Can you remember the last banner ad you clicked on? Better yet—can you remember the last banner ad you even looked at? If you’re part of the 60% of people who don’t recall the last banner ad they saw, chances are, you can’t.

In fact, research shows than only about 14% of people can name the company, brand or product featured in the last banner ad they saw. This means a whopping 86% of consumers are completely missing the point of a company’s ad. And that’s assuming they looked at the banner ad at all.

Banner Blindness: An Advertiser’s Nightmare

This phenomenon, called banner blindness, points to a person’s ability to either consciously or subconsciously ignore banner ads in favor of the information or media they intended to consume. Online and mobile advertisers have great disdain for this affliction, as it means wasted time and money creating banner ads that are rarely being seen or remembered.

However, one bright spot for these advertisers is the fact that about 75% of consumers who did remember the last ad they saw said they looked at the ad online. This means online and mobile marketers shouldn’t abandon ship and revert back to print and traditional media just yet.

How to Beat Banner Blindness

One of the best ways to overcome banner blindness is better targeted advertising. About 80% of consumers who remembered the last ad they viewed said that the ad was not relevant to them. Still worse, less than 3% of people believed the ads they looked at answered a question they had or provided them with more information.

This is a huge sign to advertisers that their ads are not going up in the right places or in front of the right audiences. One growing strategy in the advertising world is programmatic advertising, which uses extensive third party data and ad exchanges to determine and place ads on the best sites possible.

Mobile video advertising is another key way to work around banner blindness and find new ways to reach consumers. Mobile video ads provide the wow factor ads need to be consciously remembered later on, so restructuring your mobile marketing plan to incorporate more video could be a step toward having your ad seen by more mobile users.

Banner blindness doesn’t have to be the death of your online or mobile advertising campaign. With ingenuity, better targeting and better content, you can determine the best way to showcase your product for the consumers who want to buy it.