Maximizing Ad Views: Dark Art or Not?
You may have noticed that Vertical Advertising Networks are becoming very popular these days. What’s that? Never heard of a VAN? That’s because it’s the more accurate name for what is popularly being called Social Networking. These information systems are designed to connect people of like minds and interests to share and discuss views in an almost addictive manner.
Their dirty secret is that when they get a bunch of similar minded people into a “room” together advertisers will pay through the nose to expose their messages to them. Why? It’s simple. Advertising these days is extremely targeted and the likelihood of an ad impression becoming a conversion is significantly improved when the recipient of the message shares interests with the advertisement’s target demographic. Simply put, we buy things that are meaningful to us, not someone else. Advertisers spend a lot of money to figure us out so they can make their products relevant to us. You see where I’m going…
We at Tanagram Partners are deeply enmeshed in the VAN phenomenon and have had to face some frightening questions. If you architect an application to maximize ad views are you sacrificing the user experience? The answer, I’m happy to say is no. Why? Because advertising can be a component of an experience without destroying it.
We’ve all seen the interstitial advertising screens that take up the entire screen and make users wait to get to content. I’m not talking about those. Those ARE evil. Instead I’m talking about an image gallery that is designed so that each time the user views a new image a new advertisement is served. I’m talking about a sponsored list of “Ten useful things things to take to the beach” brought to you by Coppertone. We’ve found that users are willing to accept the advertisement or sponsorship as a key component of an experience if they get something useful from it. Users told us that they would value a list of useful things if no more than one of the items on the list was a product manufactured by the sponsor. Users also told us if the advertisement gets in the way, like those ads that move all over the screen or expand to cover content that they will go elsewhere for their content.
The trick to managing this fickle relationship is to maximize the value without overstepping the bounds of common courtesy. Some advertisers are still learning proper internet etiquette when they create an advertisement that metaphorically enters a library with a bullhorn and dances on your book as you read it. We as user advocates can help them.
Please help them.
Posted by Joseph Juhnke on September 25, 2007
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Welcome to the spill. The overflow buffer for the passion we have for interaction.
Spill is the blog from Tanagram, Inc. a technology innovation and design company based in Chicago, Illinois.
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