I am not likely to click on any banner or any popup I see unless it explicitly states a price for a service or product and it seems worthy to me.
I think that websites could get more clicks if the banners had some very basic info that one could get without even entering the website (also good for
sites with long loading times). This could be supported by a browser plugin - microsoft and netscape could also intergrate this feature and possibly make some money by doing so.
One would click on a portion of a banner and it would give you a quick description of exactly what was being offered and how much it costs. Also it would contain an average user rating. One could browse the user comments or see what internet sites or products a specific user gave their thumbs up to.
One could easily cut out banners that do not fit their needs (website would indicate the chategory their service or product fell into). One could also cut out anything advertised that did not fit into a certain price range. One could give priority to sites that were given possitive reviews by trusted users or users with similar tastes.
This banner service could also be used to submit sites that were not given banners on the webpage and those sites could be viewed seperate from the website one is browsing. A user would simply submit his/her username or specific websites that are similar to the one being browsed. This would be a great way to surf around.
The functionality of this is similar to the google toolbar, but not exactly the same (perhaps google could upgrade). The key difference is that it opens up more doors and the information is less arbitrary since you can view the tastes of individual users rather then what is promiced to be a "similar" or "good" website. Also ratings are from 0-100 rather then good to bad.
This should succeed because a website is not looking for their counter to rise, they are looking for genuine popularity or for products and services to be sold (if they are desired).