3 Reasons Display Advertising Sucks:

1.  Why would someone read your display ads?  Display ads appear on websites that are content driven.  Okay, lets take a moment to think about this… a customer goes to a content driven site, like a blog or an online magazine… why are they going to that website? – Bingo, to read that content.  The point of the website is the content, so your ads are basically not in their customer’s line of sight.  It gets better, if I’m in the middle of reading content why would I click on your ad?  (Feel free to comment if you have an answer for that one.)

2.  The pop up ad… the reason the world is convinced that advertisers are evil people.  Let’s think about this, you’re going to pay a company $X for the right to interrupt someone’s online experience.  You are literally paying to be the jerk at the party who sees two people in the middle of a conversation and butts in to talk about Ford Trucks.  That’s right, I’m looking at your Ford Motor Company… your ads consistently overlay on top of my Fantasy Football Team.  That is annoying and more over hurts your brand in my eyes.  If your ad is between me and the content I want to see, not cool.

3.  Show me the money, you can’t.  Display ads don’t drive visits to your websites, are often pay by impressions, and require additional creative resources to get up and running.  Paying for the right to appear on a page doesn’t seem good enough, I’d rather pay per visit to my site, or maybe per order.  CPM (Cost per Thousand Impressions)  is not a metric I care for.  The internet is measurable, I think it is time we evolve beyond the billboard.

Solutions to Replacing and Evolving Display:

Search Engine Marketing- Display Ads on a page where people are searching for a solution, ads that appear based on what person is searching for.  (Targeted, Relevant, and best of all you pay per click)

Affiliate Marketing- Display Ads on sites that are filled with content, the content subject matter however is all about deals and buying products.  (Targeted, Relevant, and best of all you pay per order)

Better Display Ads- What if you took an economist and asked them about Display Ads?  They’d probably answer you with a company like Kiip. (Pronounced “keep” as in keep your customers, or keep playing)  People do things based on three things- perspective, motivation, and trust.  What is the incentive to click on a display ad?  (Feel free to offer up an idea in the comments section.)  What if while you were playing a game on your phone there were no ads, but what if instead you got rewarded.  Use product samples and acquisition style offers as rewards for doing simple things like completing levels in a video game.  And instead of clicking away from what you’re doing, you just input your email then the prize is emailed to you and waiting for when you finish playing.  Kiip is evolving display into something a customer might actually like… a reward.

Economics is much more than just trading goods, and is the key to improving advertising.  Now  could someone please get this Ford ad to stop popping up over my ESPN articles.

Thanks for listening,

Zach West