E-Media Tidbits

NYTimes.com How much sense does this ad really make? (Click to enlarge)

"...More than 80 percent of [news site] traffic enters someplace other than the homepage. Google and an assortment of side doors are the way in for most users. ...Now more than ever, finding a way to match the reader/user to a specific category of advertising that will be of interest is key to unlocking value from this rather chaotic stream of traffic."

I figured I should check out what NYTimes.com is doing in terms of online advertising, now that they've finally let go of the subscriber-wall model.

The answer -- at least from a quick perusal -- was disappointing. NYTimes.com seems to still be relying mainly on large, generic banner ads that are mostly irrelevant to page content. Although they do integrate contextual ads (Google Adsense), these are very small, and poorly positioned, and far too generic to serve as a useful bridge between advertisers and communities.

Case in point: Today's NYTimes.com business section offers an AP story, Jobless Claims Drop Unexpectedly. The huge tower banner ad I saw in the right-hand column touted Cartier's latest luxury wristwatch. If you click on that ad, you get taken to another window with no navigation bar (it even defaults to full-screen mode, ugh). Then have to wait for a very large flash file to download.

That's about the most online-unfriendly ad possible, in a whole lot of ways -- but mostly because it's completely irrelevant to the content of the page. Even though the business section of NYTimes.com is popular with wealthy folks who buy jewel-studded watches, this particular story will probably be more popular with workers, managers, and business owners who are hoping to stay afloat. Ads offering relevance from this angle might just have a better chance of getting noticed and clicked.

Lots of other news venues ran that same AP story. I wondered if any of them offered more relevant advertising. So I just spent nearly a half hour poking around dozens of mainstream news sites -- a thoroughly depressing exercise. Almost all of the prominent ads were totally irrelevant banners (often cryptic too, like "Massey Services Inc. Expect more and get it!" with no further explanation). Next came a few tiny, overly-generic Adsense ads, or equally generic and irrelevant "sponsored links" from in-house networks.

There is something dreadfully wrong with this picture. Don't the advertisers and news venues ever ask themselves: Why would anyone click on these ads?

According to current eyetracking research, banner ads might as well be invisible. I'd love to see eyetracking research that assesses how much site visitors notice text ads matched with content via contextual or behavioral targeting.

Look at it this way: My local supermarket does a far better job of delivering relevant ads to me on the back of every grocery receipt than any news site I visited today. The technology exists! So what are the real barriers (technological and human) blocking its deployment in news sites? If current online ad practices, systems, and network aren't supporting (and may even be damaging) our business, why do we cling to them? Why aren't we experimenting with more intuitive approaches?

I'd love to hear your thoughts on constructive, specific steps news organizations could take to implement more relevant (and hence more effective) online advertising models. Please comment below.