Even by 2007 usability expert Jakob Nielsen was still presenting studies showing that users rarely looked at display advertising on Web sites.

In the early years of display advertising on Web pages, people ignored ads because they were usually totally irrelevant. Not only that, most banner ads were as creative as you'd get from a box of crayons and a drawing pad.

The industry was quite crude in the formative years; the Web itself was pretty much a static place and it was all about hits and eyeballs. However, Web advertising's natural evolution combined with advanced tracking and analytics solutions makes display advertising no longer the red-headed step child. In fact, with ad exchanges and a much closer integration of search and display, all of a sudden people are beginning to see the once dreaded banner ad. And in a much more timely and relevant fashion.