Banner Ad ROI: A Contradiction in Terms?

There must be something in the water. My National Account Executive, Mike Palmquist, and I have been asked by a bunch of clients over the past few days what a normal click through rate is for banner ads on CollegeRecruiter.com as they’d like to measure the return on investment for the banners. Let me answer the first question first as it is easier and then I’ll turn second, harder one.

The click through rate is typically around 0.10 percent. If it seems low, it is. If you’re wondering if it is lower than industry norms, it isn’t. That’s pretty typical for run of site (banners can run on any page) banners on job boards. We see click through rates (CTR’s) as high as 0.25 percent and as low as 0.01 percent. The difference is usually driven by the quality of the creative and offer.
Now to the more difficult question about return on investment. I don’t believe that you can measure it. I don’t like to say that because I like to be able to measure my return on investment when I buy something so it is difficult for me to advocate selling a product to a client knowing that they will not be able to track their ROI. Why can’t they? Because banners are branding tools and you cannot directly measure your ROI from a branding expenditure. Branding supports direct response advertising expenditures such as job postings and targeted emails by raising the awareness of your brand in the minds of your target market. But it doesn’t cause that target market to do anything. They tend not to visit your web site so no clicks. They therefore don’t apply to your jobs so no resumes. But well designed banners will improve your brand and therefore the quantity and quality of your applicants.
So do banners have a positive ROI? Sure. What is it? Your guess is as good as mine.