Advertising on Websites

[davidforeman]

What are your thoughts on advertising on websites?

Pop Ups?
Are these the scurge of the internet?

Pop Unders?
Are these slightly less of a hindrance?

Banner Ads?
Do they annoy you if they are not relevant to the site/topic you are browsing?
Do you Click through?

Small Advert Tiles?
Less of a pain?
Are they ok as long as they are relevant to the topic you're looking at/for?

Ever seen a really great banner ad?
Is internet advertising lazy - are there more innovative approaches?

Doing some research for a web design project, any feedback would be appreciated. I am trying to pin down a cross section of opinions about advertising on websites.

If you hate advertsing on websites, can you say why? What is it that you hate so much?

Thanks in advance for any replies to this post. Providing I get enough repsonses, results will be freely available.

 

[Mp)Tarh]

Pop Ups
These things are horrible. My computer lags whenever a new window is open - it kind of pauses for a second. That's fine, but not when 7 ads are being opened at once! Plus, they always cover up the page you are viewing, and when there is lot's you go on a "'x' box closing attack", and you sometimes close your default browser window by mistake!

Pop Unders
Not as much as a pain in the way of covering up, but they still make the website lag and once your done browsing, you have to close about 100 windows!

Banner Ads
They are fine as long as they don't have mouseover effects. For example, the new Microsoft Scripting Ad that opens a big box over the window when you mouse over it, you have to be extra carfull where you move the mouse!

Small Advert Tiles
They aren't any different than banner ads, just smaller thats all. Sure mouseovers on these aren't as bad, but they still suck. If they are close to the topic of the website, they are tolerable.

Great Banner Ads
The best kind of banner ad is a simple gif. No mouseovers. No fancy Flash. No super graphics. No sound. Of course, it has to be close to the topic you are looking at. Small is preferable. If a mouseover is applied, make it only affect the box, not the whole website.

Overall
Overall, ads suck. But if you run a giant website and need to do so for buisness, the best advice I can give you is:

1. Use small ads like the described banner ad above and post them on common websites.

2. When the user clicks the link, make it a normal hyperlink, no popups or anything else annoying.

3. Be simple in the hyperlink, make it go to your site, no spam site or other advertisments. They already clicked you ad, what more do you want?!

4. Once they reach your website, cut with the ads. All your doing is leading them away, one ad is enough.

5. Give them a choice. If they want to see more ads on what you offer, give them a choice to go see a page that contains what you offer. Do not force more ads on them once they go to your site.

6. Basically understand what people want to see and what they don't want to see. Before making an ad, go to other sites that have ads. What do you like, what don't you like? Get feedback. Then create.

That's about all, I hope this helped you - and good luck on your website.

 

[Brak]

Completely ineffective with todays browsing technology: Pop ups/unders
Pretty ineffective: Banner ads.


My reasoning? Pick up a copy of Mozilla Firebird it comes with a built in pop-up blocker that works. Almost everyone blocks pop-ups, and those that don't close them without looking at them. There's also an extentiion available for firebird that blocks almost all banner ads. It's a great thing... People DON'T WANT advertising that's forced on them. Why do you think TiVo is so popular? You can fast-forward through commercials. I know in my house, the rare times I watch TV my dad mutes the TV while commercials come on.

Solution: The best advertising is good reccomendations. Articles written about your website, permenant links. Even if they don't follow the permenant link, it counts on Google's backlinks - increasing your Page Rank and Search Engine ranking. Small buttons are good for specialized communities that people WANT to learn more about. For example, a musician's fansite with 88x31 buttons to other fansites. If it's some random button, it's probably useless.

Permenant links, and reccomendations are the way to go.

 

[DarkDevil]

Pop Unders. These arn't a neucense until you close the website i'm looking at. So they arn't a problem. but they do bug me, its basically a way for the website to make money without you really knowing until you leave. Its like going to a place like Toys R Us, buying a toy for 20 dollars and then when you leave they tell you, oh yea, and at 5 other stores you could have paid 18 dollars but we wanted to make a little more money off you now that you've left because you can't get a refund.

Banner Ads. I don't mind these as long as they arn't mainstream/overused ads. If your gonna do banners then look around and get a private relationship between some companys instead of joining one of those pay per click places..