By now, you might have seen my post on SEMRush on why remarketing needs to change, but just ads, as a whole, are getting out of hand. Not only do I have to deal with pop-ups (which some of my clients have; I still don’t agree with) to sign up for new products or newsletters, I also now have to deal with monstrosities like this:
WTF? This ad is LITERALLY half of the website above the fold. You can’t even see the article I had clicked over to read. You might even need to click it to enlarge, to see the majesty.
You have to mouse over it to get it to even fold up to the corner of the page.
There has to be a better way to do advertising. While sometimes I accidentally click on the background when SEJ has a “sponsor takeover” (e.g. the background is clickable and there’s a banner ad on the sidebar), it’s definitely not as intrusive as this lobster fiasco:
In this example, SEO PowerSuite is the advertiser. There’s no mistake it’s an add, but it doesn’t obstruct my view to see the rest of the content. I think this needs to be the route that ads taken. You don’t need to make users click or rollover something to make it stop (I’m talking to you, auto-play video ads).
By incorporating it as part of the design, it makes more seamless, and thus much less likely to get a negative reaction from the users. It also makes the users respect the website more, due to the fact that they weren’t willing to subject their loyal audience to pop-ups on every page, or ads that completely take over 50% over the fold and require me to do something (e.g. move my mouse) to make it stop.
The bottom line: users shouldn’t have to do something to make something stop. That is not true engagement. Advertisers need to step up their game.
Screenshots taken July 22, 2014. Featured image via Pixabay.
Kelsey Jones
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