Online Publishers' Solution To Falling Ad Revenues: Bigger, More Annoying Ads
from the sledgehammer-on-a-thumbtack dept
Things aren't looking good for the online ad market: reduced spending by advertisers combined with the fact that people don't pay a whole lot of attention to banner ads portends doom and gloom. While the first part of that equation might be out of online publishers' control, they're trying to tackle the second part not by recognizing that advertising needs to be engaging or interesting content in order to be satisfying, but rather by clubbing internet users over the head with some new, huge and intrusive banner ad formats. Say hello to the Fixed Panel, which is a huge vertical banner that "scrolls to the top and bottom of the page as a user scrolls", the XXL Box, which is pretty much exactly what it says, and the Pushdown, the biggest of the bunch, which rolls down from the top of the page to get right in the user's face. The trade group behind these new formats says they are "designed to help stimulate a renaissance of creative advertising on the Internet that meets the needs of marketers by better integrating their messages into the fabric of the Web." That sounds like a lot of buzzwords, but conspicuous by its absence is any mention of the user's experience of these ads. These ads might grab users' attention through brute force, but will the experience be a positive one? It seems likely that intrusive advertising that gets in users' way will simply make the current situation worse by driving users away from the content. This is a further reflection of just how dead the captive advertising model is. Consumers have plenty of choices about where to get their content online; if a publishers' advertising keeps getting in their way, they'll move on and get content from somewhere else.
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Filed Under: ads, online ads
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Plugins for ad filtering
I forgot about using plugins to filter out all ads. If the ads I do see starts to become annoying, I might remember those plugins.
I'll disagree about the "driving users away" part. There's an option to get the content without the ads. The result is the same though-- fewer eyeballs on the ads.
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Re: Plugins for ad filtering
I have searched for info in Google, come across a site, clicked on it, and closed it down when I saw the page and its annoying ads. So there have been cases where I've been driven away from the content.
I've also seen cases where an interstitial page is used to display an ad, but the ad blocker blocks it, but the page waits for the ad to "finish" before redirecting to the content. Because the ad is blocked, the ad never finishes, so I never see the content.
I actually came across one site very recently that detected my use of an ad blocker (just some javascript that checked to make sure an ad image loaded with the page), and when it did, it redirected from the content page to a separate "please disable your ad blocker" page. Yeah, there's a site I'm not visiting again.
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Re: Re: Plugins for ad filtering
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Re: Re: Re: Plugins for ad filtering
Only downside is there are a few major websites where you have to whitelist their secondary domain names in order to get to the static content. But you only have to whitelist them one time, and it works forever.
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Re: Re: Plugins for ad filtering
By default, extensions install in your profile directory, not in the Firefox program directory.
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Re:
Only if you add the offending thing to the list, which is getting trickier by the day.
In a few sites I visit, some webmasters have gotten smart by putting "dailies" on the very image server used to display the page. Block the image from /* and the entire site won't display.
Bastards.
At any rate, AdBlock is still useful, but don't be surprised if you're spending more time putting images into the list than enjoying the web page.
For me, when I hit a site like this, it's "buh-bye", never to return.
Now, on topic: These techniques aren't new and have been around for quite some time. I've a feeling they're going to get worse before the site gets better.
It's pretty damn appalling to see a website used to generate revenue through ads rather than use the website to POINT to revenue generating products or services ad free.
I pity websites that use ads on their pages. Yes, this includes Techdirt, especially when Mike's admitted Techdirt doesn't need them (and thus, should set a damn example especially with a blog story like this).
Ah well, what can anyone do anymore.
/$0.02
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Re: Re:
if they really bug you that much here is something you can do:
1: download firefox if you don't already use it.
2: install the Adblock Plus extension
3: after you finish installing Adblock Plus, you can go to their Subscription page and scroll down to add what you want as well as the rickroll blacklist. or you should be able to just click each of the following links to install my suggested filters. the Easy list, adblockrules.com, EasyPrivacy, Malware Domains (this might slow your browser startup by a bit, it is a big list), Myspace Junk Filter (gets rid of a bunch of myspace junk), and finally the Rickroll Blacklist
once you do all that, not only will you see much fewer ads on the internet, most rickroll videos won't load either.
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Huge Annoying Ads
But when I am reading articles at work (a lot the past few days as I've been doing CFD work which is 30 minutes to an hour of work then a few horus of waiting) I use IE6. These ads you've described make me want to burn the internet to the ground. Since that isn't possible I avoid any website that uses them
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I honestly don't know what the point is. If I don't click on your ad, it's because I'm not interested, not because I didn't notice it. If ad revenue is lower, well look around. People don't have the money to spend on frivolous items, and that's what most of these ads are for. If I see too many stupid ads, I'm just going to stop visiting the sites that run them.
It would be nice to be able to run adblock everywhere, but in some environments it's just not possible. In the meantime, you're just annoying me by running these ads, not convincing me to part with money.
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Second the Good Content Required.
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attempting to monetize
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Advertising as Content / in Content
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adblock + filtersetG
for those of you who use FF, get adblock plus, as well as the filterset.G
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adblock is part of the problem
As a website publisher, I don't allow any annoying ads on my website - but I do understand the problem these companies are facing.. and I know that useful engaging ads won't solve the problem entirely.
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Re: adblock is part of the problem
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Thanks Carlos for proving once again that Mike isn't getting it.
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Re:
You make it much too easy to be a target, Harold.
Do you not know how to read? Did you skip the part about reduced spending on ads? This isn't our fault who get stuff for free, now is it?
Instead of working towards a beneficial system, these idiots are struggling to make the current ads work by making them more intrusive, and thus, ineffective in the long run when people leave.
Besides, ads aren't supposed to support a website. This stupid notion has been around since the inception of the World Wide Web and I have no pity for those who think it's still a viable revenue opportunity.
Sure, it can offset costs, but it shouldn't support the damn business.
The webpage itself IS THE DAMN AD, and should be used accordingly.
But people like you consistently rely on these outdated models to think they should pay for everything.
Such idiotic thinking. Get a clue already.
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Re: Re:
The website isn't the DAMN AD. It is an eyeball aggregation system, nothing more and nothing less. It may sell the company's own products, or it may sell ads to sell other people's products (or send the eyeballs to a site that can do it). As soon as a single paid link or ad is on a site, it's an ad supported site (just like this one). Even web2.0 darlings like Youtube are just trading entertainment for eyeball time, and doing it on the cheap with content they don't like to pay for.
So, hey, explain to me the beneficial system to run, I dunno, CNN.COM? How about Perezhilton.com? CNN actually risks losing viewership of their news channel to people getting their news online instead. So should they give that news away for free without advertising because it gets them some future benefit? What is that future benefit?
The only thing that is idiotic around here is suggesting to toss something in the trash without having a replacement for it ready.
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Adblockers still work
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Driven Away By Ads
The second case is some flash ads. I've never had a problem with them on most pages, but a few pages they actually slow my system down when they're running.
For anything but the flickery ads, I've found I simply tune the content out now. That block of text on the right side of the screen is probably an ad, so I just don't bother giving it any attention. With the flickery ads, I stop using the page.
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Necessary Evil? I think not.
We seriously almost died as a company because he had a spreadsheet that told him that since we had one banner on some of our pages that if we put X more banners on Y more pages, then we would make X*Y*adrevenue. Seriously.
I could only present my opinion, and because he was an exec and I was just a lowly lead developer, we went forward with it.
I redesigned our site layout to accommodate the ads, closed my eyes, and put them in.
We soon saw a significant jump in ad revenue. I even got a bonus for making it happen. And then we started hemorrhaging users. Badly.
Our pageloads were hitting like 10-15 seconds, we had the noisy-flashy-trashy ads, and some ads loaded javascript code that collided with our site code and actually crashed some of our pages.
And our users exercised the ultimate control that all webusers have over their experience. They just left.
NEVER AGAIN. Not while I work here anyway.
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It only seemed to start a few weeks ago, but i decided to stop visiting those pages. Whats the deal with the ads not having a visible close button or x in the corner? Those are the worst ones i have seen yet.
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Don't Trust Ads/Banners etc..
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If I landed on any site that used ads that adblocker couldn't handle I'd leave...anybody that wants to advertise in my face with ads I can't get rid of should pay me first. Still, even then I doubt I'd hang around a site that did that because it shows absolutely NO concern for customers.
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Ad Wars
Ads come around at first nice and simple, then as ad revenue soars, some companies abuse the power and make bloated annoying ads to try and spike their income.
So along come ad blockers to fight back against the horrible ad companies, but they block ads all over the place, not just on the abusive sites.
Ads get blocked, so ad revenue goes down. When ad revenue goes down, advertisers just figure that ads aren't working, so they stop paying companies to put up their ads.
Companies want the ad revenue so they freak out and try to make bigger nastier ads.
@R. Miles:
"Besides, ads aren't supposed to support a website. This stupid notion has been around since the inception of the World Wide Web and I have no pity for those who think it's still a viable revenue opportunity."
So... the entire reason Google is a multibillion dollar company is wrong?
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I don't notice ads
Does anyone here honestly click on ads?
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Re: I don't notice ads
then too many sites did annoying in your face ads that had little or nothing to do with the page and I didn't care about them so I got adblock. I actually consider turning adblock off once in a while on certain sites to see if the ads are any good.
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Turn the other cheek
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Serendipity
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Not making the most of it.
There is a great article geared to small business at http://www.emarketingmatador.com/online-ads-moving-past-search-marketing. It is the tip with the rest of the ice berg being testing and experience. Its only go for another 6 weeks or so (then the positions and ad sizes will likely change) C'est la vie.
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because they just keep continuing to amaze me.
-bowerbird
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intrusive ads
'
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