Bigger Isn't Always The Answer

Haven't we been through this before?

According to AdWeek, it appears that members of the Online Publishers Association have decided to start offering large new ad units later this year in an attempt to combat a decline (or potential decline) in ad sales.

I have mixed feelings about this move.

In general, I like the idea of having more flexibility and additional options when planning a campaign. And the spirit of the additions is good: reduce clutter (as long as these new units replace a couple of old ones each, rather than just being added to the page), and create more of a "sponsorship" style of placement.

But, I'm concerned that this move largely misses the point of online advertising. The idea is to reach the right people in the right place at the right time with the right message... Not just hit them over the head with a bigger message.

If the publishers really want to combat a decrease in demand for their products, or the commoditization of online advertising, how about...
- Improving targeting capabilities?
One of the reasons that I personally like using ad networks is their robust Behavioural Targeting and similar options. But beyond this (as I've mentioned on this blog before), incredibly, a large number of publishers still don't make it easy to target by geography, domain, OS, time-of-day, etc.

- Decreasing minimum spend requirements?
Not everybody wants to give tens of thousands of dollars to one publisher for each short campaign.

- Segmenting site placements to a more granular level?
Let buyers place ads on more specific pages or sections. Sometimes I don't want to just buy, for example, broad topics like "business" or "news" or "technology", but would rather see my ads displayed with only "international trade" or "community news" or "wireless devices" content. Even if there are only a small number of impression on each of these, they're the right impressions.

- Cleaning up page layout and content?
Hiding an ad at the bottom of a page, or artificially driving more impressions by breaking an article into multiple pages, or filling every page with graphics and navigation items, etc. etc. are not just bad usability practices, but they also hurt the effectiveness of ad campaigns. I might advertise with you once because you have a low price or large number of targeted ad impressions or some other value, but if it doesn't translate into strong results, I'm unlikely to give you my clients' money again soon. A huge number of media sites are in desperate need of a redesign.

- Recognizing that sometimes online advertising actually is a bit of a commodity?
Web display advertising often works best as one component of a larger campaign. Reaching qualified consumers at several different points with a consistent message is a standard, and proven, advertising approach. While I don't generally like the "let's just buy a bunch of cheap inventory and reach a huge portion of the population a bunch of times each" approach, sometimes a slightly-refined version of this is all that's needed. When publishers charge a buyer 10 to 20 times higher CPMs than they would pay through an ad network it eliminates much of the extra value that comes from using high-quality placements.


Of course, I'm not talking about every publisher in the above examples, but there are certainly more than a few members of the OPA that could do a much better job of helping advertisers reach the right people in the right way. Without resorting to ad unit changes.


Although the publishers may be well-meaning, trying to build better relationships with advertisers in the hopes of displaying more meaningful, branding-focused campaigns, I suspect that a large number of advertisers and publishers will simply think of larger units as a way to make a bigger splash. "If a half page ad is good, a full page ad for less than double the price is great!" is the traditional thinking that occurs.

Look at pop-ups or page takeovers, and other experimental large format ad units of the past... They've largely died off because they were not used very well. Advertisers implemented them in order to yell louder at users.

I like experimentation, though, and I can't wait to see how the new ad units are used, how they're priced, and how consumers will react. Let's hope that well-planned and well-implemented campaigns are the rule rather than the exception.