We are only now learning how to sell audience based on what we know or surmise about our audience. But we moved beyond even that on Saturday, focusing on the messages businesses want to communicate to prospective customers, most of which should be...Improving online display advertising
Online ads aren’t working for anyone:
- Advertisers hate them because they’re ineffective: Click-through rates are less than one percent.
- Publishers hate them because they aren’t generating enough revenue to make up for the shortfall in print advertising.
- And most important, users hate them because they’re annoying, distracting and useless.
Clearly, everyone will benefit if these problems are solved. Let’s see how we got here so we can avoid repeating these mistakes.
Mommy, where do leaderboards come from?
Can you remember what the ads looked like on the first newspaper Web sites? I’m sure you can’t, because the first newspaper Web sites had no advertising. Back in the early ’90s, when the first newspapers began posting online, there was a cultural prohibition against advertising on the Internet. Many believed the Internet should be non-commercial.
That notion slipped away by the mid-’90s and newspapers began adding advertising to their pages. But these pages had not been designed with ads in mind, so the ads were shoe-horned onto the pages, first at the bottom, then at the tops and down the sides.
Banners and buttons begat leaderboards and skyscrapers. But these, too, were squeezed onto the tops and edges of Web pages. And that’s why online ads appear in an awkward array of shallow and skinny sizes and shapes.
Multimedia gone wrong
Advertisers are limited by awkward sizes and shapes, so they’ve escalated their war on users with a never-ending series of annoying and intrusive techniques. As is the case in most wars of aggression, it’s the aggressor that loses.
The battle for users’ eyeballs began with animated GIFs. Then advertisers fortified their flintlocks with Flash. These animated ads look great by themselves, but two or more together create a shouting match: “LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME!”
Users responded like Dr. Seuss’s Grinch: “Oh the noise! Noise! Noise! Noise!”
So advertisers served up pop-ups. Web browsers responded with pop-up blockers. Now Web sites offer video and advertisers have responded with pre-roll – this decade’s version of the much-hated pop-up. And don’t forget the interstitials – those ads that get between the user and the page the user wants to see. This latest contrivance is bound to spawn 2009’s hottest Christmas gift: “Tivo for Web,” so users can skip past the interstitials.
The battle for the user’s attention has produced an unintended consequence: Newspaper Web sites have trained users to ignore online ads.
It’s gonna take a lot to undo this damage. We should heed Matt Mansfield’s call to improve the enduser experience of editorial and advertising. Here’s a starting point:
1. Make the advertising message the primary visual on each page and limit each page to a single ad. Adopting this strategy kills two birds with one stone: First, it provides advertisers with the best possible environment for their message. Second, it provides a better experience for the user by eliminating all the noise. But to do so, sites must migrate away from the ineffective IAB standard ad sizes and shapes to create sites that serve up ads like this or this.
But serving up fewer ads per page doesn’t mean serving up fewer ads per visit if sites are redesigned to increase page views. But first we need to change the current paradigm:
2. Create a next-generation homepage. Too many users visit the homepage – then exit – before viewing interior pages because the homepage meets their information needs. And webmasters put too many ads on homepages in hopes of reaching these endusers.
This is a self-defeating strategy that pits advertisers against each other and creates a chaotic environment for endusers.
To increase page views, homepages should be redesigned to be less comprehensive. Homepages should provide a “taste” of a site’s content, rather than a satisfying meal, like this or this.
This strategy will force users to visit interior pages to meet their information needs. These interior pages will provide a more effective environment for advertising, like this or this.
But we need to stop thinking of a Web page as a single page. It’s really more like a magazine spread of two pages. Here’s why:
The first web pages were limited by the size of the prevalent monitors of the day: 800 pixels wide by 600 pixels deep. Today, 1024×768 is the minimum, with most desktop and laptops no smaller than 1152×720. Even my 3-year old Powerbook displays 1680×1050.
But we can’t use that full width for text, because it becomes difficult to read when it is set too wide. Even 500px — half the width of the smallest display — is almost too wide for text.
So a Web browser can really display two pages side-by-side, like a magazine. And like the best magazines, one side can be for editorial and the other side can be for advertising.
Consider this spread from The New Yorker, above. Note how the ad is the primary visual element, yet it doesn’t interfere with the reading experience. Now consider this prototype, below, to see the same dynamic at play.
Print ads must be static, but online ads can be dynamic. What if that Thunderbird ad “came to life” onMouseOver, like the photographs in Harry Potter’s newspaper, The Daily Prophet?
Maybe we can draw some inspiration from a newspaper after all, albeit a fictional one.
16. March 2009 at 4:41 am :
Hi Alan,
Good to read the point of view of a like minded individual!
We here at Open agree whole heartedly that existing online display formats don’t work. In fact we’d go as far as to say they never worked. The newspaper analogy is a good. Existing display formats are basically ‘print ads’ ported online.
We have developed a new format that we believe shakes things up a little. The results from our first campaigns are very encouraging.
Online display ad formats should serve to open up a conversation with users - not simply shout at them.
Online display ads should be dynamic and contextual.
Online display ads should be performance based and accountable.
Let’ see where the next generation of online display media takes us.
Cheers,
Josh
16. March 2009 at 5:53 am :
While we’re building a better Craig’s list, let’s build a better AdSense.
I like your idea of using better design to add function. I’ve long wondered why online ads don’t give me everything I need in one view. For small or medium businesses, it could be, just giving me an attractive font with what the business does and a phone number. I remember a great ad for athletic shoes that showed a sprinter in the starting blocks, head down with the caption “He’s waited a lifetime for the next 10 seconds.” Print designers have been making powerful statements like that for decades. Why aren’t we doing this for the web?
But let’s take it a step further and, like AdSense, give other local content providers a chance to add it to their blogs and web sites with revenue sharing. We build partnerships within our community, not competitors. In our community and across the nation, people are building entertainment calenders and local web sites that could benefit from our sales staff. And we could expand our information services, rather than watch them shrink with our staffs.
Why give them over to AdSense or AdWords? Why not allow our advertising sales to benefit from traffic they draw, information they provide, and give them a share back in return — a kind of new way to pay free-lancers?
This kind of view would also allow us to help sustain the talented people we are seen being laid off, or jobs cut. Most of these are content providers who still want to provide stories, photos, videos, political cartoons that draw interest in our community. Instead of giving them severance pay and best wishes, think about this: pay their salary for one more year but help them get set up with a blog or their own web site, where they can continue to use their talents. Then set them up with their own local ad account. Instead of laying off, we are launching new phases in careers.
Right now, we risk the people we’re letting go coming back with someone that is going to eat our lunch and contribute to our demise. We are giving up content for cost savings. As staff shrink, we could also develop our talent as independent contractors and new vehicles to expand our audience and let them continue to share in revenues by the traffic they provide.
I think companies like McClatchy (my present employer) or Gannett (my former company) could do with their networks of communities.
17. March 2009 at 10:58 pm :
One problem with putting just a little out front is that readers think that’s all there is. (This was endemic a decade ago.) But tabs are invisible.
Ironically, pure text links gets people inside to more pages. It’s those inside pages that have to list the rest of the section’s links.
Yes, I know it’s ugly…
18. March 2009 at 10:34 pm :
I really like what you’re saying about putting less on the front pages. I have a hobby site, http://www.weddingdecoratorblog.com, and I only put two posts excerpts out front. I find it drives users much deeper into my site — since I’ve changed the design of my site, my pageviews have shot up.
I also like your suggestion that we make more use of the horizontal space. It drives me bananas that so many sites are still so vertical. I mean, sure, its good for me, since I can put a lot more stuff on my screen. But not good for sites that are trying to give me a multimedia experience.
20. March 2009 at 8:22 pm :
When advertisers compete, newspapers profit. When an advertiser ads size or color to dominate, the newspapers is rolling in the dough… you need to change the old-style newspaper management mindset. For example:
>Home
>Sports
>Sports>Fishing
>Sports>Fishing>Saltwater Fishing
>Sports>>Fishing>Saltwater Fishing>Marlin Fishing
That’s five pageviews by creating a navigation system that allows readers to navigate through to find what they want. This also allows a range of ad pricing since fewer people click through to “Marlin Fishing.” Newspaper management does not, for the most part, understand how to use nav to create pageviews.
21. March 2009 at 1:02 pm :
I like the basics of this idea. Size does matter, and sticking tiny banner ads on pages doesn’t work.
But I’d like to propose that perhaps just making banner ads bigger isn’t an answer either.
Maybe on the other half of the page you should present paid content about the advertiser and the products/services it sells, packaged as a story but clearly labeled as paid. And target these paid content pieces to match the editorial content as much as possible.
In other words, treat readers as intelligent human beings who desire information, not to be assaulted by flashing graphics.
To quote Josh above, “Online display ad formats should serve to open up a conversation with users - not simply shout at them.”
22. March 2009 at 4:01 pm :
Mike Poller, perhaps I’m not understanding what your point is, and if that’s the case, please forgive me. It seems to me you are saying we need to engineer our sites to force readers to click through to more pages to get to the content they want. Because that’s an idea that has been tried and failed.
Think about it. If I want to read about marlin fishing, I click on one link, go down one layer, no marlin fishing, just another link, and an ad, which I’m not going to pay attention to unless it’s got a marlin in it. Next link, still no marlin fishing, still another link and an ad, still no marlin. By this time, most readers have already left your site. Making it harder for readers to get to content is not a good strategy, not when it’s so easy to search Google.
Also, the pageview as a metric is going away, thanks to technologies like ajax, something that Nielsen, IAB and others have conceded.
23. March 2009 at 9:17 am :
Interesting content.
Just wanted to share some information that I came across in a few articles discussing about recession and how we can adopt a different marketing strategy to promote our business. It’s quite eminent that most of the advertisers and businesses are taking to online advertising medium since the Internet has now become a necessity to reach global audience. However, even today there is still a huge chunk of people who do not access Internet and to reach this segment of the society; we can rely on the print media. This in fact would be a great choice for anyone whether they are looking out for global, national or local exposure.
Since the economies are now at the bring of recession, it’s a good idea to consider print media as well in the marketing mix so that you can extend your reach further to get additional traffic to your website or business. You can try a blend of online and print advertising through a reputed ad agency that can help you professionally.