I've heard this complaint too often. If you are selling flowers, software or any of the common commodity products, I'd fully agree with you. On the other hand, if you are selling an obscure niche product and can find the right Web site that caters to that niche, you may be surprised with how effective banner advertising can be.

Case in point: Crossworks, a developer of AS/400 migration tools, placed the banner ad that I developed in a keyword campaign on Search400.com, a portal focused on AS/400 users. Within two weeks, these banners generated more than 36 phone inquiries and more than 200 click-throughs to their Web site.

Banners can work.