ClickZ, a longtime favourite of mine for marketing and general online buzz, has recently changed its online advertising media mix. And now that I've taken some Advil, I'm going to rant about it for a bit. Bear with me here.

First, go on, take a quick look at the site so you know what I'm talking about. Odds are, you saw huge banners across the top of the page and an enormous skyscraper ad. Odds are, these banners were red and flashing and really, the most distracting thing since the "You're a Winner!" campaign years ago.

Did you even notice the content? If you did, could you read it? And what happened to your eyes when you switched back to the relative pink calm of this site?

Look, believe me, I get it. I understand all too well about how hard it is to balance providing something of value to your visitors and paying the bills. Pampered Puppy faces this challenge daily.

But come on. Let's get realistic here.

If your visitors can't read, they won't stick around. Ads that distract the user so much that they can't even read your content means that visitors won't stay to read your content. Which means fewer visitors. Which means you stand to make less money on advertising. Long slow downward spiral to failure.

If your visitors perceive no value, they won't stick around. Editorial that is completely dwarfed by a vast sea of in-your-face advertising, or editorial that is so small as to provide no real value to the visitor means your visitors won't find anything of value. Which means fewer visitors. Which means you stand to make less money on advertising. See above re: long slow spiral.

Advertisers want, first and foremost, to generate interest in their offerings. Sure, big, noisy creative definitely catches their attention - but is it the attention you want? Generally speaking, as an advertiser you want favourable attention, because those are the eyes that matter. Hard for your advertiser to convert those visitors to buyers if the creative is so offensive they need to take an Advil after visiting your site. Personally, I'm now so pissed off at Washingtonpost.com that I wouldn't advertise with them if they paid me to do so.

As I said, though, I do understand the struggle. Here's what I've done to try to balance that struggle in my own little world:

1. Strict creative guidelines. Something that complements, rather than fights, the design of the site. I do this for two reasons. One, it protects my visitors from the kind of obscenity seen on ClickZ. Which means my visitors like me. Which helps to generate loyalty. Which means they become very valuable to my advertisers. Because my visitors trust the site, they trust the ads too. Which means higher response rates for everyone. Two, because it elevates the ads to something of value to visitors - they appear as (and in most cases are) a value-added offering rather than a distraction from the purpose of the site.

2. Advertiser education. I talk to my advertisers. Personally. On the phone. I tell them about what works, and doesn't work, for my visitors. I explain why sticking to the creative guidelines results in better responses for them. I talk to them about loyalty, I talk to them about gaining and more importantly keeping the trust of the visitor. I talk to them about color schemes that work (and those that don't). I'll talk to them about anything and everything that might help them get the most out of their campaign. At some point, I'll eventually get around to putting together a package that explains this that I can share with each of my advertisers.

3. Creative services. For a fee, I will do the creative myself. The truth is no advertiser understands my visitors as well as I do. I know what works and what doesn't - visually, textually, and in terms of motivation as well. Generally, companies that purchase these services see nearly double the response.

4. Building strong relationships with my advertisers. Just as it's important for my visitors to trust me, it's equally important for my advertisers to do so. I try to always make myself available for advice if they need it - by phone, by email. And all my advertisers get a free monthly newsletter from me that is strictly to help them learn more about online business and marketing. It's a very content-heavy newsletter which includes one article by me on a relevant topic, and five or six external links to other good business or marketing articles.

The result: very loyal visitors. Very loyal advertisers. Very good reputation in my industry.

Sure, I'm just a one-stop-shop. However, there's no reason why these ideas couldn't scale for larger editorial sites as well.

The point is loyalty. Relevant, useful, non-intrusive advertising means more value to the visitors. Loyal visitors means more value to the advertisers. Valued visitors means loyal advertisers. Upward spiral, baby.

There are 1 comment(s) so far for this entry.
Join in the discussion below!