Text Ads are better

Text is better than graphics

[chrisr]

I hate banner ads too, thats why I like to use text ads (i.e google) to advertise on my sites. They get a much better click thru rate than regular old banners.

[piskie]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld Chrisr
Thats a good opening post and I'm sure interesting debate will follow.
I prefer good text content most of the time but cannot rule out neat graphics when appropriate. What is the difference in Text ad CTR and Banner CTR that you found?

[choster]

A few theories:

- many banner graphics are poorly designed. They are easy to ignore and there is often no visual feedback that the image is an actionable element (i.e. something that can be clicked on). On an old site I worked on, clickthrough on banner ads improved not insignificantly (15%) when we simply added the words "click here" to the banner

- people have been "trained" to ignore graphic banner ads but assume that text links are content links. Thus, users are increasingly unlikely to comprehend, much less click on, images, whereas less inhibition yet exists for text links.

- on the flip side from the "overlooked" banner ad is the "overbearing" banner ad. Blinking, flashing, Las Vegas-style advertising is, for me, an indicator of some sort of sleaze-- I click the back button instinctively. No such reaction would occur with a text link (provided it's not <blink>ing).

- some people browse with graphics turned off and may not see graphical banner ads. Also, text links are more compact perhaps meaning more of them will be loaded before the user browses away from the page.

[chrisr]

CTR improved slightly from 0.01% to 0.05% but what matters to me is that my sales whent up as a result of the switch. I belong to Commision Junction (cj.com) affiliate network and once I started using more text links I doulbled my affiliate sales from $50/mo to $100/mo. -- People are more trustworthy of text links in my opinion.

[Brett_Tabke]

I'm swinging back the other way to preferring graphic ads. Atleast with a big ol banner, you know it's an ad. Text ads (like search engines), you never know if you've just clicked on an peice of info, or an ad. I always stop to mouse over a link and look at the url before I click any more.

[Dante_Maure]

I always stop to mouse over a link and look at the url before I click any more.

This is why many of the pros use OnMousover to hide their affiliate links and display only the root domain.

[Hawkgirl]

When I'm dealing with affiliate stuff as an advertiser, I find that all of my affiliates who use text links get greater click through and greater conversion than the ones who use banners/boxes/other graphics.

Just one more data point to add.

[Brett_Tabke]

> This is why many of the pros use OnMousover

And that is why so many pro's don't use ie.

>I find that all of my affiliates who use text links

Sure, I think they don't think it's a pure advertisement.