NONE: Re: ONLINE-ADS>> advertising on free e-mail sites
Re: ONLINE-ADS>> advertising on free e-mail sites
Hairong Li (hairong_at_pilot.msu.edu)
Tue, 12 May 1998 09:14:23 -0400
"Ross Wm. Rader" <rwmrader_at_idirect.com> wrote:
> For instance, if I am a Hotmail user, I need to go to the Hotmail site to
> read my email. I am purely interested in reading my email until I have
> finished the task that brought me to the site. The time when the
> user is no longer interested in the activity that the site provides them
>with is when
> they should be nailed with ads. Why? Because they are about to make a choice
> to start another task. In this scenario, that can be either clicking on a
> well-placed banner or starting the next item on their to-do list.
>
I would use a "balance of interest" theory to explain why viewers are likely
to click on some banner ads. Because most viewers know that they will be
lead to another Web site by clicking on a banner ad, they won't do so unless
they are more interested in the advertised Web site than the Web site that
they are currently surfing. So, to make a viewer click on a banner ad, the
banner ad must be more interesting than the content of the Web page where
the banner ad is placed. Large, animated banner ads could catch the viewer's
attention and create awareness but may not be sufficient to trigger a click.
However, incentives (free gifts, deep discount, etc.) and other appeals
(curiosity, fear, guilt, etc.) could make a banner ad more interesting to
the viewer and thus result in more clicks. By this theory, a same banner ad
would generate more clicks when placed in a less-interesting web site than
in a more-interesting web site. The interesting level of a banner ad would
depend on creative and targeting (to potentially more interested audience).
Does anyone have empirical data to support my assumptions?
Hairong Li
Michigan State University
http://www.admedia.org/
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