This article was taken from the June 2013 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by <span class="s1">subscribing online.
In 1994, one year after Wired launched, its website slapped rectangular ads for AT&T, among others, on its homepage. The one for Ma Bell asked auspiciously, "Have you ever clicked your mouse right here? You will." An era was born. Since then, banners have been a pillar of the free web. With their capacity for automatic placement and supplying marketers with data, banners have fuelled a $37 billion (£24 billion) online ad industry. But their effectiveness wore off. In 2012, click-through rates were 0.1 per cent, with banners making up only 21 percent of total online ad revenue. Now agencies are turning to other formats, like video promos and sponsored tweets, that force, and sometimes dupe, users into getting the message. It's enough to make you long for the straightforward banner. Maybe we should have kept on clicking it.
20 Years of Wired
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This article was originally published by WIRED UK
