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February 28, 2005
Ads Are Here To Stay: Planning For Ad Placement
What follows is a list of some strategies and guidelines for presenting ads on a page. These approaches will undoubtedly become more sophisticated as the possibilities, and variability, of online advertising grows. The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has put together a list of standards and guidelines for presenting advertising on the web, and is dedicated to educating people on how to advertise online. Instead of addressing these standards in this article, we would like to address their information architecture—how they fit into a larger page-level and site-level system.
Fortunately we are not alone in our understanding of users’ feelings about ads. Advertisers, while not having our background, do understand that many web users are not all that happy about having ads on the internet, and that too many ads can ruin a page and dilute their own advertisement. Success is often measured by click-through rate, and advertisers now seem to understand that improving the user experience of ads can improve their own success. The success of contextual, text only ads should be noted (40 percent of online ad revenue is generated by search related advertising).
While ads, by their very nature, will always live in tension with the content they support, new strategies are being developed that can help satisfy the needs of users and advertisers. By thinking of ads not as those annoying flashing animations that distract the user, but rather as another content type with its own peculiar features that must be incorporated into the page, you can change your distaste of ads into an architecture challenge. This may not change how you feel about ads (and if you feel about ads as I feel about ads, you can always purchase Norton Internet Security which has an ad blocking feature), but it can change how you feel about the work you produce.
Successfully incorporating ads into a site is perhaps one of the most difficult challenges, not least because of the nature of the content itself. Ads are revenue generators, and the ad sales department will often make blanket demands about what ads sizes they want and where they should live on the site. Balancing these demands with user needs can be difficult, but using some of the above-mentioned strategies can increase your chance of success.
Continue Reading "Ads Are Here To Stay: Planning For Ad Placement"
Posted by Don at February 28, 2005 08:32 AM
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Comments
Really, if ads bug you that much online, switch to firefox with Adblock extension. Goes a long way, and no icky Norton required.
max
Posted by: Get rid of ads at March 4, 2005 03:09 PM
