What's the future of Adwords/Banner advertising?

[Claud]

I don't use Internet Explorer, I use Maxthon, a different browser that has some built-in features that allow you to block web ads.
Now, I'm asking what is the future of banner/adwords advertising because my opinion is that in time more and more people are going to use programs that will block most of the ads. I mean let's take for example the pop=ups, those had their time but now my opinion is that less and less marketers pay for pop-up advertising because a lot of people use anti-pop-up programs.
Is that going to happen with banner/adwords advertising?

[webinv]

A few things are going to and have happened..

1. Web designers now use scripts that will make a simulated popup window that stays internally in the browser window. The popup blocking software cannot block them... because they are not a "popup" .

2. Some marketers are testing out "Desktop Marketing" . This will be a way to advertise to people directly on their desktop.

3. You are not going to be able to block TEXT ads. Text ads are more effective most of the time, because they look like normal page content. Those will always be around.

4. With technology, such as FLASH, the web designer can display whatever they want. If you disable FLASH in your browser, then you may not be able to view important parts of a site (i.e. a menu)

5. You can always add an ALT tag in your images, so even if you block the images you are still most likely going to see some form of text ad.

These are just a few things I can think of..

[Mel]

IMO Adwords and similar programs are going to be with us for the forseeable future, and they will not succumb to attmepts to block them because they are the financial lifeblood of the search egines. Thus if programs are developed to block things like adwords to the point that they impact on the search egines bottom line seriously, then they will be deployed in a manner which will defeat the blockers.

[Claud]

Originally Posted by webinv

A few things are going to and have happened..

1. Web designers now use scripts that will make a simulated popup window that stays internally in the browser window. The popup blocking software cannot block them... because they are not a "popup" .

Sorry to contradict you but they can. You're referring to those "flying ads" that appear inside the browser window, trust me that those are blocked too.

Originally Posted by webinv

2. Some marketers are testing out "Desktop Marketing" . This will be a way to advertise to people directly on their desktop.

If I understood corectly the advertisers would have to convince people to download and install a "Desktop reader" or other program. I think people are now so scared of adware and spyware that this method won't be successful.

Originally Posted by webinv

3. You are not going to be able to block TEXT ads. Text ads are more effective most of the time, because they look like normal page content. Those will always be around.

Here you are right, this is what I meant. I think text ads are not going to disappear so soon. I've even seen that a relatively new type of text advertising appears. That IntelliTXT, to me it seems a good way to advertise, I mean you only watch it out of curiosity and only if you're interested and it doesn't need much time to be downloaded (like Flash, banners..)

Originally Posted by webinv

4. With technology, such as FLASH, the web designer can display whatever they want. If you disable FLASH in your browser, then you may not be able to view important parts of a site (i.e. a menu)

The users/possible clients don't stay too much on a site if they can't view something. So if they have Flash blocked and they can't view a menu they're going to look for another site, they have other 8 billion possibilities.

Originally Posted by webinv

5. You can always add an ALT tag in your images, so even if you block the images you are still most likely going to see some form of text ad.

Yes you can. When you choose to block images with firewalls like zonealarm or withing the browser, instead of the alt tag it will be displayed [Blocked ad]

I'm not saying adwords will disappear, I'm just saying that it's impossible not to change in time.

[strum4life]

I think Adwords is a whole different animal than popups. They are content specific and not at all intrusive like annoying pop-ups. I would never download a new browser just to block contextual ads. Popups, on the other hand, are satan.

[strum4life]

If Adwords really annoy you, you can just turn off Javascript in any browser and they won't be displayed.

[Ozewebhost]

Claud,

I'd be very interested to know if your Maxthon browser will block the small flyout ad screen at the top LH corner of www.lowtox.com

Also, does it prohibit the information 'flyout-on-hoever' screens from appearing on www.ozewebhost.com.au

[MHenscheid]

I also use maxthon...

The first site: saw no sign of fly up add
Second site: when hovering over the "more info" links a popup (layer?) DID appear

[Keimos]

If you use both FireFox or Opera you have the simple ability to stop scripts. In addition there is the facility to block pop up as well.

Both are free!

I personally ignore his type of advertising but it will continue until the majority of the people on the net are web savvy. So browse to your preferences and stop the lot but the majority (75%) are not aware.

Basically from a marketing point of view if it looks right you will receive the hits from the unaware.

So in answer to your question, Banner adds, pop ups etc have a limited life span so if it works for you use them. Remember you then have the problem of generating enough traffic to make it viable.

Reasons are above

[Gootch]

I posted something a while back with a similar standpoint...

http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic...808&highlight=

Gootch

[flashfast]

The users/possible clients don't stay too much on a site if they can't view something. So if they have Flash blocked and they can't view a menu they're going to look for another site, they have other 8 billion possibilities.

Depends what content you want - but this is far too general a statement . There are not 8 billion other choices - most websites are really poor and lacking in content, so why, if they find that content aftre a long search, would they leave a site deploying some flash elements? On my site I use a flash nav bar and a few flash ads - and guess what - they're more popular than my text ads or text links. Visitors like flash content on my site - why care about people blocking flash - they'd be so few as to be insignificant. People love Flash on sites - tutorials, educative, documentary pieces, short films, long films, comedy sketches, demos of software, playing music clips without having media player open up...etc. etc.
Blocking Flash would simply be jumping back 10 years and it's not going to work no matter how much you try.

[Mike Sands]

Surely 95% of the population will stick with whatever browser comes with their machine. Since that's 95% likely to be microsoft and microsoft have a vested interest in feeding us advertisements via their various portals, they are unlikely to make it easy to block adverts.

Also bear in mind that Webproworld would probably not exist if we all chose to block its advertising (banners).
We run a sports portal www.sportnetwork.net that is free to publishers and free to punters, and the only way we stay alive is via banner advertising. When we point this out to people on the message boards who are advocating punters should install advert blockers, they usually see the point.
Mike

[mlevenhagen]

Mike Said

the only way we stay alive is via banner advertising

That's a good point. I don't think banners or ads alone in general are the problem it's how they are dished out.

Offline magazines have always had ads. We know that's how they make money to be able to publish the magazine. But, if the ads start popping out at us and hitting us in the face, we might have a problem with that.

The same goes for the online world, pop-ups are the problem. Savvy or not, everyone understands that ads are necessary for the survival of certain websites... we won't have a problem with them and try to block them if they're not thrown in our face.

That's why I don't know why people have a problem with "affiliates". The affiliate should get credit for sending you somewhere if they provided you a service (i.e., information). It is their means of survival.

...

[Claud]

Originally Posted by Ozewebhost

Claud,

I'd be very interested to know if your Maxthon browser will block the small flyout ad screen at the top LH corner of www.lowtox.com

Also, does it prohibit the information 'flyout-on-hoever' screens from appearing on www.ozewebhost.com.au

On lowtox.com I don't see any flyout, on the second one the flyout-on-hoover works just fine, as I said above the "IntelliText type" works.

I didn't say that I don't like AdWords, I plan to use that too, the thing is that I'm wondering what will become in the near future if these types of browsers become more and more famous and have this block features marked by default.

Originally Posted by flashfast

Depends what content you want - but this is far too general a statement . There are not 8 billion other choices - most websites are really poor and lacking in content, so why, if they find that content aftre a long search, would they leave a site deploying some flash elements? On my site I use a flash nav bar and a few flash ads - and guess what - they're more popular than my text ads or text links. Visitors like flash content on my site - why care about people blocking flash - they'd be so few as to be insignificant. People love Flash on sites - tutorials, educative, documentary pieces, short films, long films, comedy sketches, demos of software, playing music clips without having media player open up...etc. etc.
Blocking Flash would simply be jumping back 10 years and it's not going to work no matter how much you try.

flashfast you're basically saying that the visitors/possible customers have to adapt to the way your site works, I say that you will have to adapt your site to your visitors if you want to increase your income. I agree that Flash looks very good, but there are a lot of people that don't use it because it takes some time to load.

Originally Posted by Mike Sands

Surely 95% of the population will stick with whatever browser comes with their machine. Since that's 95% likely to be microsoft and microsoft have a vested interest in feeding us advertisements via their various portals, they are unlikely to make it easy to block adverts.

Also bear in mind that Webproworld would probably not exist if we all chose to block its advertising (banners).

I don't think that 95% is the real percentage. I think the other free browser are gaining more and more customers http://www.upsdell.com/BrowserNews/stat.htm
And I know that banner advertising keeps up good free sites like this forum. If I had to guess I would say that WPW earns more from the newsletter (one of the greatest) than from the banner advertising :).

[globalhostinggroup]

Advertising always evolves.
The more users and online spending the more advertising.
They will continue to evolve advertising until it is undistinguishable from the site you are visiting so if you block the add you block the entire site because their will be no distinguishing the two from each other.
This is just a fact that will evolve.
They even advertise in video games and are looking at downloadable adds they can refresh and exchange al in the name of the advertising viewing numbers.

[flashfast]

flashfast you're basically saying that the visitors/possible customers have to adapt to the way your site works, I say that you will have to adapt your site to your visitors if you want to increase your income. I agree that Flash looks very good, but there are a lot of people that don't use it because it takes some time to load.

Iv'e always thought that Flash is quite misunderstood. Sure, as you say, 'flash looks very good' but 'takes a long time to load' only means that the creator of flash content might be not that adept at optimizing. Flash can produce files far lower in size to any bitmap (jpeh, png, gif) so it's a matter of how you create the content. I have both html and flash - why should I sacrifice one for the other. It's just not that cut and dried.

'I say that you will have to adapt your site to your visitors if you want to increase your income.'

I am not boasting but your statement I should adapt to visitors begs some real facts. My visitors last November were 5,000 a month. This October the figure was 18,500. This November I'll reach 22,000 (note: I am talking about real people and not 'hits'). Also my 3rd most popular file request is for the fav.ico file, which means a lot of people are filing the site away in their browser as a favourite. And this Christmas alone I should see about another 20,000 added from download.com (recently awarding us their rare 5 stars for a Xmas screensaver - created by the way with Flash). As for income well we all need that, and advertising now pays for all our costs and much more. The funny thing is that I've negelected the site for a year because of winning an animation contract - solely won because of our flash work in the site's kids section. So, as far as making an income, Flash has been quite helpful.

I can't imagine what the site figures would have been had I had the time to add more content (which I am now starting to do). Our estimates show that in one year we might triple our figures and reach 100,000 depending on time devoted to more content.

My point is that people don't seem to mind flash on the site. If people want to go elsewhere that's fine too - but I doubt it will be any significant loss. If our visitor graph were not going straight up I might consider it: but to suddenly say that I should change a succesful formula to get more income based on your formula - well, I think I'll stick with the current one that works :)

[Mike Sands]

Claud said:
And I know that banner advertising keeps up good free sites like this forum. If I had to guess I would say that WPW earns more from the newsletter (one of the greatest) than from the banner advertising :).

Mike asks:
Could one of the owners comment on this please or if confidential then PM me. It's important to us as internally we are having a row about whether it's worth putting out an enewsletter with ads. One of the agencies we were using to sell advertising on our site said they could sell advertising in the enewsletter, but the agency we are with now, doesn't seem interested (in email, but they are very good at selling all our banner inventory).
Mike

[Mike Sands]

I've just had a closer look at the last copy of WebproNews, and if the guys are making decent money from the ads running within there I'd be very surprised. All I can see is one from Google (can't imagine they'll be paying a fortune) and one from Virtual Machine way down the bottom in a small panel. Of course they may be selling their lists to 3rd parties (Joke guys)
Mike