For
starters, ponder your ad's placement, using that old real estate rule:
location, location, location.
Online advertising sucks. You already know the reasons
why: First, there are the visuals -- most ads are ugly and interrupt the
browsing experience -- and then there's what ads do to website-load
times. Users do everything in their power to avoid those irrelevant, intrusive
ads: Nearly 200 million people worldwide use ad-blocking
--software. And the result for publishers is almost $22
billion in lost ad revenue.
So, what's a publisher to do? Ad
scrollers help. This relatively new format appears as a window, running in
line within the content feed. As the user scrolls through an article, the ad
moves smoothly and seamlessly on and off the screen.
When mobile-device users were shown the
scrollers, 51 percent of those surveyed expressed a favorable view of
the brand involved. So one implication here was clear, and crucial: An ad’s
placement is just as important (perhaps more so) than aesthetic variables,
like copy, color or design.
Location,
location, location
When you're trying to raise your ad's profile, remember
that every aspect of an ad should scream "cohesion," with each
element reinforcing the next. You’d never see Mercedes buying an ad with poor
placement and spam copy, nor would you see Tesla releasing an overly intrusive
one.
Both companies want to sell a $100,000 car, yet neither display
would reinforce a $100,000 mindset.
Your company’s advertising method, then, sends a clear message
to consumers about the worth of your wares. Without fail, a bad ad in a premium
spot will out-perform a great ad in a spam spot.
Take banner ads: The higher they appear
on the page, the more effective they’ll be. The click-through rate of
above-the-fold ads is nearly seven times greater than that of ads
found farther down on the screen. For young companies on a limited budget,
that aspect is extremely important and often worth the effort of buying space
at the reader’s eye line.
By the same token, poor ad placement can affect
consumer perception. Ads that don’t disrupt the user experience have
scored much better than have more intrusive ads. What’s more, ads
placed mid-article have scored the lowest. The reason? They
interrupt the flow of reading.
Inevitably, those brands advertising in this fashion are seen in
a negative light, which lessens public perception of their brands.
No
place for steamrolling
A campaign’s success greatly depends on how it affects the
audience. If it steamrolls consumers and invades their screens, the message
sometimes gets lost. At Benja, we learned that you can improve the customer ad
experience by following a few simple rules:
1. Respect the consumer. The
time spent on a site will vary by consumer -- and by the day of the week, for
that matter. Some say the average time is 15 seconds; others say
it’s just shy of a minute. No matter where you fall on that range, know
that viewers' time is precious and must be respected.
Consumers visit sites to get information about
something other than your brand. Pushing an ad in peoples’ faces not only shows
a lack of respect, it shows a total disregard for the user experience. Keep
this in mind with your online ads.
Our own ad format enables users to browse and complete
transactions within an ad. We don’t take people away from what they’re on the
site to do; and that strategy still allows any brand using it to convert
consumers into customers.
2. Complement the experience. Personalization
is everything. In fact, one-third of marketers say it’ll define the
future of marketing. Thanks to recent advancements in digital technology, a message can be
customized to a person.
Our company could easily use retargeting to “personalize”
ads. All we’d need to do would be to drop a cookie on visitors’
browsers; then an ad would display any time those visitors visited the
site of a retargeting provider.
The problem, or problems, with that method, however, is that
those ads rarely complement the user experience. They also come off as
stalker-ish: Wherever a user goes, some brand isn’t too far behind. Plus, the
advertising would be better used for people who have already bought your
product.
Accordingly, instead of retargeting, we lean on other available
data to make tangentially relevant content. Perhaps the most interesting point
is that this practice hasn’t hurt our conversion rate.
3. Consider the click experience. After seeing an
ad offering "30 percent off," imagine how irked you’d be if clicking
on it took you to a page several steps away from the sale. Jumping through
hoops does little more than encourage people to click away -- despite
the unfortunate reality that most ecommerce advertisements require the
user to take 10 to 20 steps to complete a transaction.
So, make sure your links direct consumers to the right page
on your site. Your goal is to bring people closer to, not further from, the
transaction. After all, what’s the point of interrupting a sale if that’s your
end goal?
A final note: If you feel the need to promote other products or
services, do it after the original purchase. Trying to “upsell” before the
original buy is completed is a quick way to get consumers to abandon their
shopping carts altogether.
The overall message is clear: As with product or service design,
keep the consumer in mind when developing your ad. Ponder its placement, and
think about how it will affect the user. If you’re not intruding into the
consumer’s space and stymieing the experience, you’re already a few steps
ahead of many brands.
Written By: Andrew Chapin
Credit: Entrepreneur.com
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