Dear Titans of The Online Advertising Landscape,
Joe, Michael, Ryan, James, Elizabeth, Tim et al.
Please help us luddites. Us lowly consumers of your “free” online content. We don’t claim to know anything about your business, we simply are making observations as the very people you are aiming to market to.
Why, I ask is there such an adversarial relationship between many content providers and their consumers? Is there bitterness because it is so difficult to make a living in this business and the consumers should simply shut up because they’re “getting it for free?”
Wouldn’t it make sense to develop advertising methodologies that consumers actually appreciate? There was a time when pop-up and banner ads were thought by advertisers to be an effective method to reach customers, but we evolved. Is it that difficult to imagine that the reason it’s so hard to make money is because the models currently being used simply don’t work.
Are we supposed to believe Pushdowns and XXL Boxes are going to get consumers excited about the products your advertisers are paying you to promote? I suppose if you can keep getting advertisers to pony up, it doesn’t matter how obtrusive the ads are, but if the content isn’t compelling enough to make up for it, you’re going to have less pageviews to justify anyone paying for them in the first place.
But what do I know, I’m just one of your customers.
I don’t think any of the sites you regularly visit are really going overboard with intrusive spots. Certainly none of my sites. I also don’t think pushdowns/XXLs/etc are nearly as bad as the older intrusive methods (pop ups, splash pages, etc). I think they’re an improvement.
At any rate, the inflection point is the point at which you decline to read because of the ads. And what sites have you stopped reading because the Pushdowns and XXLs were soooooo annoying?
I would also bet that there are sites with spots that are much more intrusive than the ones mentioned above and you read them anyway. Why? Because you want the content. And if the price of a pushdown is too much for you to pay for that content, well that’s an editorial problem.
Also, you have to understand those spots are popular for a reason. They test better with users for both ad recall and user interaction. You may not personally like them, but on the whole they get better results. If you were clicking on those boring, less intrusive 728x90 leaderboards occasionally, there would be no need for Pushdowns and XXLs.
But you’re aren’t.
Spiers pretty much nails it, but I’ll add my two cents, from a personal perspective:
Gawker blazed this trail, back when we introduced the “Panorama” unit in mid 2008. From there we went on to launch the “Marquee” unit in early 2009. These are intrusive units, yes. But like all advertising, it is IMPERATIVE that we get your attention.
There’s this thing called “banner fatigue.” That’s when you, our loyal reader, knows exactly where it is our banners will appear, and more importantly you’ll know exactly where our content appears. Knowing this information, you’ll be able to simply ignore the paid advertisements and focus instead on the content that you’ve come looking for. At Gawker we’ve done our damnedest to combat banner fatigue, including (but not limited to) running art in remnant advertising space (Gawker Artists), collapsing ads when the inventory is undersold, and only selling ads that make sense for our brands.
But hey, I use the internet too. I loath sites that put advertising first, like…
nypost.com
maxim.com
weather.com
washingtonpost.com
cnet.com
cnn.com
wsj.com
There’s a difference between engaging a reader and annoying a reader. All of the above sites utilize terribly intrusive advertising practices, like interstitial ads, pop ups, pop unders, floating ads, and autoplay sound. While I can’t speak for any other online publishers, know that we at Gawker really do respect the product we sell, and we do our best to get your attention in a subtle manner. You will never hear sound from one of our ads unless you click on it first. You will never see one of our banners expand unless you at least roll over it first. And you will never experience an interstitial, pop up/under, or floating ad on any of our sites. WE COULD DO THESE THINGS AND MAKE EVEN MORE MONEY THAN WE ALREADY DO. But we don’t. In fact, you shouldn’t be surprised to learn that we read our sites as much as you do (if not more), and we don’t want to deal with that shit either. It’s simply not worth the money to us.
Anyway, that’s my take. These ad units are simply another way for publishers to get your attention, which is the point of advertising. One more example. There was a time when TV shows were sponsored by one or two products, which were plugged by the host at the end of the show (“Tonight’s episode of ‘To Tell The Truth’ was brought to you by…”). Nowadays, TV has product placements, infomercials, 15 second spots, 30 second spots, 60 second spots, and the list goes on. The internet has grown up past standard banners, and it’s time for everyone to realize that this isn’t the end of the world.
