Just when you thought ads would pay for
your web strategy...
Well THAT should cheese off the publishers who are trying to finance their web inititatives with paid advertising. One of the up-and-coming browsers, Firefox, has launched an add-on that, once activated, deletes advertisements from websites. This, according to a story in the New York Times. (The irony of having to click past an ad on the NYT website to get to the story was not lost on me. )
Adblock Plus is, like many other Firefox add-ons, not hard to download and implement. The story says that while this is a niche product for a niche browser (though one that is growing fast) the implications are huge for the online world.
Fair disclosure: I use both Firefox browser and the Thunderbird mail client.
Adblock Plus is, like many other Firefox add-ons, not hard to download and implement. The story says that while this is a niche product for a niche browser (though one that is growing fast) the implications are huge for the online world.
The larger importance of Adblock is its potential for extreme menace to the online-advertising business model. After an installation that takes but a minute or two, Adblock usually makes all commercial communication disappear. No flashing whack-a-mole banners. No Google ads based on the search terms you have entered.
From that perspective, the program is an unwelcome arrival after years of worry that there might never be an online advertising business model to support the expense of creating entertainment programming or journalism, or sophisticated search engines, for that matter.
Wladimir Palant, a 27-year-old programmer in Cologne, Germany developer of the open-source Adblock Plus project, told the Times that he had not heard anything from large companies like Google, because, he suspects, the program “isn’t popular enough yet. Attacking it would be a waste of time for these companies.” He estimated there were 2.5 million users of Adblock Plus around the world and there are 300,000 to 400,000 new users each month.”
[He] is not an ideological opponent of online advertising. For example, he counts himself a fan of the ads that show up with a Google search, saying they are useful and unobtrusive. That does not mean Adblock will not block Google’s ads, however. It means Mr. Palant has to customize his own version of the program to allow them in.In response to smaller websites who are threatening to block Firefox in retaliation (larger websites seem to have chosen to ignore the problem), Palant said:
“There is only one reliable way to make sure your ads aren’t blocked — make sure the users don’t want to block them. Don’t forget about the users. Use ads in a way that doesn’t degrade their experience.”Firefox was developed by Mozilla Corporation, a California-based not-for-profit dedicated to open source community innovations and software. "All of our products are available free-of-charge for Windows, Mac and Linux computers in more than 35 languages," says the company's website. "The award-winning Mozilla Firefox Web browser is enjoyed by tens of millions of people worldwide, and has re-ignited innovation and competition on the Web. And our Mozilla Thunderbird email client has set the standard for cross-platform communications, with advanced junk mail filtering and mail capabilities."
Fair disclosure: I use both Firefox browser and the Thunderbird mail client.
posted by D. B. Scott at
3:05 pm
8 Comments:
Has anyone done a large-scale study to determine if Ad Block Plus users are even part of the demographic that clicks on banner ads? It would be nice to see more people finding novel advertising solutions instead of complaining about the inevitable.
Jakob Nielsen just posted an interesting study showing that 86% of users failed to find simple information on a front page because it looked too much like a promotion/advertisement. What percentage of that 14% do you think uses Ad Block Plus?
That's an interesting point. The big guys are apparently ignoring this issue because the mainstream browser users don't use Firefox (though, I think, that may be changing).
What would novel advertising solutions look like? This blocker is fairly indiscriminate, blocking popups, rich media, clickable banners and buttons and so on.
Wouldn't a solution just be to move to sponsorships as opposed to physical ads. You could implement a page, where you could write a thank you message to your "sponsors" and then have links to all your "sponsors" there these could be accompanied by logos (which were not linked) Plus you could charge more for that because you could offer other incentives as well....
Plus on a package model you can bundle these online initiatives with print ads that way the client has the best of both worlds .
Trevor Battye
Geist Magazine
www.geist.com
If the problem is simply getting your ads to not be blocked, it's as easy as the suggestion in the article linked from your post - "serve ads from your own server". Unless you're blocking all images (just make sure the word "ad" is absent from your images directory), it's going to be very difficult for any automated program to distinguish an ad from a regular image file. And again, the demographic taking the time to figure that out probably isn't a concern. Of course, this requires someone working internally which might not be possible on a magazine budget.
I was thoroughly impressed by the ad model that was implemented at vimeo.com when it relaunched a few months ago. Unfortunately, it seems to have been removed due to ineffectiveness (or IAC business), but I think it had great potential. They were making custom ad images that linked to recommended Amazon.com products. The hitch was that these products had actually been bought by the staff personally, and were being delivered to people in their own demographic.
While Amazon referrals fees aren't the best way to make money on the web, I don't see why this same model can't be applied to other products. Organizations with authenticity could easily get away with this and it conforms to Mr. Palant's comment:
“There is only one reliable way to make sure your ads aren’t blocked — make sure the users don’t want to block them,” he wrote. “Don’t forget about the users. Use ads in a way that doesn’t degrade their experience.”
People are skeptical. They know that even though a "trusted" magazine (or a website, or TV station, etc.) advertises a product, it doesn't represent endorsement. But if there's culpability, it will be more effective. I WANT to know what products are being used by professionals I respect. If this blog had banner ads of magazines that the contributors read, I'd probably click on them (and potentially subscribe) since it's a relevant product being endorsed by a relevant person. If you're part of an organization that would leave your audience skeptical of this kind of marketing, you're probably not working for an organization that has proven themselves dedicated to the needs of their audience.
As with regular advertising, it would obviously have to be separate from editorial, but full disclosure of these things would just add another level of authenticity.
Matthew
canlit.ca
At the end of the day, I think web advertising is a tenuous revenue stream on which to solely base your online publication business model.
While there is some ad revenue available, a free online publication is going to have a tough time driving the kind of revenue necessary to pay for content. The online ad market is just too diluted amongst the billions of web pages on the Internet, the vast majority built with free content.
As Trevor has mentioned above, a way around this is to build value added sponsorships deals. Another model is to build affiliate partnership agreements with those who do have the ability to convert your traffic. In the future, online publications that do well will have to go beyond simply advertising products for other business. They'll need to be part of the transaction, receiving a commission from products or services sold.
This kind of relationship is possible to track with technology available today. Publishers promote products from which they can drive the highest amount of revenue. The sellers of the products pay only when they've directly received revenue from the promotion. It's simple and efficient.
At the same time, it's more attractive for the end user, as the publisher is enticed to advertise products that they'll see significant revenue from, while not muddying the waters with irrelevant and annoying offers.
To address matthew's second comment: Even if the ad comes off of your server, Firefox maybe able to read in your code if its an ad. There are those tell-tale signs ( - - - - advertisement - - - - - ) or the plug-ins many blog use to manage ads. Our mag currently uses a WordPress plug-in called WPads that any good app could block, I suspect.
"Has anyone done a large-scale study to determine if Ad Block Plus users are even part of the demographic that clicks on banner ads? It would be nice to see more people finding novel advertising solutions instead of complaining about the inevitable."
But do most websites charge for click throughs or a set fee to have the ad hosted for a given period of time? I venture to say the latter -- they sell ads based on amount of visitors and pages being accessed to a certain webpage, not always by click through.
Uh, this is not a new program. It's been around for ages (in Internet time). And you can 'train' it, over time, to block just about anything. When coupled with Flashblock, Adblock Plus makes most sites significantly more readable and usable.
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