Deboxing The Ad

[mktgbiz]

This thought just came to me and I had to write it down.......



With so many becoming Internet aware and savvy these days it also menas they are becoming savvy at depicting the ads online, because almost all ads are depicted by a box or a boarder.

I noticed this because I subscribe to way too many e-newsletters and for some strange reason not long ago noticed I read an entire newsletter and didn’t read or even acknowledge a single ad. Why is that I thought?

Well, here’s my take. We’re programmed to know where the ad might and should be and in addition, and more importantly we know when we see a box in the middle of the text we are reading that there is an ad upcoming. Very few if any put additional text in a box as the reading progression is taking place.

Think about it. Don’t you know how to “skip by the ads”? Sure you do. The weird, almost eerie thing is, you can skip an ad and not even know you did it, when in fact you did it in purpose.

So, if you create and send e-newsletters, keep in mind that we all know how to overlook the ads because of the outlined box that contains it.

If you want to increase the number of people who read your ad, remove the box around thee ad.


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[Logan]

I agree 100%. If you have boxes around your ads and are looking to increase clicks one of the easiest things you can do is simply remove any box/borders.

I've been playing around with it a bit, and it is hard to draw conclusions about much ... but I've also tried the following

1) Content w/ ads having no borders (what Scott says)
2) Content inside boxes/borders with ads also inside boxes/borders
3) Content inside boxes/borders with ads having no borders

While its hard to draw conclusions, I've had similar ctr for 2 and 3 as 1. This has got me thinking that it is not so much the box itself and the rest of what is on the Internet. But instead the layout of that single page/site. If the only thing on your page within boxes is ads, my theory is that the visitor makes a split second (maybe even not concious) observation that box = ads. If content is in boxes and ads are in boxes, I find a similarly high ctr as if taking off the border boxes ... as they are not associating only one thing (ads) with what's inside your page's (not the entire internet) boxes.

Just observations - nothing scientific by any means.... but a theory I have regarding it.

[_detz_]

That's why I think text link ads work so well...even though they are ads they don't have the "I'm at ad" look to them.

[Swingline]

This is really interesting. What exactly is a text-link ad?

[_detz_]

Originally Posted by Swingline

This is really interesting. What exactly is a text-link ad?

It's the "new" thing. The idea is people pay to have their link included on your website. It looks(for the most part) like a normal link that they put on their website but they are getting paid to put it there. On the other end, you can pay to have your link put on other pages. It's pretty nice because not only to people click on it(ad) but bots(Google) pick it up as a legit link and it gets you ranked better.

It should be mentioned that Google and other SE frown upon this and are trying to find ways to counter it but it's very hard to track down what links are paid on a site.

[Logan]

The fact that Google and other engines have clearly stated their stance against paid text link ads is an important consideration for anyone. If you are thinking for the long term, something like that can cripple your site.

A few additional considerations that I would take into account regarding text link ads -

-- Regarding 'it's very hard to track down what links are paid on a site'... my experiences are different. I believe google is good at identifying paid links. I do not think this is so much the case with Yahoo and MSN/Live. Google's algorithm addresses this largely based on my experiences. The crux is you are paying for the links and not the intended influence with Google. If it does not have its intended influence you have an expense without any benefit (and imo a loss as your energy/resources could have been used with alternative tactics).

-- Once you stop paying the links are removed and you have no value. A comparison would be the difference between buying a house and renting an apartment and the resources you have after payments are completed.

-- If a site is not well established, it may take time for links to have an impact with a sites search engine ranking. So you are essentially paying for your link ad while it takes time for the link to impact rankings ... while you wait for the search engines to update with the info you have no value here.

-- A prevailing theory has be been to also target links that attract visitors. Good theory, but much more difficult to find those sites/pages/links based on my experiences when it comes to those typically listed in the inventory.

For most, paid text link ads aren't a smart move imo. Take out the paid systems though, and focus on getting good inline/text links from other sites and reap the benefits without the risks/expenses.

[torka]

To my mind, it depends on why you're buying/renting the link.

If you're looking for traffic (i.e. a reasonably prominent link on a high-traffic site frequented by your target audience), then by all means pay for the link. That's simply paid advertising and it's an accepted business practice. Heck, Google makes most of its money from paid advertising, so they can hardly deem it "evil."

Google wants the site hosting the links to put a "nofollow" on those links, though, so they won't pass link popularity to you. Whether you do that or not is up to you and the hosting site, but you do need to be aware if you don't, Google may catch on and not be happy with either of you. Caveat emptor.

If you want links for link popularity, then paid advertising is not really what you want in the long run, IMO. For long-term SEO benefit, seek out non-paid (i.e. "natural") links.

My

--Torka

[rcroome]

First, Google wanted people to have in-text links to relevant sites as a means of developing their PR system. Now they don't like it if you get websites to pay for the link. Sounds like sour grapes to me because they now see that that they are missing out on the revenue.

IMHO Google is a fair weather friend at best. By all means partner with Google, but don't EVER rely on them.

I am building a site at the moment that will sell links to related sites. I have to make money too. I will also use boxed ads from advertisers that want the targeted traffic.

I will only use Adsense where there are no 'real' advertisers to be had or where Google will give me a fair share of the click revenue.

However, since Google has embarked on squeezing websites financially by taking more and more of the PPC revenue, this strategy is unlikely to a major one for me in the long term.

I think Google needs to address this problem if they want their stellar growth in this market to continue.

As far as taking the ads out of the box, I think that's a great idea. I'm just wondering how to do it effectively. I'm going to spend the rest of the day thinking of ways to do this, since I think it is such a good idea.

Great post mktgbiz.

[mktgbiz]

Originally Posted by Swingline

This is really interesting. What exactly is a text-link ad?

A text link ad is

Text (words) that link you to another site.

This is a text link ad

http://www.FreeLinks.com


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[mktgbiz]

Originally Posted by rcroome

Great post mktgbiz.

Thanks!

It kinda drifted off target for a while.........

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