Understanding Banner Blindness(adpushup.com)
adpushup.com
Understanding Banner Blindness
http://www.adpushup.com/blog/banner-blindness/
9 comments
If you want users to click on ads you basically need to fool the users into clicking or show actually relevant add. Because actually relevant adds are almost non-existant, fooling becomes the main strategy. And the best strategy is to make adds be indistinguishable from content. And I do not refer to short-sighted way of incorporating ad links into the content, so the user thinks it is useful, because after he clicks he knows he is fooled. I refer to ad blogging, or "promotional" blogging, where people write articles that are sometimes quite thickly-veiled adds, puts a bunch of banners around it and make people read it. Then people think that they are avoiding adds by not looking at banners often not even realizing that the "content" is an ad of itself.
There are ads that are extremely rude and unnecessary.
* Popup ads are ignored by virtually all internet veterans.
* Ads blocking the page (forbes.com for example) on redirect is extremely rude and useless because people like me will x it no matter what.
Google and FB ads seem to be fine. They put them in the right spot and they are not so annoying. They are not so obvious however. The textual and color just make these ads part of the page's text rather than an ad.
* Popup ads are ignored by virtually all internet veterans.
* Ads blocking the page (forbes.com for example) on redirect is extremely rude and useless because people like me will x it no matter what.
Google and FB ads seem to be fine. They put them in the right spot and they are not so annoying. They are not so obvious however. The textual and color just make these ads part of the page's text rather than an ad.
When I'm reading your website I'm running AdBlock, Ghostery, NoScript and RequestPolicy. I trust you and you alone - and although I have nothing against paying for information that essentially allows me to become a better person (in general, at my job, in life, etc.), I rarely have a chance.
You may be able to convince me to trust your partners, like StackOverflow does - "hey, they are cool guys, we work with them, you should probably check them out", but never to trust an entire ad-serving network, especially because IT'S A FRIGGIN AD-SERVING NETWORK. These guys specialize in tracking people and profile building, it's an Internet Gestapo that sells stuff. This includes Google Ads, of course (maybe even more so, because they are the largest such network and have the greatest tracking power).
Even a paywall is better than ads when executed correctly - if you at least let me read your old articles this will probably be enough. Then you just need a payment form or a Bitcoin address - none of my plug-ins will block those. I'd be happier if you just trust me in return and let me pay without a paywall, though.
You may be able to convince me to trust your partners, like StackOverflow does - "hey, they are cool guys, we work with them, you should probably check them out", but never to trust an entire ad-serving network, especially because IT'S A FRIGGIN AD-SERVING NETWORK. These guys specialize in tracking people and profile building, it's an Internet Gestapo that sells stuff. This includes Google Ads, of course (maybe even more so, because they are the largest such network and have the greatest tracking power).
Even a paywall is better than ads when executed correctly - if you at least let me read your old articles this will probably be enough. Then you just need a payment form or a Bitcoin address - none of my plug-ins will block those. I'd be happier if you just trust me in return and let me pay without a paywall, though.
I read webpages about like this: https://www.dropbox.com/s/2fc9sexvijmwdgn/Banner-Blindness.g...
Because content is text that is readable.
It's not the color. It's not the F-shape. It's that it looks like content because I can read it with little effort. To find anything else on that page I would have to consciously look at the "menu" and "wtf" areas. Images are rarely useful, so I frequently gloss over them too, I don't expect them to tell me anything useful or even to be related to what I'm reading. They're pretty things to look at if I want to look at pretty things that are just a waste of time (they're fun! they're not content.).
Maybe that is why Google ads work so well?
Because content is text that is readable.
It's not the color. It's not the F-shape. It's that it looks like content because I can read it with little effort. To find anything else on that page I would have to consciously look at the "menu" and "wtf" areas. Images are rarely useful, so I frequently gloss over them too, I don't expect them to tell me anything useful or even to be related to what I'm reading. They're pretty things to look at if I want to look at pretty things that are just a waste of time (they're fun! they're not content.).
Maybe that is why Google ads work so well?
"read" yes, but "use" implies you also read the menu, that area is not totally blind
Only when I want to do menu-things. The site mentions asking people to find content on the page - I would eventually check the menu-area (the correct answer is over on the right), but I would definitely tune it out until I'd exhausted the obviously-more-likely-to-be-useful areas.
While it's a good thing people realize that banner ads won't work as they might have some years ago, I still wonder why they discuss the "best place" of banner and how it integrates most unobtrusively. I think people will feel even more exploited when they are tricked into clicking a well hidden banner ad.
To me, the question is rather: "Is banner ads still a good form of advertising?". The only way I could answer "yes" to that is if users had a reason to click that banner, for example because they would receive something for it:
- Points for their personal sponsor
- A discount for finding that particular banner.
The reward would have to be something that makes people actively look for those banners.
In any other case, I'd argue we need a different form of online advertisement than banners.
To me, the question is rather: "Is banner ads still a good form of advertising?". The only way I could answer "yes" to that is if users had a reason to click that banner, for example because they would receive something for it:
- Points for their personal sponsor
- A discount for finding that particular banner.
The reward would have to be something that makes people actively look for those banners.
In any other case, I'd argue we need a different form of online advertisement than banners.
I liked the observation about people not 'seeing' the population total on the US Census page. So I tried it myself, since the Census home page has changed and I wouldn't be pre-conditioned where to look.
http://www.census.gov
I had to revert to Ctrl-F for 'population' to find the counter.
The whole page is a mess of widgets and the first thing I started reading was the 'Census News' down in the middle. Everything else was disrgarded as 'noise'
Standard page reading technique:
1. Click link
2. Content loads
3. Hit ESC to stop images loading
4. Quick scan for the search string
5. If not found, Ctrl-F.
6. If still not found, exit page.
http://www.census.gov
I had to revert to Ctrl-F for 'population' to find the counter.
The whole page is a mess of widgets and the first thing I started reading was the 'Census News' down in the middle. Everything else was disrgarded as 'noise'
Standard page reading technique:
1. Click link
2. Content loads
3. Hit ESC to stop images loading
4. Quick scan for the search string
5. If not found, Ctrl-F.
6. If still not found, exit page.
It would be very lovely if all web developers at newspapers (with an online presence of course) would read this!
The Deck solves the "banner blindness" by a nice way of showing ads (think Daring Fireball). "Only a single small ad will be shown for each page viewed." http://decknetwork.net/
Basically if your website is a thin strip in the middle of the page, so you can have room for giant background ads on both sides, you are automatically filtered by me.