Some Random Dude » Opinion

Improving Online Advertising (For Everyone)

P.J. Onori — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 08:12:49 +0000

In my first of three articles discussing online advertising, I wrote about what I consider is wrong with advertising. In this article, I will attempt to lay out my thoughts on how advertising online could be improved. One of the issues that I see as a problem of the current online advertising model is the emphasis on money and/or click-throughs. This current article talks about how the almighty click-through reigns supreme, no matter how much it damages the reputation of the site or the product that is being advertised. In addition, site creators seem to just fall in line and accept the one-sided relationship advertisers have laid out for them. Advertisers and site creators need to think smarter by thinking smaller. My thought is to put less money on the table and create more effective advertising partnerships with a smaller group of sites. In addition, the banner needs to finally be put to rest. A site’s real-estate is no match for its author’s thoughts, content and the trust it has garnered with its audience. Lastly, the site creator’s content, in conjunction with the trust from the audience, are not resources to exploit, but are potential partners in a sustainable revenue model.

A Broken Model

For the vast majority of sites that advertise, there is little to no communication between site and advertiser. The relationship (or lack thereof) is entirely money-driven – the site gets money for clicks and the product/service being advertised gets traffic (and hopefully) revenue. In many cases, advertising works through third parties such as Google Adsense. The site creator and the advertiser do not know (or care) one bit about the other. In this model, advertisers think that the real estate and traffic of a site are its most valuable resources. Advertisers are only going to be willing to pay for what they consider valuable. Due to this perception, many advertisers expect that they receive prime real estate for their banners, links, etc. Advertisers rarely consider how this may impact user experience or the loyalty of a site’s audience. What should the advertiser care, they know nothing about the site to begin with. This revenue-centered model reminds me of the old method of clear-cutting forests. The lumber companies would come in, take all that is valuable, and leave once the land had nothing else to give.

Honestly, how does an ad like this help anyone?.

What is deemed a success in advertising needs a major overhaul. Currently, most advertisers are only willing to pay for a click-through – some are only willing to pay if a specific ad click generates a sale. Ironically, this model only exists on the internet due to its unique ability to track various forms of data. If a company purchases ad space in a newspaper, that company has little to no way of tracking revenue generated directly through that ad. Comparisons can be made from sales before and after an ad campaign, however that still can not directly track one ad’s success. Advertisers are willing to pay through the nose for TV ads, with no concrete guarantee of financial gain. In addition, there is no statistical data to track the percentage of users turned off from both the advertiser’s product and the site which the ad sat on due to its invasive nature. There also are no numbers to determine the negative impact invasive ads are making on a brand. Why is there such a discrepancy between online and offline advertisements?

Put Less Money in the Equation

Money is the root of all evil, even on the web. An advertising model that is solely monetary can bring out the worst in both sides. If advertising is strictly a means to generating short-term revenue, the advertiser could care less about the impact an ad is making on their brand or the brand of the site advertising for them and the site creator could care less about its audience. Advertising is more than just click-throughs and cost-per-clicks. Are a few thousand clicks worth the possible negative impact an invasive ad leaves on both parties? This pressure for return lies directly in the investment made. If less money changes hands (on both sides) this desire for return by any means necessary could potentially be blunted. With asking for less money, site creators could demand more user-friendly ads in both content and appearance. For advertisers, if less money is asked for ad space, they should be much more welcome to less invasive tactics to promote their company/product. With money being less of an issue, community reputation and a genuine desire to work together are a much higher priority for both sides. Both advertisers and site creators should be just as interested in the ad’s impact on their reputation as they are in their bottom line. Just because someone clicked on an ad does not mean it was successful. The motive of clicking should be a much higher priority.

Many advertisers consider a site’s real-estate its most valuable resource – this is becoming less and less true with the evolution of the web. Today, a site’s content and the trust of its audience are the most important resource. Traditional online advertising strip-mines the trust of the audience where greater short-term gains are made at the expense of long-term longevity. With no mutual interest, this type of model seems completely acceptable – that is exactly why it cannot work. As brought up in the previous article, this type of advertising is may have a lot to do with drops in traffic.

No one knows a site’s community like the site’s creator and the actual community itself. Using that model, it seems somewhat ridiculous that advertisers expect good results with putting their generic ads into a site and then expecting the ads to just work. Every web community has its own nuances and personality – ads that work great for site X, could very well fail horribly on site Y. It makes more sense to, at the very least, get know the community before beginning to advertise for them. Much better, advertisers work with the site creator to interact directly with the community – not a company/consumer interaction, but as two communities with similar interests. In addition, instead of insisting on a traditional advertising relationship, a more tailor-made sponsorship could be created to allow site-creators to advertise a product through the lens of the community. Of course, this depends on the site-creators’ willingness to work with advertisers and vice-versa, but there is a very good chance that the product will be much more well-received if the site-creator is endorsing it rather than XYZ Corp shoving it down the audience’s throat.

I definitely understand the concept of advertising across the broadest segment of the population. There definitely are valid reasons for casting a wide net – the only problem is that many times those advertisements are being served to large segments of people who are not the target audience. This wide net can be quite wasteful both in time and money. For many companies/organizations with small to medium ad budgets, that time and money would be spent more wisely with focused ads to a few quality sites than a more vague ad campaign created to work across many more sites. This strategy fits in with creating personal relationships with site creators. If companies are more interested in advertising across only a handful of sites, the incentive to work very closely with those sites increases. The potential collaboration between advertiser and site creator is where special thing can begin to happen.

‘Ads’ as Worthwhile Content

In my opinion, banner ads are becoming less useful by the minute. Granted, I currently have something similar to a banner on this site, but its future is in great peril. Its lack of usefulness will be its demise as it does absolutely nothing for returning users. I would like to think that I would continue to support TerraPass, but it would take the form of something more useful for the audience. Ads do not need to be “sacrificed space”, they can be substantiative writing, content and media or co-sponsored projects undertaken with support of the advertiser. Just for this site, I can think of many companies/organizations where some sustainable ad model would not just compliment the site’s content, but add to it. People make the idea of throwing ads on your site that are relevant to its content seem revolutionary when in reality it is nothing more than common sense. Revolutionary begins when ads/sponsorships begin to improve a site’s experience. As much as it may seem, this is not a pie-in-the-sky idea. Bloggers could work with a sponsor to have co-created content that neither could produce alone. Companies/organizations could have invaluable expertise on a certain subject that could be published through a site creator’s site/blog. Honestly, there are infinite possibilities and services that could develop in the future. For example, ReviewMe is proof that this kind of relationship between the advertiser and site creator is starting to be occur. My hope is that this model will go one step further – with less dependence on a third party to facilitate very temporary ad partnerships. Just like a site’s content, sponsorships should be relatively consistent.

Content created by advertisers has the potential to be taken much more seriously than just your average banner ad. This method could very easily be considered deceptive at best if done the wrong way. However, if the site creator and advertiser are candid about the relationship and the content is genuine, this model can be used to provide valuable and unique content for the audience. Methods such as this rely on a advertiser/content-creator relationship built on something more than just financial transactions. I would love to have design firms write about sustainable design or a hosting company post an article on this site about how they are working to run on clean energy. My expertise in these areas is slim to none, but a common interest in such topics can open up the door for an interesting symbiosis.

A Sustainable Approach

This advertising approach relies on both advertisers and site creators to think about advertising and revenue in a more sustainable manner. Advertising needs to be seen as a partnership where both parties will reap less benefits unless both are equally committed to make it work for each other. In addition, both parties need to come up with a more creative method of compensation. Money alone will not only create the potential for conflict, but ultimately it is just one piece of what is desired. The long-term results of reputation-building and user-first advertising will pay dividends to everyone – it just may not show up instantly. In the end, site creators and advertisers have a common goal – to engage and communicate with the user. That desire for mutually beneficial engagement and communication needs to take a higher priority than sales via ads or ad revenue.

Come back in the next few weeks for the last article in this series on online advertising.

The Sorry State of Online Advertising

P.J. Onori — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 08:09:08 +0000

For many, the internet symbolizes innovation, creativity and unique expression. Why then is internet advertising so unoriginal, uninspired and uninterested in the people it is targeting? Online advertising symbolizes all that is wrong with the current state of the web. The basic model of advertising bombardment and sensory overload can ruin a site’s reputation while rarely giving the financial return expected. Why have site creators and online advertisers settled for such an unbecoming system? For many site creators, the allure of making income from their site outweighs the needs of their audience. This approach can ultimately cause much more bad than good.

Over the next few weeks, I will be writing about online advertising. This article will focus on what is currently wrong with the most common advertising model used online, the second will discuss my opinions on a better alternative and the third will flush out those ideas into pragmatic examples.

Where Internet Advertising Currently Is

Advertising online is at an all-time low. Users are constantly bombarded by advertisements that seem to be getting larger and more visually obtrusive by the minute. Online advertisements seem to have little or nothing to do with the site’s content and lack any sense of respect for the user. Even though it is a well-known fact that internet users detest ads, the same horrendous model is shoved down their throats. It is as if site creators have just accepted that the advertising status quo is the only way to generate ad revenue and they expect that the users will have to “deal with it”. ESPN.com is a perfect example of such a site where advertising has gone wrong. There are literally ads everywhere, the video player automatically starts playing ads with the audio on, there are annoying Flash ads everywhere and, every once in a while, I would have the pleasure of being re-directed to full-page ads instead of the home page. I do not go to ESPN.com anymore.

Contemporary advertising online many times results with a site looking like a content/advertisement checkerboard. Some sites try not to cluster too many ads together so as to give the impression that they are not bombarding the user with ads. Savvy users realize what is happening nonetheless. I would argue that the sheer number of advertisements some of these sites have on their site is evidence that the current ad model is not working. Instead of thinking of more original, symbiotic and user-friendly forms of advertising, most site creators have subscribed to the “more ads means more revenue” philosophy. This current relationship between the site creator and advertisers is much like a building landlord and a renter. Space is offered to the advertiser and other than the exchange of money, there is little to no relationship between the two. Under this model, the landlord attempts to rent out all the space to whoever offers money. The problem with this model is that if the landlord just rents out rooms to anyone without any discernment, the landlord’s property could be quickly destroyed by the renters. Meanwhile, the apartment building is in shambles and no one is interested to look at the space, much less rent it. Similarly, if a website does not carefully choose its advertisers, the web site could shortly be a ghost town. An interest in short-term gains can ultimately disenfranchise a site’s users to the point that they do not come back. Guess what, advertisers are going to drop you like a bad habit once you are not giving them what they want – click-throughs and revenue.

It Is Not All About the Benjamins

The root of all these problems obviously is money. Most of the businesses that advertise on the internet approach it strictly from a business angle. From my position, this is mistake number one. For many site creators, money is not the bottom line for their site and see advertising as the very essence of what they do not want. Advertisers for years have done an amazing job of cultivating distaste and distrust in the way they peddle their product. Some of the most popular sites have become popular by keeping advertisements to a minimum. In short, advertisers have become radioactive – green in appearance, but deadly to anyone that gets too close. Mistake number two is that many site creators accept this model, willingly or with hesitation, knowing how this will affect the users of the site. Obviously, one needs money to keep the lights on and the servers running, but how long will those servers be needed if no one is showing up anymore? The third mistake is that the lack of dialogue between site creator and advertiser usually ends up with both parties trying to maximize their own best interest. Cheating or gaming click-through ad models is quite a common tactic for certain unscrupulous site creators. Meanwhile, advertisers create obtrusive and abrasive ads that intentionally pry the attention of the user from the site’s content to their ad. Most advertising is not through the culmination of a relationship between two groups but rather a advertising agency “renting” space on some site. Without a direct, working relationship that goes beyond just the exchange of money, there really is no interest in the a mutual, symbiotic partnership. No one really wins in the model – especially the most important group, the user. Eventually, this can end up with site loyalty diminishing. Meaning, as long as a site has something that cannot be found anywhere else, users will continue to visit, but as soon as another site offers the same content with less obtrusive ads, users will begin to migrate.

If money was a smaller part of the advertising equation, site creators would most likely make the advertiser’s business model, the advertiser’s willingness to collaborate and the potential benefit to the audience a higher priority when choosing ad partners. In addition, by paying less for ad space, advertisers would (or at least should) be more willing to work with the site creator to institute an ad strategy that does not clash or interfere with the site’s design/experience while still delivering the message the advertiser desires. Sure, less money swaps hands but better and more cohesive relationships could potentially be formed. Not to mention the audience almost surely would be grateful for the lack of popups, and blinking Flash banners. Some things are just worth the money (or lack thereof).

With the current money-driven model, some of the most worthy organizations and businesses for advertising are left out as they either cannot afford the cost of advertising online or they are unwilling to mar their reputation on a fairly tainted system. From my perspective, there are many small businesses, non-profits and other progressive/forward-thinking organizations that I would be wiling to support or partner up with for little to no money at all just due to my belief in their goals. As you can see, I already do such a thing for Terrapass and I make very little money from it. By ‘very little money’ I mean nothing – personally I could care less because it helps out what I feel is a good organization and I feel my audience benefits from it. I would much rather get very little money and form an advertising partnership with an organization that I believe in and is willing to work with me than a big advertiser that is willing to pay me 20 times as much for ‘space’ on my site. It is like dealing with the devil.

It is safe to say that many internet users have built up an immunity to most internet ads. These people basically can block out such content like it did not even exist on the site. If you take that to be the case, then there is a fairly large percentage of your audience where a certain portion of your site has just lost its revenue generating purpose. With some sites, this can be up to 30% or so of the home page. How is that acceptable? On top of that, many times those very ads have very little to do with the content of the site and basically never follow the visual style of the site. Traditional online advertisements are, in form and substance, nothing but appendages that are inefficient revenue generators for either party and are even more likely to frustrate a user’s experience with the site. However, users are taking matters into their own hands and it was bound to happen. Communities have taken action to find their own solution to advertising. There are now loads of plugins and extensions which will aid in the removal of ads from a site. My personal favorite is the Firefox extension Adblock Plus which has become one of the first add-ons I put into a new Firefox install. Users are sick of waiting for site creators and advertisers to figure out that what they are doing is neither working nor acceptable. Ultimately, it is the user that determines the success or failure of a site. It is not common for the community to be given the level of credit they deserve for this success, if any at all.

Final Thoughts

This article is not intended to make advertising a dirty word. However, poorly planned or only-for-the-money advertising is not beneficial for the advertiser, the site creator or the user. A more sustainable model with less money on the table will still bring in revenue for the site creator while not alienating the audience and allow advertisers to market their product without disenfranchising users. It is about time that advertising catch up with the rest of the internet by using a little ingenuity, sustainable thinking and common sense to bring online ads into the 21st century.

If a Post is Written and No One Reads It, Did It Ever Exist?

P.J. Onori — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 08:33:46 +0000

Promoting your own site can be a tricky thing. You obviously want people to visit your site, but you do not want to be labeled a spammer in the process. There is a very fine line to be walked when promoting your own site – and I am not the one to give advice on how it should be done. What I can say, however, is that we all be lenient towards self-promotion. If not, we might end up missing out on a lot of great new content on the web – and it just might be from your site.

I will freely admit, in the early months of writing content for this blog, I was a shameless self-promoter. I would drop links at just about every relevant public news source I could find. I am not a big networker, I do not participate on many forums (due to lack of time) – so my options were already pretty limited. So I could either reenact the internet version of Waiting for Godot or I could promote my site.

Do You Know What We Are Missing?

Everyday I randomly stumble upon great pieces of information that I just happened to find while looking for something completely different. I try to follow all the main link-sharing sites, but each one holds a bias of what gets bubbled to the top – making some topics highly unrepresented. Many of the things I find can (and should) be on the front page of many link-sharing sites, but it gets unnoticed because the it did not possess the the right type of content, timing, traffic, or luck. To some extent, if the author feels their content is useful and helpful, it is in everyone else’s best interest for the author to promote it. Obviously, “useful” and “helpful” are relative terms and going to such lengths as spamming sites with links is never beneficial, not matter how good the content. Still, I much rather have a few annoyances to get a chance to find some hidden gems than otherwise.

The Bad Apple Spoils the Bunch

There is quite a bit of hostility to self-promotion and it is rightly deserved. The basic premise of people willing to share their own work for others to read/consume seems quite noble. So there has obviously been some pretty ugly abuse going on for the sharing of information to be so frowned upon. What it boils down to is that people somewhere down the line were less interested in sharing their content then they were about getting people to their site. That train of thought usually ends up with one (or more) of the actions below:

Promote every post/feature for their site.
Do not participate (in a positive way) to any discussions about the page they are promoting.
Do not establish at least a minimal relationship with the site(s) they are promoting to.
Have no interest in reciprocation or the effects on the site(s) they over-promote on.

We have all seen these sorts of tactics many times in many places. Still, my hope in humanity makes me believe that this is still the minority (albeit a very loud and annoying segment). The portion of people that do decided to participate in these sorts of actions unfortunately ruin it for the rest of the folks on the internet.

How Not to Come Off As a Jerk

All of these little tactics above have given link-sharing a very bad reputation. Because of that, it is in our best interest to go over and above the normal etiquette in order to assure people we are not being malicious. Here are a few little tips I like to follow:

Only post in communities where your content will most likely be perceived as useful.
Obvious, but important – not every online community will care about your genre of writing. Save yourself (and others) some time by posting only to places you are certain will actually care.
Do not blindly post links.
This can really cause you a lot of trouble. Do not just go to sites for the intention of self-promotion and never check in to see how people have responded. For all you know, you could have really annoyed a lot of people, to which it is in your own best interest to try to patch the situation up. Also, some folks may have questions/comments that could create a follow-up discussion.
Be honest and up-front about your self-promotion.
It is really easy to sign up as another individual as drop your own links as a “fan” of the site. First and foremost, it is dishonest and detrimental to the audience. Secondly, you will get caught eventually. It always works that way.
Be willing (and prepared) to accept the possible reactions to your promotion.
As stated earlier, not everyone is going to like self-promoters. Whether it is fair or unfair, it is best to just be ready for trolls to come at you and to not make an ass of yourself when (or if) you respond to them.
Be gracious if people/sites do not welcome your links.
Better to have a few less visitors come to your site than to upset a large portion of an online community…
Be judicious in what pages you promote and the frequency in which you do it.
Believe it or not, not every post we write is worth going door-to-door in order to have people read it. People will understandably get upset if your useless posts are constantly plugging up their source of online news.
There’s nothing wrong with posting your own links to Digg, Del.icio.us, etc.
But there is a lot wrong with trying to game them.
Return the favor.
If you have benefited from promoting yourself, why not take the time to promote someone else that deserves it as well?
Know when to quit.
Whether your post or site just does not cause a stir or you are way ahead of your time, if people are not buying it, perhaps you should stop selling it. Also, once you have gotten a fairly good readership, it may not even be worth the trouble doing it anymore.

If anything, follow some of these rules just for the sake of Karma. All that aside, by all means, please continue to promote yourself if you do create content online – just do it with some common sense and some class. We all may be soon thanking you for doing so.