Written on November 27th, 2005 at 08:11 am by Darren Rowse
Google AdSense Animated Ads
Threadwatch, Search Engine Journal and Jensense all are talking about another new type of ad that Adsense has been testing at Search Engine Roundtable - Animated background ads. It looks like a format that they’re offering premium publishers (and other testing publishers) who have special permission to try new things in conjunction with Adsense - either that or SE Roundtable has been playing with his ad code - a bit of a no no.
The ads have an animated arrow in the background that is obviously there to draw the eye of a site’s reader (as follows):
It’s an interesting move - a good one I’m sure in terms of CTR - but I’m starting to wonder if in a bid to combat ad blindness whether Adsense will start providing ads that are more and more in your face. One of the things I love about adsense is that they are pretty subtle - but animated background ads do take things in a different direction. I’m not sure I’d want these ads on most of my sites as I think they could be seen as a bit cheap and nasty….
I’m also not sure how advertisers would like them either. Chitika’s recent ‘curiosity click’ problem comes to mind and I wonder if the novelty factor of these backgrounds might similarly cause clicks that were more about the animation than the ad itself.
21 Responses to “Google AdSense Animated Ads”
~Dawn
November 27th, 2005 9:08 am
Gah! I hate blinking buttons, ads, pictures. I sure hope this never makes it out of beta.
Chris
November 27th, 2005 9:16 am
Totally agree with Dawn…
hagrin
November 27th, 2005 9:26 am
It won’t make a difference.
The problem with AdSense reaching the user, especially for any tech related blog or site, is that most techincal web surfers, school computers, etc. all have ad blocking software installed and AdSense is picked up by default for most applications these days.
Chitika ads actually show up to users who use FireFox and certain extensions until the user makes a manual configuration change. I think Internet advertising is going to require a technical overhaul pretty soon as users become more sophisticated - and more probably, default computer configurations become more sophisticated.
Brad D.
November 27th, 2005 10:20 am
The novelty will wear off fast. Just like any type of “new” media on the net. Remember the craze of those metalic borderles dhtml ads? They were fun and cool for 6 months then everyone realised they were annoying and ditched them.
I don’t want crazy ads on my site… so long as they give an option to only have text still I am happy.
Jeff
November 27th, 2005 10:46 am
This is really scary. I hope Google doesn’t implement this or if they do a lot of people don’t use it. I agree with you that the beauty of Google text ads is that they are non-obtrusive.
IO ERROR
November 27th, 2005 11:31 am
I went to take a look, and the animated backgrounds seem to be gone. I really can’t stand the look of that particular ad unit, and I wouldn’t permit it to run at my sites.
HART (1-800-HART)
November 27th, 2005 12:29 pm
Well, I never liked blinking text or background - anywhere - but there are some ads out there on some sites that are worse eyesores … with their background color choices.
But …. what if….
(1) google forgets the animation part
(2) changes the animated part into a plan watermark
(3) advertisers are able to embed their logo as well as their ad
Then .. would
(4) publishers like me get higher click thru rates?
Brandon
November 27th, 2005 2:21 pm
I agree with hagrin about surfers becoming more sophisticated.
You’re going to see ad companies constantly changing formats. I believe that surfers probably train their eyes to ignore the common ad formats such as 468×60 banners. I know I do.
Just a thought.
Brandon
Srinivasan R
November 27th, 2005 4:10 pm
What next?
“Punch the monkey and win $$$” kind of ads.
I hate it.
Jon
November 27th, 2005 4:36 pm
These are somewhat amazing, given the fuss that Google makes in their ToC to prevent publishers to do things like add arrows pointing to the ads or anything to draw undue attention to them, the would have to modifty the ToC with these and then it could be open season for abuse and their cred. could suffer.
Guide To Build Computer
November 27th, 2005 4:44 pm
With this, google is attracting the user’s attention to the ads. But this will not be effective in long run.
Regards
Krishna
Happy and Blue
November 27th, 2005 11:16 pm
Also can’t stand the animated ads. It detracts from the text. You try to read and something is flashing or moving. Usually I just move on to another site..
vivek
November 27th, 2005 11:41 pm
Very funny but I will never go for such ads. It sounds stupid to me
Handry
November 28th, 2005 1:04 am
Animated Ads?
I really can’t afford for using it.
Better use eye catching small images
christoph-hoerl.de | Weblog und Homepage von Christoph Hörl | Aninmiertes Google AdSense
November 28th, 2005 2:30 am
[…] Der Problogger berichtet, dass an mehreren Stellen in letzter Zeit Google Adsense mit Animationen aufgetaucht sind. Es sollen dezent blinkende Pfeile in den Hintergrund der Anzeige eingebunden werden. Eigentlich war der große Vorteil von AdSense, dass nichts blinkte, sondern nur Text angezeigt wurde. Momentan scheint diese Anzeigenart noch in der Testphase zu sein, da sie nur eine Auswahl an Nutzern anwenden können. […]
Tom Hanna - Financial Options
November 28th, 2005 7:38 am
When Adsense first started, one of the selling points was that text ads would battle “banner blindness”. They were supposed to be the answer to banners, graphics, animations, flash, etc. Now…Google’s come full circle to offering the thing Adsense was supposed to improve on.
Student
November 30th, 2005 6:07 am
Ya even i have seen many of these chitika ads
we hope adsense also comes up with mini malls
AdMoolah News and Views » Highlights From the Last Two Weeks
December 6th, 2005 1:32 pm
[…] Some animated backgrounds were spotted on AdSense ads. These ads had some animated arrows on them. See JenSense and ProBlogger for more coverage. […]
Kunal
February 20th, 2006 11:09 pm
well they have not placed these arrows on my site…buy have placed flash based ad
shwell
October 17th, 2007 1:04 pm
In my opinion, if a website contains animated ads then I have the right to block the ad via my anti-virus web blocker. Web site blocking is becomming more prevalent as users are becoming more tech savvy. Websites should take heed.
FernandezAlexia
November 6th, 2007 5:44 am
Thats a nice info.
But i feel, no one can beat Adsense.
Thanks a ton
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