Notesale: Turn your study into money

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Website Advertising

Contents

So You Want to Use Your Website to Generate Revenue
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3
A Closer Look at The Banner Ad
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5
How To Create An Effective Banner Ad
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6
What’s Up Next for Advertising on the Web
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8
A Run-Down of the Types of Web-based Ads
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9
Banner Ads Vs Other Types of Ads
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11
The Evolution of Web-based Advertising
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12
Website Ads Comes in Different Shapes and Sizes
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13
Buying Advertising Space on the Web
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15
Introducing Television Commercials to the Web
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16
Website Advertising’s Brief History Includes Rapid Evolutions
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18
Website Advertising Continuing to Evolve
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19

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So You Want to Use Your Website to Generate Revenue
Many people who would otherwise never have dreamed of being in business for themselves
have found that the web has helped them do just that
...
If you are in either of these camps, there is some good basic advice to
follow about how to get started
...

One of the great advantages of the web is that it is a highly targeted media form, so when you
are looking to sell space, and you have a site that appeals to a sought after niche, you have a
great advantage
...
However, this is not to say that overall traffic levels are not important, they
are, but it is encouraging to know that having a smaller following amongst a prize group of
potential buyers is also attractive to ad buyers
...
For those just starting out, take a look at the idea of joining a
banner ad network
...
After the
ads are brokered, banner ad networks then take on the role of monitoring the success of the
ads in addition to helping you find the right placement of ads on your site
...
Advertisers are in the driver’s seat when it comes to
calling the shots because there are fewer of them than there are of web sites
...
You can use your size to your advantage if you are
willing to be flexible on price
...


Website Advertising Drives Results
When advertising was first brought to the web, many people said that it would never catch on as
a dominant form of advertising
...
About ten
years later, many of the newspapers and magazines that once dominated has advertising
vehicles were no longer in business, and the major news organizations were suffering
financially
...
This trend has been in play
for several years, and shows no signs of slowing
...


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Advertisers use the web in several ways, but primarily they are looking to achieve one or more a
few different aims
...
Branding is a traditional form of advertising that
seeks to form a particular association to a company and/or its products and services
...
Some common forms of branding occur when, for
example, a golf club maker pays a PGA pro to sew its logo on his shirt sleeve
...
Direct response advertising seeks to do what it name suggests; namely is seeks to create
a response on the part of the viewer
...
Some forms of
direct response ads lead viewers to click on a link that well provide them a download that is
relevant to the product or services, for example a survey that provides information about
business needs the advertisers consults on
...
As the underlying technology that allows ads to
be targeted to viewers’ interests, likely even more dollars will be poured into web ads
...


A Closer Look at The Banner Ad
There are many different types of ads seen on the web these days, and they all share a
common ancestor: the banner ad
...
Most anyone who has spent much time at
all on the web has seen a banner ad, which tend to be small rectangular ads that sit in various
spots around a page
...

The banner ad might be the oldest and least sexy of all the types of web ads, but it shares a
common purpose with all web ads
...
The banner
ad resembles the traditional print ad in many ways, but differs in one important respect
...

The hyperlink then sends the viewer to a new page
...
There are, officially, eight different banner sizes, as determined by their pixel
dimensions
...

Beyond that, there is a great deal of variability in the actual creative content of the ads
themselves
...
Today banner ads are much more graphically rich, though they the simple ones are

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typically confined to one static GIF of JPEG image
...

Banners ads were the firsts on the block of web advertisement, and they remain a mainstay to
this day
...
They are also today used at times at part of a larger package of ads
that includes pop-ups, floaters and even television ads
...
Advertising on the
web was initially relegated to a banner ad or two, and was, compared to today, very expensive
...

As companies stayed away from web ads in droves, and as new ways of pricing the ad space
came into practice, pricing came down, opening the door to what is now the fastest growing
segment of the ad world
...
Direct response seeks to
get viewers/readers to perform a specific act, from returning a postcard, to calling a toll-free
number, to requesting a download to making a purchase
...
Though an
advertiser must pay for the cost of the ad, once the viewer clicks on the ad they are taken to a
place (the advertiser’s site, typically) where the cost of providing all the information necessary is
very low and spread across many different buyers and potential buyers
...
You do your research
to find the right place to put the ad, and then you do the placement
...

But once a potential buyer clicks the ad, he is taken to your site, where you have virtually
unlimited space to introduce all the phones and their various features and limitations
...

The web offers other advantages for advertiser as well, through more targets ads
...


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How To Create An Effective Banner Ad
Banner ads are the backbone of the internet ad world
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For some
people, they will find just the right ad out of the gate, which will drive traffic to their site and help
increase revenue
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Or good
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One of the great advantages of web advertising is that its effectiveness can be
measured quickly and precisely, so it does not take long to determine how effective an ad is
...

So, there are a few guidelines that can help you get started
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Probably more than any other factor
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Along the same lines, where on the page your ad appears also matters
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Next, make sure the ad itself is asking something of the viewer
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In other words, the banners
should point to products and services rather than just your website in general
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The link should not go to the
home page
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Two or three
words is best
...

People should be intrigued by the image, but not confused
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Not all sites are made alike
...
And there are a number of things you can
look for in the site to help you determine whether or not it is the right site for you to pour your
important marketing dollars into
...

Most products and services are purchased by people from a wide range of walks of life, but
there tend also to be shared characteristics among purchasers of different goods and services
...

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Second, avoid the trap of feeling like you have to be everywhere all the big players are
...
Second, larger companies have
bigger budgets, so they can afford to experiment in different markets and accept a lower rate of
return in a secondary market
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Next, compare costs
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Expect to pay more for
sites that generate a lot of traffic and less in those cases where traffic is lighter
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These sites can commend higher prices because the
buyers that they attract with their content fit a highly desirable category
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It should be clear, interesting, placed in the upper part of the
screen
...
It
might be tempting to go out and get the ads going so you can drive traffic, but if you sites is not
prepared, you will end up shooting yourself in the foot
...
And many have said that the days of banner ads on the web are numbered
...

Whatever the case, the web as an advertising channel is not going away any time soon
...
Some find them nothing but
annoyance, because you have to close them in order to view content
...

There are some new additions to the web ad scene as well, and these also bear watching
...
These ads load before the web page and automatically
disappear before the page finishes loading
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Typically a banner ad that mirrors the interstitial ad will appear on the page after it is
finished loading
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The arrival of television ads on the web has also been an evolutionary step in the art of web
based advertising
...
They are
produced around vignettes, and have both audio and video as they run
...

In many respects, we have only just begun to tap the surface of the web’s potential as an ad
channel
...
And the inventiveness of how ads
appear and interact with users is still in the developing phase
...
Ads can be more easily directed to
target demographics, they are typically cost-effective, and their effectiveness in driving sales
behaviors can be readily and fully tracked and measured
...
For those who own spaces that would like to
sell advertising space, this shift has been welcome
...
Those starting out might wish to join a banner ad network
...
While these networks do
offer these significant advantages, they do so a price
...

The networks also will be selective in who they work with, so it is good to anticipate this as well
...
There are additional options for those with less traffic, including a CPM program or a
click-through program
...
However, if
your site is not heavily trafficked enough, this might well be the best way to get started
...
This is not a bad way to go if your site is
heavily trafficked enough to generate interest from advertisers
...
In order to build a case for your site with advertisers, you will need
to show them your traffic numbers as well as any information on steps you are taking to keep
traffic levels high and growing
...

Attracting some brand name advertisers to your site, even if you have to reduce rates a little to
do so, will help to convince other advertisers of the value of your site, so there might be a good
justification for flexibility on price
...
Different types of ads are designed to create different effects,
attract different types of responses and elicit different types of behavior
...
The web has undergone a transformation where
advertising is concerned and today the state of web-based ads is light years from where it
started
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Banner ads are the classic type of web ad
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The aim of the banner ad is simply to
project a message and get the viewer to click on it for more information or the next step of the
sales process
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They are larger – about two
times larger – than banner ads, and they have the chief advantage of never leaving the page
...
These ads are also more expensive than
traditional banner ads
...

These ads, which many people find annoying, are meant to be intrusive and to force the viewer
to act to either follow the ad’s link or cancel the ad
...

Their images often float out of the copy and then move off the page
...

Television ads
...
They
have vignettes, complete with action and audio, and they are providing to be highly effective in
promoting the desired viewer behavior
...
Some advertisers like to run both a
television or floating ad and have related static ads running alongside the same page after the
animated ads leave the page
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Advertisers love working with the web as a channel
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Buying and Selling Web-based Advertising
Buying and selling advertising on the web hold some important differences from buying and
selling advertising space in other venues
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If you have a big list of sites, this can be a time-consuming method
...

If your ad plans are more complex and you are spending a lot on the ad campaign, you can
think about getting an ad agency to do the work
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You can also join what’s call a banner ad network, which is broker
that works with both publishers and advertisers
...

On the other hand selling ad space can also be done in a number of different ways
...
You might need to weight the costs of providing ad space at initially
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lower rates to attract buyers with the idea of building loyalty over time if your site is not heavily
trafficked
...
These
networks attract advertisers, and monitor the success of the ads in addition to helping you find
the right placement of ads on your site
...
They are also selective; they
want to work with sites that are highly trafficked
...
There are additional options for those
with less heavily trafficked sites, including either a CPM program or a click-through program
...
However, if your site is not heavily
trafficked enough, this might well be the best way to get started
...
One of the key questions you will
have to ask from the start is what type of ad you want to place
...
But it is a good idea to know be able to make a determination about what kind of effect
you expect to get as compared to the amount of money you will be spending on the ad
...
They come in a variety of sizes and shapes,
and are designed primarily to drive direct response sales success
...
Once on your site, you have near
unlimited space to get their interest and help drive them further down the sales path
...
And keep the
ads specific
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Beyond that, these ads work in very similar ways to banner ads
...
Pop ups are designed to intrude on the copy and require viewers to take an action to
remove them (or follow them)
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These last two types of
ads are a little more effective at driving people who seller websites
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The Web All Advertising All the Time
For those who have been dismayed by the trend toward greater infiltration of the web by
advertising, the future is not looking any brighter
...
Pop-up ads and
floating ads and the newest twist: television ads have all been making their way in greater
numbers to web pages everywhere
...
Some companies have begun producing what they call “takeover”
campaigns, which are designed to take over a web site and cover it with their advertising
messages
...
It is a multiple web ad approach that blankets a page
or a portion of a site with different types of ads
...
(A cornucopia of intrusion in the minds of some)
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Television ads, for those new to the term, run and act
just like regular television ads
...
But they have the
added advantage of allowing viewers to click on the ad to learn more or make a purchase
...
It is not
possible to get a television viewer to push the dial on the remote to get more information (at
least this technology is not currently widely available), so the web’s ability to facilitate further
conversation with a potential buyer is a tremendous advantage in the minds of advertisers
...
At some point, where there are too many
messages, people will just tune them out and not be able to absorb them
...
Stay tuned for more
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Usage of the web continues to grow and more new
internet users come online every day
...

What was one thought of as completely inappropriate space to put advertising has been
perhaps the most successful development in the ad world since the development of the printing
press and the invention of the television
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As a result, web ads more and more advertisers are jumping on the bandwagon, and not just
the traditional large budget ad spenders
...

The ads are particularly attractive for small budget folks because they tend to drive short-term
action
...
Direct response
advertising has been the mainstay of companies with limited marketing budgets
...
They must make their ads spends work in a direct fashion and typically
over the very short term
...
However, what is becoming increasingly questioned is not just how far
ads can go in taking over the attention spaces of the viewers and the content zones of the
pages they are trying to view
...
In other words, how far can you go before
viewers start tuning out the messages altogether
...


Different Web Ads Serve Different Purposes
The web is grown tremendous as an adverting channel in the past decade
...

Cars, legal services, toothpaste and dog treats, cereal and fine dining establishments all pay to
advertise on the web
...
Many traditional advertisers have increasingly
more larger portions of their ad budgets to the web, citing its more target nature, and
effectiveness as an ad platform
...

One type of ad is called the sidebar ad
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A sidebar ad,
thus, is vertically oriented, running about 120 pixels wide and as much as 600 pixels high
...
They are typically
around twice the size of a traditional banner ad, and sometimes larger
...
While you can scroll past a
traditional banner ad, you cannot scroll a sidebar ad off of the page
...
So while they might initially not notice the ad as their eye
searches for the content they are seeking, there is a greater chance that the ad will catch their
eye as they scroll down the page
...
Sidebar ads typically have a click-through rate of about 1 percent, which
is roughly twice that of a banner ad
...
Sidebar ads can have a lot of advantages, and if the cost is justifiable, may be a great
way to get the word out about your offerings
...
Gone are the days of the lowly, static banner
ad that almost looked like it was trying to not draw too much attention to itself
...

Because the web was not built as an ad channel, some people initially had very strong negative
reactions to the presence of ads
...
Overtime, web
viewers have grown more accustomed to the presence of these ads, although there are still
come kinds of ads that inspire out and out anger
...
A pop-up
ad is one that opens a new screen in front of the screen with the content the viewer is trying to
see
...
Many people absolutely hated these ads when they first came on the scene, and they
were not shy about saying so
...

In this respect, the web is starting to resemble television, where advertising is completely
intrusive, but also nearly universally accepted as a part of the television viewing experience
...
Now, in addition to the traditional pop-ups, we see floating ads and what
look like television ads
...
They can seem to move directly out
of the copy and then standstill while the message is being delivered, before floating off or just
disappearing from the screen
...
But they are proving to be twice or three times as
effective as traditional web ads, so they are likely to remain on the scene
...


Defining the Objectives of a Banner Ad
Banner ads are the longest standing type of web based ads out there, and the objectives
attached to them are well established
...
First,
advertisers hope that the ads are seen, and thus contribute to the increasing brand awareness
of their company and products/services
...
The
intent of sending a brand message is to place the idea of the company in the mind of the buyer,
so that when they do go to make a purchase, that particular brand comes first to mind
...
”
Finally, once potential buyers have clicked-through to the advertisers web site, the hope is that
they will buy things
...

The ways in which banners ads are measured against these objectives varies
...
A click through is simply
when someone sees the banner and clicks through it to the advertiser’s web site
...
Related to this is the
click through rate, which is simply a ratio of the number times click through occur compared to
the number of times the page is viewed
...

This number is indicative of the potential size of the market available to the advertiser
...

Advertisers also look at the cost of sale, or the amount of money they spent on the ad versus
the amount of money in revenue was produced by that ad
...


Buying Advertising Space on the Web
For the first time advertiser on the web, approaching the process can be a bit daunting
...
Web ads are more targeted and can tend to be a
little more cost-effective than traditional forms of advertising
...
For starters, you can simply talk
with the owners of the web site where you think you might want to place ads
...
If you do go this
route, make sure you get all the critical information from them, such as how well their content
fits your demographic, the options they have available for placement and costs
...
Many sites post this
information on the site itself, but if not, you can call or write for the information
...
Cost will
range from as low as $5 (perhaps less) to more than $100 for every 1000 impressions on the
site
...

If you have ad plans that are at all complex, or you are devoting significant dollars to the ad
campaign, you can also consider higher an ad agency to do the work of finding the right sites,
negotiating the best deals and doing the placements
...
Because this is their business they can help you get the greatest leverage out of
your ad spend
...

You can also consider joining a banner ad network
...
They take on the role of placing the
banner ads and keeping tabs on the performance of those ads
...
So, knowing the differences
between them can help you to determine which type of ad is best for your situation and
advertising needs
...

Banner ads are typically what we think of when we think about ads on the web
...
In this way, they potential buyer is moved further down the sales process
...
They sit along one vertical axis of the page and run the
height of the page, which is where they got their nickname “skyscraper ads
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Like banners, these ads are built to get people
to click on them, an act that will send the viewer to the advertiser’s website, where more
information will be provide
...

Pop-up ads are another type of ad
...
These ads, which many people find annoying, are meant to be
intrusive and to force the viewer to act to either follow the ad’s link or cancel the ad
...

Their images often float out of the copy and then move off the page
...

“Television” ads are yet another form
...
They feature little stories, run with action and audio, and they are proving to be highly
effective in promoting the desired viewer behavior
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In fact, some of the most
enduring television shows in history started as vehicles to sell products
...

The web was a little different
...
That
didn’t last long
...
The reaction was not entirely positive, but the
die was cast, as the Internet boom of the 1990s was fueled by the media potential of the web
...
This latter type of ad would be akin to a twenty-second commercial
appearing on top of a television show that continues to run
...

But this has not stopped the onward march toward new forms and fashions of marketing on the
web
...
They
appear on the side of the page as it loads – and sometimes on top of the page – and they are
animated
...
They, in other words, are just like television commercials
...
These ads can allow viewers to immediately click to learn more or
make a purchase
...
While TVs can direct viewers about how to behave next, the viewers must take the
additional step of picking up the phone or going to the store, etc
...


A Short History of A Bold Media
When advertising first started appearing on the world wide web, there were many critics should
argued that it would never be accepted by web users and would turn out to be a huge waste of
money for advertisers
...

Of course, that proved to be very wrong very quickly
...
Within a few short years, significant portions
of the nation’s population were wired up and connected to the net
...
Even television advertising was not unaffected by the
growth in the web based model
...
One is that the web as a medium allows users to make quick on the spot decisions about
whether to follow an ad and eventually make a purchase or not
...

The second aspects provides a huge advantage in that it allows ad buyers to determine where
they need to makes shifts in their ad strategies in order to maximize their spends
...

As the technology and art form began to develop, we began to see increasing numbers of
traditional advertisers begin to look at the web in a way they had not before
...
Now
it is hard to imagine a single product or service category that is not in some way advertised on
the web
...


Website Advertising’s Brief History Includes Rapid Evolutions
Print forms of advertising have been us with since print forms of communication have been with
us
...
Over that time, slow changes have occurred as the commercial side of
print publication of newspapers and magazines matured and publishers became increasingly
sophisticated about the advertising side of their business
...

When advertising first came to web, it did so tentatively
...
The ads were relatively small and initially static and as
such they mirrored newspaper ads
...
But even these splashier ads were in relatively short supply
compared today
...
And it is
not unusual to finds pages filled with pop-up ads and ads that sit on the top of content
...
This new type of ad has been both
applauded for its inventiveness and criticized for its intrusiveness
...
Whereas in the past,
journals were created to disseminate information, with ads providing the revenue, today sites
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are created as a platform for advertising and the content is published as means of attracting
interest to the ads
...

It remains to be seen what develops next in the ongoing evolution of web advertising
...
But advertising has long been the target of
complaints, and so far the complaints has done little to slow the pace of its development
...
Attaching sales messages that many people don’t care
to read or view on to things they want to or must read or view has been a tactic of sales people
since for eons
...
Ads attached to important material or put in places where people cannot avoid seeing
them (billboards, train stations, airports) still rules the day in the ad world
...
What
the web can do that other forms of advertising cannot essentially amounts to leaving the web as
the superior way to get highly targeted and thus cost-effective sales messages out to the public
...

What lies on that web page likely has some bearing on the demographic characteristics of the
viewer, and thus an advertiser can “know” something about the people who are likely to visit the
page before they put their ads on it
...
But the pace of change has been pretty
rapid
...
And unlike with newspapers and
magazines, these ads do not only sit alongside content
...

Now this is something new in the world
...
Many people object
to the notion of ads at all, but even the more tolerant among us are objecting to the ad become
a barrier to reading the content on the page
...
The next developments in web advertising
are just as likely to be more controversial than less so
...


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Website Advertising Continuing to Evolve
There is no question but that the presence that advertising has had within the web environment
has expanded tremendously in recent years
...

The trend is due to several factors
...
There are few products or service types that are
not marketed on the web today
...

Both of these trends point to the same net result, which is that ads are plentiful on the web, and
there needs to be a way for each to distinguish itself from the next in the mind of the page view
...
Some are even designed to
initiate after the viewer has already started reading a page
...
Viewers
must either click on the ad to engage it, or they must close it out
...
As ads become ever more pervasive and ever more intrusive, viewers
become ever more put upon by them
...
Web site advertising is believed to be among the most effective
of the available forms of advertising, but it is wearing thin the patience of viewers everywhere
...

One trailing implication of the onslaught of all of this intrusive advertising is whether or not it
undercuts the web as an effective vehicle by overloading the attention spans of viewers
...


The Future of Website Advertising
Considering how quickly the website advertising industries have grown up in the past several
years, it is daunting to think about how much more they can possibly evolve
...
But print media is not the only form that
is being changed by web ads
...
The web was seen as a good place for static ads, but not the kind
of dynamic ads that are seen on television
...
Television, of course, does
...

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On the web, there was thought to be no natural place for a TV ad to be placed
...
Most TV ads load right
after the page has finished loading, and many find a way to somehow obscure or block the
content while they run
...

As a result, more companies are moving increasing proportions of their television ad spends to
the web as well
...
Web-based television ads will allow viewers to immediately click to learn more or make
a purchase
...

The effectiveness of web based television ads, just like with any web based ad, can also be
measured in virtual real-time, so advertisers can adjust the ads or the placement of them in
order to maximize their effectiveness

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