Ad-Monetization in a Changing Online Landscape

October 27 is the birthday of the first time banner ads were seen on a website. Hotwired.com was the first company to run these ads in 1994 and they were the beginnings of what would become a $24 billion business and generate a CTR of 78%. They were simple ads, created for AT&T and Volvo—the latter’s banner didn’t even send the consumer to the company’s website but rather to a questionnaire of what type of automobile they’d be interested in. It’s been 17 years since then and online advertising has grown tremendously, but the average CTR of banner ads today is only a fraction of a percent: a measly 0.1%. So how does one generate ad revenue in a world where online consumers have adapted to ignoring banner advertising?

We must ask ourselves why the CTR of banner ads drop so much. This has a two part answer; banner ads are ignored, consciously and subconsciously, and when they aren’t ignored, they don’t convert at a high rate because the ads are not delivered at a relevant time. The solution to these issues is to reach online consumers where their attention is and when they want it. In-content advertising allows advertisers to accomplish this.

In-content advertising is much like the product placement that you see in movies and television. This advertising technique is contextually relevant as well as tightly integrated and works for two reasons: Consumers see and interact with these advertisements and they experience the advertisements while they’re actually looking for the information. The easiest way to reach your viewer is with in-content advertising with link insertion. Link insertion allows users to scroll the mouse over a word that then pulls up a pop-up to link to the relevant site.

This article was a guest post from Murray Newlands, to learn more about in-content advertising and link insertion, please read his most recent eBook,”Content Monetization” or “INTENETclick“:In-Text Advertising Secrets.