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From the article: > While blocking pesky ads is appealing to consumers, > it also threatens a vital source of revenue for publishers Are "pesky ads" reall

From the article: > While blocking pesky ads is appealing to consumers, > it also threatens a vital source of revenue for publishers Are "pesky ads" really "a vital source of revenue"? Is there any data? Everyone I know hates them, especially the autoplaying videos, animations, and pop-ups (the "pesky" ones). Are you saying that there are people who see these things and say, "Oh, that's interesting," and clicks the ad? Furthermore are you saying that there is a "vital" number of these people in the world? I believe that if anything, depeskifying ads will bring advertisers more success. I have always believed that intrusive ads were a lose-lose proposition. Not only do readers lose by being bothered, but advertisers lose because such ads make people just look away. Furthermore it makes people hate your website, tarnishing the brand. I, for one, am starting to remember at least some websites that are especially rude with ads, and I won't click the link if there is a choice (like on Google News). I remember many years ago when Google first insisted on text-only ads, relegated to the right side of the page so they were clearly advertising. Everyone thought Google was crazy. Billions of dollars later, people think Google is on to something. It was the most tempted I've ever been to click an ad (I still don't think I did, though). Because they weren't flashing, I didn't immediately ignore that whole area, an automatic response that most of us have developed. And so some of them I actually read. And because they were narrowly targeted ads, based on the words in my search, they were more interesting. In other words, if publishers switched to text-only ads, I bet their click-rate would go up. Maybe a tasteful still picture would be okay. I'm thinking of what is in newspapers and magazines. I actually used to look at some of their ads (back in the ol' paper days). I even enjoyed some of the more artistic or clever ones. The only times they annoyed me is if there were too many of them or it was those loose-leaf subscriptions cards in the middle of a magazine (pre-internet pesky ads).

matt4077 9y ago
It's one of the easiest businesses to optimise for revenue/profit, so I'm pretty sure that the the current situation is at least a significant local minimum. At this point, many publishers have run trials with more/less, intrusive/low-key ads and any other variable you can think of. There are maybe some publishers who found success with running ads only very selectively, but those are usually very small (The Deck, i. e. daring fireball comes to mind). Large, high-quality publications such as the new York Times are somewhere in the middle: ads that include animation, but don't obscure content, and not spam or fraud. For the mass of publishers without a famous brand name, the low-quality ads they're running are probably the best they can do. And ads do bring in significant revenue, although it's too little to offset the losses in print.
manigandham 9y ago
Yes, those "engaging" ads as marketers say tend to have better metrics precisely because they're designed to. All these autoplaying videos have more video starts, completion rates and more time in view - which is obvious since it's forced and not voluntary - but add in layers of agencies and clueless CMOs and you have the situation today where this kind of format takes over the market. Also not every or even most advertising is about sales or direct response. There are billions spent on general awareness and top-of-funnel product consideration so clicks and other actions beyond viewing the ad are not necessary.
- CuriouslyC 9y ago
  The problem here is that marketers are only measuring click through. If they measured other metrics in addition I wouldn't be surprised if these ads had negative value. I personally put any company that engages in annoying advertising on my mental shitlist, and avoid purchasing anything by them whenever possible. Unfortunately, that behavior doesn't show up clearly on analytics.
  - joshuamorton 9y ago
    >The problem here is that marketers are only measuring click through. I'm curious, do you really think this is the case? Like, do you really, honestly think that no advertising company has had this thought before?
  - cpeterso 9y ago
    Advertisers don't just care about clicks. "Impressions" are also an important metric. Much of the jank caused by ads is caused by JavaScript or Flash code that is inefficiently polling the DOM to see if more than 50% of the at is within the browser viewport. This situation should improve with the introduction of the Intersection Observer API which lets the browser call you back when your ad (or other lazily loaded content) is in or near the viewport.
  - manigandham 9y ago
    They're not, as I mentioned in my comment. Clicks are common but not the only metric. Plain old impressions are still widely used and with video it's usually time played or views (completed play through). Annoying advertising shows up great in metrics because it gets so much attention (which is what makes it annoying in the first place). It's a self fulfilling prophecy for advertisers and agencies and a result of a major lack of proper oversight, incentives or regulation in this industry.

matt4077 9y ago

It's one of the easiest businesses to optimise for revenue/profit, so I'm pretty sure that the the current situation is at least a significant local minimum. At this point, many publishers have run trials with more/less, intrusive/low-key ads and any other variable you can think of. There are maybe some publishers who found success with running ads only very selectively, but those are usually very small (The Deck, i. e. daring fireball comes to mind). Large, high-quality publications such as the new York Times are somewhere in the middle: ads that include animation, but don't obscure content, and not spam or fraud. For the mass of publishers without a famous brand name, the low-quality ads they're running are probably the best they can do. And ads do bring in significant revenue, although it's too little to offset the losses in print.

manigandham 9y ago

Yes, those "engaging" ads as marketers say tend to have better metrics precisely because they're designed to. All these autoplaying videos have more video starts, completion rates and more time in view - which is obvious since it's forced and not voluntary - but add in layers of agencies and clueless CMOs and you have the situation today where this kind of format takes over the market. Also not every or even most advertising is about sales or direct response. There are billions spent on general awareness and top-of-funnel product consideration so clicks and other actions beyond viewing the ad are not necessary.

CuriouslyC 9y ago
The problem here is that marketers are only measuring click through. If they measured other metrics in addition I wouldn't be surprised if these ads had negative value. I personally put any company that engages in annoying advertising on my mental shitlist, and avoid purchasing anything by them whenever possible. Unfortunately, that behavior doesn't show up clearly on analytics.
- joshuamorton 9y ago
  >The problem here is that marketers are only measuring click through. I'm curious, do you really think this is the case? Like, do you really, honestly think that no advertising company has had this thought before?
- cpeterso 9y ago
  Advertisers don't just care about clicks. "Impressions" are also an important metric. Much of the jank caused by ads is caused by JavaScript or Flash code that is inefficiently polling the DOM to see if more than 50% of the at is within the browser viewport. This situation should improve with the introduction of the Intersection Observer API which lets the browser call you back when your ad (or other lazily loaded content) is in or near the viewport.
- manigandham 9y ago
  They're not, as I mentioned in my comment. Clicks are common but not the only metric. Plain old impressions are still widely used and with video it's usually time played or views (completed play through). Annoying advertising shows up great in metrics because it gets so much attention (which is what makes it annoying in the first place). It's a self fulfilling prophecy for advertisers and agencies and a result of a major lack of proper oversight, incentives or regulation in this industry.