the Web Chef's e-Bytes

Web Tidbits - Online Advertising

Online advertising continues to grow as mainstream advertisers shift their marketing budgets to where the eyes are.  The options for online advertisers continue to grow with video ads, banner ads, in-text ads, out of banner ads, interstitials, sponsorships, PDF ads, etc all being part of the available options.

According to statistics from the Newspaper Association of America reported in a recent Business Week article, newspaper advertising continued to decline last year to $46.6 billion, a decrease of 1.7%.  The article also quoted eMarketer statistics that showed online advertising grew 27% to $19.6 billion. 

The same article focused on one of the growing areas for online advertising - in text ads.  These ads are found within the editorial content and are triggered off a highlighted keyword that when rolled over generates a related ad.  One of the firms discussed in the article that delivers these ads was Vibrant Media, "the in-text advertising leader" and an Inc. 500 firm in the last two years. Vibrant Media provides publishers with up to three ads per article and has set up technology to try and avoid ad placement in negative stories according to Business Week.

Meanwhile Inc. Magazine reviewed some of the ways that publishers could make money from their site in a December article "Clicks for Cash".  Among the services referenced were Google AdSense, AdBrite, AuctionAds, Vizu and ValueClick. 

In other advertising developments, Adobe has announced a partnership with Yahoo!, that will allow for the placement of ads in PDFs according to published reports in CNET and other sources.  The ads will also be keyword triggered and will appear in a righthand panel of the PDFs.

POST # 300 - Advertising Banner Blindness

This is my 300th posting on the Web Chef's e-Bytes.  I'm proud to be able to contribute to the conversation on the trends, techniques and statistics behind the continuing growth of the digital world.

I came across an interesting posting at usability expert Jakob Nielsen's Useit.com site that discusses research findings on what he calls "banner blindness".  His research using eyetracking has found that banner ads are ignored regardless of the viewers engagement and whether they are doing "quick scanning (the most common level of engagement), partial reading or thorough reading".  As he says "users almost never look at anything that looks like an advertisement whether or not it's actually an ad",  He has a couple of interesting video clips where eyetracking of viewers on the Money.com site are showcased.   

In the review article, he states that there are 4 ways that ad content can get attention, although he doesn't necessarily advocate using them:

1. Plain text
2. Faces
3. Cleavage or other sexual body parts
4. Looking like the surrounding content

This is an itnteresting study that with wider release and acceptance by advertisers could have a significant impact for publishers, advertising agencies and ad networks. 

Watch for my article on the resurrgence of online advertising that will be released soon on Wisconsin Technology Network.

Paul Gibler
the Web Chef
ConnectingDots

P.S. If you are looking for a presenter on the latest trends in online advertising give me a call or drop me a line.

New Column in Wisconsin Technology Network - 583 reasons to wonder is e-mail dead or alive?

I've written a new article for Wisconsin Technology Network "583 reasons to wonder is e-mail dead or alive?" that discusses where e-mail is at as a communications and marketing medium. 

The article is one in an ongoing series that I've written called Buzz Networks on some of the latest trends effecting e-business and marketing.

Paul Gibler
the Web Chef