Advertising Creep

I've recently added Adsense to my blog page. That's it, over there to the left. It is indicative of the larger trend to plaster advertising everywhere it can be shoehorned in. The idea is to create revenue from otherwise unused pixels. As a marketer, I have to say that it's a great idea - in theory. All kinds of questions arise with these models. If you're a marketer, consider these thoughts before you put yourself on either side of the served ad equation.

First, is the inclusion of advertising congruent with the purpose of the site? Including advertising may prove to be a distraction from the page itself. Or, because these ads are so ubiquitous...

Second, will the ads get noticed? People are quite good at filtering out extraneous information. Yet another 200 pixel square ad may very well fall into people's filtration system, receding into the background like whitenoise.

Third, you may have precious little control over the type of product/service offered on your site. Do you want your identity to be linked to erectile dysfunction pharmaceuticals?

Lastly, there's quite a debate about whether or not these text ads are effective. Sure, they get lots of clicks, but do those clicks really translate into conversions? Could the budget dollars you're using for serving ads across a content network be put to more effective use? Can you develop direct contact lists where you can spend a bit more time laying out your product's case?

On the whole, serving text ads across networks is a fine idea - but one that requires that you actively manage your budgets and the creative pretty aggressively to maintain efficacy. Otherwise, you'll end up serving lots of ads to places where there's little hope of snagging a customer. And even if you're paying via cpc models, the time and energy spent managing these campaigns could likely be spent elsewhere with a better return.