Earlier this week I heard on Marketplace that the banner ad started 15 years ago. On October 27, 1994 the web site Hotwired.com posted banner ads for Volvo, MCI, Club Med and 1-800-Collect. The click rate was 78%! Those were the days.
In 2007, BusinessWeek reported that the average click rate on a banner ad was 0.2% according to Eyeblaster , a New York-based online ad firm. According to Advertising Age, the click rate for display ads has dropped 50% in less than two years.