be the perfect demographic.

Or is Dave wrong? Do normal people secretly click on the ads? Are all of my friends lying when they proudly announce that they are ad-averse and reject consumer culture? Do they secretly have Internet Explorer installed on their computer so that late at night they can browse the web without running Mozilla scripts to eliminate the creepy dancing alien ads?