For anyone considering buying online advertising (or currently running campaigns), Seth Godin posts a doozy: The 249% solution.

If you run banner ads, one study for Harris Direct shows that you can increase your brand awareness about 7% after a reasonable buy of banner ads. That’s just fine, though I’m on the record as saying that most banner campaigns are a waste of money. The kicker? In the study, Harris did the banner buy and watched the number of clicks to their contextual ad (you know, the text ads) go up by 249% over the next week.

Wow… I’m not a big fan of banner ads either (I’ve run a couple of campaigns on ninemsn and Yahoo!) – but that stat is pretty impressive. Of course, your mileage may vary – you still need a good product, and a good creative, and you need to test yourself – but it’s a different way to think about your banner ads.