Comments on: Graphical Banners: What Do People Click On?

By: Mark

Mark — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 05:52:40 +0000

Steve’s response (10) is right on the money. The success of the ads has more to do with your audience at Whitespace than they do the graphical design. For instance, the overwhleming majority of your readers on Whitespace are bloggers. From what I’ve gathered over the years from reading Whitespace those bloggers are designers, developers and some business types whose online presence (their portfolio, business site…) is centered around their blog. Do these folks really use or have a need for CampaignMonitor? No. Not when they have a blog that publishes feeds, and MT Notifier and the like to inform folks via email when they have something new to say. For the audience at Whitespace, icons are the hot item now, they’re everywhere — you can even find them all over 9rules new pages.

Blinksale has been talked to death already amongst the web / blogger community, and Squarespace, I don’t know, perhaps we bloggers are always on the lookout for a better tool.

The point is, it’s what’s the hot need at the moment moreso than the design — albiet design is important and does lend credibility – just perhaps not as much as you’re giving it here in your post.

By: Steve Hubbard

Steve Hubbard — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 03:30:19 +0000

Perhaps some consideration should also be given to the products and/or services each advertiser offers.

Icon Bufffet and Squarespace are relevant to anyone interested in producing websites, be they individuals wanting to create a hobby blog or companies wanting to display a flashy corporate site. Blinksale and Campaign Monitor, on the other hand, are only really relevant to businesses – I don’t imagine there are many individuals needing to forward email newsletters or invoices.

Therefore, it’s reasonable to expect a greater click through for the sites that a more relevant to a much larger audience.

By: Chris Griffin

Chris Griffin — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 00:37:40 +0000

Grammar Correction – 5th paragraph down.

*Your previous design, had alot more black and gray than your current design.

By: Chris Griffin

Chris Griffin — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 00:35:19 +0000

After taking a look at the ads on 9rules.com, to give it more context to why one ad works versus another rather than looking at the ads you posted on here. I have a few thoughts.

If I remember correctly, I think all of these ads were also running before the 9rules redesign except the current IconBuffet ad.

You said the IconBuffet & Squarespace ads were doing better than the Blinksale & Campaign Monitor. I wonder if it has to do with the color palette chosen for the current design.

For example, The two ads that are doing well are mostly black & gray which has much more contrast than Blinksale & Campaign Monitor from the current design. The lesser two tend to blend into the current design more. At a glance, those ads almost look like part of the website.

Your previous design, had alot more black and gray than your previous. So I wonder how Squarespace & IconBuffet (I don’t think that’s the same ad as ran before) was doing before the redesign.

Maybe compare the results from before the redesign and after the redesign and maybe it could produce some interesting results.

Maybe a Site ReDesign should prompt the client of the ad to redesign the ad.

Just a thought.

By: Scrivs

Scrivs — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 20:03:18 +0000

Tim: Yeah it’s amazing what a simple email will do. I think we all forget that and expect the advertisers to come right to us.

By: tim

tim — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 19:39:57 +0000

Couldn’t be simpler for sure ! Thanks :-)

By: Scrivs

Scrivs — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 19:32:47 +0000

Well I know Josh and simply asked him if he wanted to advertise on our sites. Really quite simple.

By: tim

tim — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 19:29:02 +0000

Thx Scrivs – Agree, Mary-Ann did a good job.
Still wondering how you got in business with Icon Buffet.. ;-)

By: Scrivs

Scrivs — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 19:24:12 +0000

Tim: Thanks for the kind words. I think Mary-Ann does a great job of explaining why certain ads work and some don't in the trackback right above your comment. She also made a comment in this Whitespace entry:

I notice the image ads, because they stand out from the rest of the design and just look nice. I've used all the products except Squarespace and I know for sure I found IconBuffet and Campaign Monitor through advertising. They are very well targeted to the Whitespace audience I would imagine. Whereas I know that AdSense targetting is usually rubbish on blogging/web design sites and I just ignore it. The ad showing above the comments is some sort of affilate program for the Crazy Frog and others. It's typical of what shows up and it's really no use to me.

For referential sites I think text ads would definitely work better, but on sites where the audience is more targetted and known by the author it would be in their best interest to help advertisers develop ads that fit the audience.

By: tim

tim — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 19:12:36 +0000

Thanks Scrivs for such a great post. I’m bored by text ads and welcome good banners more than warmly. I’d be interested in knowing, what are the requirements to display such great ads. I mean, is it all about page views, or about your specific target audience, or probably both… if you can give some insights, that’d be great.