4 ms·

The conversion rate on advertising is incredibly low: often less than 1%. The remaining 99% see the ads and either ignore them (best case) or get annoyed by the

The conversion rate on advertising is incredibly low: often less than 1%. The remaining 99% see the ads and either ignore them (best case) or get annoyed by them (worst case). Either way, it's content on the page that those 99% don't want to see, and it dilutes the value of the page as a whole.

speckledjim 15y ago
Most people can tune out adverts they're not interested in extremely well. When you buy a photography magazine, it might have 20% of the pages covered by advertising. I'd say most people buying the magazine find them useful. Maybe only 1% convert to a sale, but I'd say the majority of people find the adverts useful. Also, it's not a black and white thing between "content" and "advertising". For example, quite often adverts in digital camera magazines are handy for me because they show me new products or lenses I didn't know about - Those adverts are 'content'. I'm not going to convince anyone who hates advertising to open their mind a little though, so I'll retire happily to my ad-supported magazines, and ad-supported websites.
ignifero 15y ago
Its a necessary evil if you want free content. Btw, click rates are much lower, about 0.05% for a content site. People also come across thousands of ads that they ignore every day in billboards, shopping windows etc. That's not a legitimate reason to rule out advertising as a revenue option. (On the other hand, claiming that the majority of people find them useful is a bit of a stretch)
- gburt 15y ago
  I've run AdSense on hundreds of websites and I get click rates between 0.5% and 10%. Not 0.05% that's insanely low. Mind you, a lot of those sites (the high end, anyway) are optimized strongly for clicks. The ads show up in the middle of content (as an "interlude") or prominently above the fold.

4 ms·

The conversion rate on advertising is incredibly low: often less than 1%. The remaining 99% see the ads and either ignore them (best case) or get annoyed by the

by singingwolfboy 15y ago

speckledjim 15y ago
Most people can tune out adverts they're not interested in extremely well. When you buy a photography magazine, it might have 20% of the pages covered by advertising. I'd say most people buying the magazine find them useful. Maybe only 1% convert to a sale, but I'd say the majority of people find the adverts useful. Also, it's not a black and white thing between "content" and "advertising". For example, quite often adverts in digital camera magazines are handy for me because they show me new products or lenses I didn't know about - Those adverts are 'content'. I'm not going to convince anyone who hates advertising to open their mind a little though, so I'll retire happily to my ad-supported magazines, and ad-supported websites.
ignifero 15y ago
Its a necessary evil if you want free content. Btw, click rates are much lower, about 0.05% for a content site. People also come across thousands of ads that they ignore every day in billboards, shopping windows etc. That's not a legitimate reason to rule out advertising as a revenue option. (On the other hand, claiming that the majority of people find them useful is a bit of a stretch)
- gburt 15y ago
  I've run AdSense on hundreds of websites and I get click rates between 0.5% and 10%. Not 0.05% that's insanely low. Mind you, a lot of those sites (the high end, anyway) are optimized strongly for clicks. The ads show up in the middle of content (as an "interlude") or prominently above the fold.