Forum Moderators: skibum
Now when an ad passes my eye in a newspaper or magazine, I know I can go back and dig through them to find that advertisement.
With a television it is different because you will most likely see the commerical many times in the future. Plus, if the ad worked as intended, it will stick in your head.
Unlike offline media, the WWW allows you to follow up on an advertisement immediately. You don't have to remember the ad for later research, you just follow the link. But, like my case above, these ads can be missed before you even had a chance to read more than the pitch.
Now, with rotating ads you are allowed to squeeze more products or services in to fit a wider audience. However, the person you want to target might just happen to get the wrong rotation. Perhaps that person was served the right ad, went on to read an interesting article, and thought "Well I'll just go back after reading this article."
By using static ads you are able to hit everyone with the same ad, yet that advertisement might cater to a much smaller demographic than you believe you are targeting. But, the ad will always be there for later interest.
You always hear about people not bookmarking a site only because they know they can go back and find it in the search engine results. I wonder if the same is with advertisements. For example, with all the people fighting for bids on PPC, how many people return back to the results, only to see that ad no longer there?
Would it be better to just leave ads static? Offer timed rotations? Offer random rotations?
Personalization can solve all this but is expensive and then you have privacy issues.
Do you feel it is worth believing that someone might notice the ad and come back to view it later? Rather than say, trying to hit a lot of people with different ads hoping the right one will catch the right person's eye?
I wonder how many John Q's return to sites thinking the same ad will be there when they return.
I wonder if anyone has done a study to find out whether rotating or static ads generate more clicks. Most of my own ads rotate, and ad rotation seems to be the rule rather than the exception. Perhaps having an advertiser index page statically displaying all ads might help. You could put a link to it on every page that has advertising.
If your ad inventory bounces up and down, it is going to be difficult to display all ads, all the time, without resorting to some kind of rotation (I use phpAdsNew, it's great).
In my limited experience - if you have an ad that produced a 2.5% CTR and one with a 1.5% (both paying the same) - you will get the best results with a large percentage (90%+) of the 2.5%.
It has been a while since I have done any of this.
Of course it gets more complicated when you are doing different companies, products, and demographics...
I think the nature of my business means that what might not be useful for someone right now now, might become useful a month or two down the road.
I have no idea on specifics on the static vs rotating, but I only offer static advertising, and I rarely have an unfilled ad space. And many are repeat advertisers, so I assume they are getting plenty of clicks from it, or they wouldn't continue advertising ;) But it is a relatively targeted marget.
I have not tried rotating banners on my site, though. I have enough problems with advertisers not hitting refresh/reload to see their banner ad (still viewing the cached page), that it would open up a whole new can of worms if I had to respond to those who don't think their banner ads are really being displaying ;) Too much trouble, IMO, but I am also dealing with advertisers, not showing my own affiliate banners.
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