Master thesis on online advertising

What would YOU like to know about your visitors opinions?

[JinxBoy]

Alright, I'm working on my Master Thesis on online advertising, and I finished the first qualitative part of my research. Based on these findings I'll be gathering quantitative data in the next few weeks....

A question to you guys: when zoomed in on Google Adsense, what are the most important questions you have when it comes to your visitors opinions and thoughts about the advertising on your website? How much do you keep them in mind while making advertising decisions? Do you feel responsible for advertisement content?

Feel free to discuss in this topic. I'll obviously keep you posted of the research results.

[vincevincevince]

My top question:
What can I do to make you more likely to click more ads more frequently?

[darkmage]

Not quite an answer: What people say they want versus what they actually do are two entirely different beasts. Plus the answers are often at odds: Eg, they may want a site without advertising but not want to pay for it.

Pretty much everyone hates popups and spam, yet enough people respond to make these worthwhile - a decade after they started festering computers.

Or those dreadful 'You've won a...' ads. I have seen sites get over 20% click throughs with these. I spoke to someone who set one of these up and their logic was simple: 'People said they like winning stuff, so let's tell them they have won something'. It's an old formula.

Without knowing the structure of your thesis, on the face of it, it would seem it's back to front. Adsense gives us amazing insight into what people respond to in real life - from creative ads, to targeting and more.

Without asking a single visitor, I have experimented enough to know the kind of ads they want, where to put them, the colours, everything. All because I can see what happens when I change one of these things.

Honestly, is anyone going to say: "I love when they put an ad right in the middle of the text and blend it so it's harder to differentiate it from the text?" Yet on this forum, you'll see plenty of people who had amazing success doing exactly that.

[FourDegreez]

The question I constantly ask myself is, what is the right amount of advertising (number of ads, type of ads, placement, etc) that will generate strong revenue but won't turn off my visitors? And to answer that question, I tend to ask myself what I would put up with if I were a visitor to my own web site. That means pop-ups are out, ads that scroll around or play sounds are out, spammy looking AdSense (plastered over most of the above-the-fold space) is out. I believe webmasters only hurt themselves with these techniques (and in a way, hurt all of us).

[MThiessen]

The balance between maximum ad revenue and user acceptablity is an art form nowadays. There must be balance, too much the visitor gets fried, too little and your wasting air-time...

[jhood]

Advertising is a service to readers, something that tends to get overlooked in this forum. I find AdSense valuable to our readers because it is open to small niche players who would never be able to afford display advertising and would not be able to target ads effectively without AdSense or something like it.

Our primary site deals with controversial topics that are also addressed by government agencies and not-for-profit organizations which proudly proclaim that they do not accept advertising.

I can -- and do -- argue that our site is more valuable because it offers space to advertisers, including those criticized in our editorial space as well as competing products, advocacy groups smart enough to advertise and even lawyers trying to drum up plaintiffs for lawsuits against the products in question.

We have experimented with interstitials, floating ads and other intrusive media and dropped them after readers complained. We use AdSense text ads -- lots of them, but not in the middle of the text -- as well as display ads from Google and other networks. We also run pop-unders.

We do get reader complaints about our ads, particularly from those who think we should not carry ads for products or companies criticized in our editorial space. We have a lengthy FAQ that discusses the question and, when pointed to it, some readers accept the argument. Others don't. That's life.

[MThiessen]

Advertising is a service to readers

I agree with this too a point. It is a service when it is:

a. Well targeted
b. Is not misleading, like to ebay or an mfa
c. Is not excessive.

Meet those 3 requirements and it is a service, otherwise it's an annoyance.

[MikeNoLastName]

Back to Jinx's original question. I would ask "Did you click on the ads BEFORE or AFTER you examined MY page's own content?". Not everyone depends on GAd as their first or primary advertising source or business model.

[edited by: MikeNoLastName at 9:22 pm (utc) on Feb. 10, 2007]

[moTi]

what are the most important questions you have when it comes to your visitors opinions and thoughts about the advertising on your website?

after the click, how was your landing page experience? at what point did you decide to exit my page?

How much do you keep them in mind while making advertising decisions?

i try to push adsense to the max till a) users squeak or b) my returns to scale go down. the better and the more content, the more ads they get.

Do you feel responsible for advertisement content?

mostly not, but often quite embarrassed as regards the low quality. if advertisers obviously want to fool my people, i kick them.

[Erku]

Great topic for research, but i think you need to publish a website and use adsense, ypn and other ads to have a first hand experience.

Perhaps you do.

[biscuit]

There's a lot of competition in our niche - and nothing would put a visitor off returning faster than if that visitor thinks that the advertising has been prioritized above the content.

Sure we change colours and positions to prevent ad blindness, but I would like to ask a visitor 'Did you feel that the site was trying to trick or push you into clicking? If so why? And how do you feel about that?'

[fearlessrick]

Content is just something to take up space between the ads. Pageviews or clicks are all that matter in the end.

[biscuit]

Do take care to post that site policy somewhere prominent for your users to ponder when they come to your pages fearlessRick! ;)

We are in this for the long term, and like many of the webmasters here, our sites are not just about a quick buck. We genuinely care about our topic, and are interested in producing top quality stuff (okay, as near as we can get!) for its own sake.

</preach mode> must be because its Sunday ...

[Hobbs]

questions you have when it comes to your visitors opinions and thoughts about the advertising

How many of those that clicked an ad are savvy enough to know it was an ad, was it useful enough that they would backtrack to bookmark my site? How can I make it more attractive for them to notice the ads?

How much do you keep them in mind while making advertising decisions?

If your priority is (a) money then you are keeping visitor behavior in mind, if it is (b) user experience, you will make your ads low profile and not use more than one ad unit, I started off at (b), now my priority is (a) but would sacrifice a little money to maintain visitors satisfaction, and drop ads all together if (b) falls down the drain.

Do you feel responsible for advertisement content?

Yes, the buck stops with me.