Is it Possible to Generate Ad Revenue with Children’s Content Online?

Posted by Julia Casale-Amorim

Recently, I was asked to participate on a panel at the 2009 Children, Youth & Media Conference here in Toronto, put on by ACT (Alliance for Children and Television). While I was delighted to have been invited, I was left scratching my head on what could possibly be contributed to the session in question: Making Money with Multi-platform Kids Content – from an ad network’s perspective.

We have been approached countless times by the producers of some first-rate children’s content in search of advice on how to monetize their site portfolios online. Could they be part of our network? They certainly have the eyeballs. They have the quality content. They even have the offline brand power! So, why couldn’t we take them on as publishers?

They have the whole package it would seem, until you account for the fact that as producer’s of children’s content, they are attracting a very specific demographic: children, and therein lies the challenge. As an ad network, the vast majority of our advertising clients come to us looking to place their media in front of the eyeballs of buyers and purchase decision makers. One of the magnetic draws of online media, is its ability to measure, virtually in real time, how a campaign is converting views or clicks into actions – typically purchases.

In oversimplified terms, networks operate in an aggregate capacity. That means any publisher coming on as part of the network in a standard “blind” representation agreement, is sold as part of a larger group of sites. Networks are all about scale and reach to the general consumer population. We service the majority needs of the marketplace. We appeal to much the same clientele as broadcast TV and we need to offer content and audiences that satisfy their requirements.

The most coveted and in-demand demographic is adults 30+ – a far cry from the audiences represented by most children’s content.

What About Moms? Aren’t They the Holy Grail of Online Adverting?
So, getting back to the panel, I put my thinking cap on to see if there was any advice I could possibly offer to an audience of children’s content producers. A mom myself, I frequently watch children’s TV programming with my daughter and even go online with her from time to time to explore the interactive world of Sesame Street (among other children’s destinations).

The younger the child-targeted audience, the more likely that child is to be visiting your website with his or her parent (my daughter isn’t even two years old yet, but she absolutely loves going online with us – and certainly couldn’t do it on her own).

Moms are a lucrative segment that can really light up the eyes of advertisers. A campaign (say for diapers, children’s toys or a grocery item) targeted to moms on a site that promotes child-parent engagement could be very successful from a branding perspective. If however, a campaign’s objectives or success metrics are centered around brand engagement or “direct response”, this type of content – although providing direct access to the household decision maker, isn’t likely to achieve the desired results since moms aren’t going to leave an activity they are engaging in with their child to check out an ad or promotion or to download a coupon.

The Takeaway for Producer’s of Online Children’s Content
So is it possible to earn ad revenue online with children’s content? Yes! But so long as you approach your site’s development with an eye to how advertisers evaluate media placements up front and campaign performance after the fact.

The Success Determinant: Children’s content that requires parental engagement/participation (i.e. targeted to the toddlers – old enough to play with mom online, but not old enough to do it alone).

Ultimately, for an ad network to work with you there needs to be hefty advertiser demand for what you’re selling (your audience) and the environment and user behaviour on your site needs to be conducive to achieving the advertiser’s campaign objectives. It all comes down to:

• The target audience
• The campaign’s objectives (i.e. branding, or direct response)

If you can develop a website and audience following the tics the two requirements listed above and you can find an ad network partner that works with a large roster of clients who are looking specifically for venues through which to brand themselves to moms, then you stand a very real (and potentially lucrative) shot at making money with your online children’s content.

Good luck!

In Review: Advertising Week 2009

Posted by Julia Casale-Amorim

Photo courtesy of nytimes.com

The 6^th annual Advertising Week in NYC concludes today, and I think we can all agree that amidst the atmosphere of collaboration and unity, this year’s “meeting of minds” punctuated the historical significance that the years 2008 and 2009 have had on the unfolding direction and long-term future of the advertising and media industries.

Over the last year, economic challenges, social influences, and emerging digital platforms have all played a hefty role in shaping and foreshadowing the picture of advertising today, bringing us closer together as industry professionals, regardless of our individual pursuits and interests.

The notion of working together toward a common goal was strong and came as a refreshing change from the usual debate and controversy. Representatives from all sectors of advertising and media came together this week not only to reflect on the past, but to celebrate the collective progress we have made as an industry in the face of such tough economic times.

With over 200 events, conferences and expos planned and executed in tandem over the span of five days, Advertising Week was nothing short of chaotic. And while the usual “topics du jour” were present, digital media, the economy, brand advertising, and odes to agencies were the most prominently covered discussions.

IAB MIXX/OMMA Global
Two of the most well known promoters of online media awareness and education held their flagship conferences simultaneously (again…sigh). Aside from the inconvenience this posed for delegates hoping to experience both events, the conference producers each did a stellar job of programming their respective agendas. While MIXX focused heavily on the theme of social media including the “Twitter phenomenon” and Facebook, touching briefly on the creative aspects of online advertising, the emphasis at OMMA was on “making online advertising better” as it related to everything from user engagement and measurement to the social media revolution.

Mobile
The world of mobile made its debut at this year’s Advertising Week with the first ever Mobile Advertising Summit. Considering the recent iPhone and Blackberry “app” craze, it’s only a matter of time before Mobile fully emerges as a viable, in-demand advertising platform. Mobile was the hot topic even outside the summit, with most discussions throughout the week centering on how to make money from the platform – a puzzle that will need to be fully solved before the medium has a shot at competing against other digital heavyweights.

Case Studies
Case studies are the cement that, every year, binds all cross-sections of Advertising Week together.  Whether conveyed through formal presentations or casual anecdotes, case studies allow us to revisit and learn from past successes – not only are they inspirational, but they serve as an undeniable declaration of the progress we’ve made as an industry. From, the “History of Advertising in Times Square” and the “Best Global Brands Summit” to, “Google: Experiments in Digital Creativity” and “YouTube Battle of Brands”, case studies really helped establish the week’s peer-to-peer learning environment bringing theory and concept into practice.

Hopenhagen
The creative and strategy behind this globally significant multi-platform campaign were debuted at the Advertising Week Climate Change Symposium earlier this week. Hopenhagen brought together a string of the world’s top creative agencies who, through their collaborative efforts, have taken this wholly grassroots initiative to a first class level worthy of recognition on the world stage. Inspiring creative and messaging aside, it is truly heart-warming to see corporations with competing interests unite in support of such a worthy cause.

As Advertising Week comes to a close, much of the industry is left with an uplifting sense of hope, commitment, and achievement. The past five days of intensive discussion, analysis and debate proved that, no, we are not perfect – there is still much work to be done – but the challenges that lie ahead of us are not as daunting as we once thought, and our newfound sense of industry accord will pave the road for greater and better things to come.

Rethinking the Application of Behavioral Targeting

By Julia Casale-Amorim

With the intriguing concept and reported benefits of behavioral targeting (BT) so deeply entrenched in many marketers’ media plans, complacency over how this controversial form of targeting is actually conducted and the implications it can have from a branding perspective are all too often getting lost in the hype (and routine).

The basic principal of any online targeting method, including behavioral targeting or retargeting, is relatively simple. Sadly, it is commonplace for industry sellers of this technology to purposely “overcomplicate” these capabilities in an effort to “pull the wool over the eyes” of unsuspecting newcomers to the digital medium.

The major auto makers are infamous for their early adoption and devoted use of BT. Let’s take a moment to examine why?

Expanded Reach: BT provides an opportunity to reach “qualified” users on sites outside of the automotive segment where demand for inventory consistently surpasses supply, and where reach potential is fixed.

Reach to In-Market Buyers: BT provides an opportunity to reach auto intenders through both focused targeting (specific make/model/category) and general targeting (not model-specific) strategies.

Strong Metrics/Proof of Performance: It works and it’s backed by impressive purchase intent and brand favorability metrics (e.g. Dynamic Logic Studies).

BT Effectiveness – Some Thoughts and Questions to Ponder

How Fresh is the BT Data Being Used to Target Your Campaigns?
According to a 2009 study conducted by TNS Media, compression of the automotive research process is a major new industry development:

• 65% of in-market Vehicle Buyers (VB) indicated that they researched one month or less prior to purchase.
• 59% of New Vehicle Buyers (NVB) indicated they researched for one month or less prior to purchase.
• The closer to the time of purchase, the more effective media efforts were. In the one week leading up to purchase, 42% of NVB were referred by search to OEM sites compared with only 15% in the 3 months prior to purchase.

Today’s methods of behavioral targeting rely completely on the use of historical user data, which may not accurately reflect a consumer’s buying stage at the time of ad delivery. In the wake of a shortening automotive consideration window, how quickly does a BT vendor need to gather, process and refresh its profiles so that that data used to target against is accurate at the time of campaign delivery? What mechanism is used to eliminate consumers who have already purchased from the buyer pool?

What About Inventory Quality? Doesn’t that Matter Anymore?
Here’s another way to look at BT. BT can be a means to market “poor” inventory as “desirable” inventory through the exploitation of data gathered through controversial profiling tactics. Marketers put so much focus on BT that the entire concept of quality and inventory source is being lost. Inventory is not so cut and dried as BT vendors make it out to be. There are countless factors that contribute to the success of any single ad placement, which are often overlooked during insular BT discussions:

• Is the ad even visible on the page (i.e. above the fold?) How can an ad reach the intended audience if it is not seen?
• When was the ad delivered? If the user has been stationed in front of a website for two hours and has been exposed to hundreds of different ads, at which point he/she is then served a behaviorally-targeted ad, will it be remembered? Will it even be noticed?
• What is being served (content or otherwise) alongside the ads? Are the ads in good company? Is the advertiser jeopardizing the perceived value and status of its own brand by being delivered on a website or alongside other advertisements that are not of the same caliber? Think “belly fat” ads on un-moderated generic message boards.

The Multi-User, Multi-Platform Conundrum
BT relies on the placement of a profiling cookie on a computer. That cookie is used to collect information about a user’s browsing behavior.

BT is an imperfect science. There is simply no way to substantiate and verify exactly which set of eyes is currently placed in front of any given computer screen at any given time. The notion of blindly placing media on a site based on the “user profile” of a computer is just that – blind and, at best, inefficient.

Proprietors of BT reportedly go to great lengths to establish profiles on individuals in an effort to predict their buying patterns and exploit them. The data collected on a user typically comes from a single or mere source and the sample size is usually far too small to provide an accurate portrait of any one person’s buying habits. The profile outcome is just too subjective and cannot be interpreted with a high degree of accuracy.

The assumption that is made by BT is that only a single user is responsible for the “behavior” of a solitary machine. That assumption immediately encounters issues when you consider that a vast number of users actually only rent computer time at internet cafes or that entire families may share access to the Web through a single household computer. How, then, can BT be truly qualified as a viable and accurate information gathering and targeting method?

Beyond Targeting: Where Does Optimization Fit into the BT Equation?
Even if BT were a perfect science (which it is not), the notion of optimizing your BT media spend is still a valid point. What does a BT vendor do to optimize the placement of your campaign and the performance of your media spend?

The Consumer Privacy Debate and Putting all of One’s Eggs in a Single Basket
BT is currently under close scrutiny by a number of federal regulatory agencies and can therefore be assured to be subject to certain government regulation in the near future. There is no saying how this may predict the method’s future (for good or for bad).

Having all of one’s eggs in the BT basket may not be the strongest position in which a marketer can reside. It is no secret that many media buyers are not presently concerned about BT privacy issues, and have no plans to curtail their use of BT until the FTC restricts it – but what will they do when that happens, especially if they have had no prior experience with BT-free alternatives?

Prepared planners may want to consider testing alternatives now in preparation for what the future will hold. Many of them will be pleasantly surprised to see that there is no performance difference between BT and many BT-free alternatives. It is important to note that dynamic response-based optimization combined with premium high-visibility inventory can actually be a far smarter (and superior) approach to BT – a fact that can only be verified through testing.

Am I Suggesting that BT is Bad?

BT is not always bad, and this is by no means what I am suggesting. What I am suggesting is that putting all of your spend into BT alone is bad. It’s risky – the practice may not be around forever. It’s tunnelled – there are qualified buyers and prospects online that BT does not provide access to. And, it’s potentially a barrier to improved performance since using only one tactic offers not point of reference or comparison.

In Search of Options Beyond the Ad Network “Daisy-Chain”

By Julia Casale-Amorim

In case you happened across the article, “Breaking The Daisy Chain” published earlier this week in MediaPost, I wanted to take this opportunity to make you aware that there are premium, direct ad network options available to you and so there is absolutely no need to settle for or risk compromising the efficiency of your clients’ budgets or the safety of their brands by working with networks that purport the daisy-chaining model.

Of course, there are countless ad networks that blindly book high budget campaigns (to ensure that they secure the deal) without consideration for their own available volumes. When shortfalls occur, which they inevitably do, the network in question then looks to other networks or third-parties to fill the void. In many cases, this is unbeknownst to the agency.

In these all too common scenarios, it is the client who loses out.

Involvement of third-parties compromises the ability to efficiently target/optimize, and depending on the setup, can destroy that capability all together, severely hampering media efficiency and ROI.

Of perhaps greater concern, the practice of daisy-chaining can greatly compromise brand safety. There is an inevitable loss of control with each added link in the chain. There is no true guarantee of transparency. Control over frequency and placement is lost. Standards and guidelines are near impossible to discern, as what is reported by the network from who you purchase may not be reflective of the standards held by all vendors in the chain. Ultimately, as the cliché goes, it is the weakest link that dictates performance, quality and risk.

Our Perspective
We consider the practice of “trading” inventory with other networks to be unacceptable and a poor reflection on the ad network category. This is not the way that we do business, nor is it a practice that we feel should become synonymous with the ad network model.

When we book budgets, our bookings are based on actual network impression availability. Our bookings are all guaranteed. This means that in some cases, we must propose less than the volume clients seek.

We are exclusively direct with all of our publishers; we respect and understand the importance and value of this approach. We never procure inventory through indirect sources. We operate in this manner to ensure that we can assume 100% culpability over the campaigns that we execute. This gives us complete control over inventory selection, placement, targeting and optimization – all vital aspects to campaign management that we can pass on to our clients.

Daisy-chaining is not a reality that agencies have to settle for. There are premium direct alternatives available that can deliver complete control over brand safety and optimization.

We are currently working with the IAB to help establish a set of standards and guidelines for categorizing ad networks based on how their inventory is acquired and vetted. Networks will have the opportunity to become certified against these guidelines. It is our hope that this program will create an environment that promotes transparency, and that it will help agencies by revealing that there are different ad network options available, so that they can make informed decisions about their vendor selection choices, based on the specific requirements of their clients.

You can learn more about the IAB Standards Working Group and inquire about getting involved by visiting: http://www.iab.net.

The Death of Ad Networks: Fact from Fiction

By Julia Casale-Amorim

Hundreds of ad network infants (founded in the last two to three years – a.k.a. the ad network bubble) all began with a similar objective: work with publishers and advertisers to maximize buying efficiency and inventory yield.

Despite this clear, seemingly sound objective, the mass proliferation of ad networks has lead to tremendous inefficiency and a tarnished perception of the value and “place” ad networks set out to occupy at the inception of their kind – effectively rebranding the ad network as “Chief Inventory Commoditizer”. While this label may be fitting for some networks, it is certainly not appropriate for all… Read the whole story >

Attention Flash Ad Designers: What You Need to Know About IE8s Pop-Up Blocker and Your File Encoding Settings

By Julia Casale-Amorim

Part of our standard process for getting campaigns live on our network involves the thorough pre-launch QA testing of all creative and landing pages. During this process, we recently discovered a major issue with Flash creative encoded using legacy publish settings.

Problem
The pop-up blocker in Internet Explorer 8 will block the landing page of any Flash creative published with the following legacy settings:

Player: Flash Player 7 or earlier
Script: Action Script 1.0

Solution
You can easily fix this issue by re-encoding your Flash creative with the following updated publish settings (publish settings can be viewed and updated at File > Publisher Settings > Flash Tab):

Player: Flash Player 8
Script: ActionScript 2.0

Adoption of the IE 8 browser is on the rise and so IE 8 compliance is becoming a valid concern. Many ads are still being encoded incorrectly or haven’t been regenerated in a long time.

The good news: re-encoding is a quick and simple process that doesn’t require any modification to your ads.

Is Prime Time a Dying Concept?

By Julia Casale-Amorim

There was a time when you could run a 30-second prime-time television spot and be virtually guaranteed to reach the coveted 18- to 49-year-old audience any weekday of the year in droves. These days, the notion of daypart targeting as it relates to broadcast television is not quite so cut and dried. Consumers are rapidly embracing the flexibility and ubiquity of digital media. They are going online to consume programming on their own terms. … Read the whole story >

The Banner: An Easy Target

By Julia Casale-Amorim

A personally bothersome topic that I encounter surprisingly often is the notion that consumers largely ignore the banner advertisements that appear on the websites they visit. Really? Are we purporting that something that occupies a significant portion of a user’s screen or that is embedded within the content being consumed isn’t seen? Doesn’t register? Amounts to insignificant branding value?

Are there cases where this statement is factually correct? Yes, absolutely. But such cases are more often the exception than the norm. Nonetheless, they certainly make it easy for one to pick on the banner. Consider the following examples:

1. Below-the-fold banners: these ads are rarely ever seen and therefore offer little to no advertising value.  
2. A gallery of photos: small banners placed alongside a collection of large colourful photos represent wasted exposure. Users are so focused on scrolling through the gallery that the second or two of potential ad exposure is often lost on engagement with the “next” button.

Occurrences like this can skew studies and, as we have all seen, can greatly influence industry opinion of the banner. To me, the above examples are better cases for banner misuse than they are cases against banner performance. These examples do not inevitably indicate a failure in the medium (or the message for that matter), but in the method. And, let’s not forget that the misapplication of any advertising medium can result in a similar outcome (surely McDonald’s would not promote the launch of a new product in the classifieds section of a magazine, but that is not to say that print is an ineffective medium). 

So, who are the enablers of this misconception? Partly to blame are those publishers who allow ads to be delivered to poor performing locations on their sites. Equally guilty are advertisers who fail to screen their buys for such undesirable placements. Understanding the dynamics of how a user engages with content (be it on the web, on television, in a magazine) is of paramount importance to the planning and success of any campaign.   

A recent study by iProspect emphasized the obvious fact that clicking on an online display ad is not the only way to respond. The basis for the study was a survey conducted by Forrester Consulting. Here’s a summary of the findings:

• 31% of respondents said they responded to display ads by clicking on them
• 27% of respondents said they responded to display ads by doing a search for the product, brand or company
• 21% of respondents said they “typed the company Web address into browser and navigated to site”
• 9% reported that they investigated the product, brand or company through social media message boards

In my opinion, that’s a pretty amazing response picture. A smart planner could use this information to formulate a thoughtful cross-media strategy with the banner at center stage.

Those whose view of display advertising performance is centered on clicks and CTR are really missing the point. Online display is far more measurable than any traditional medium, be it print, radio, TV or outdoor. Our ability to measure it in a way we cannot measure any other medium does necessitate that we restrict our view of its performance to that metric alone.

The whole premise of brand advertising is to expose potential consumers to your product so that they can become familiar with you and your offering (and eventually buy). Remarkably, the study also indicated that people were more likely to purchase a product through a display ad if they were already familiar with the company; it’s not rocket science!

Display drives search and latent conversion in the same way that a TV or billboard ad does. I see the ad, I take note of it (if the offer or creative is compelling to me), and then at a later time when it’s convenient, I’ll look it up.

Have we lost sight of the all important sales metric? Isn’t that really what this all boils down to? We advertise, ultimately to generate more sales. If your program is delivering positive ROI, then something is obviously working regardless of your CTR.

Here are a few insights I can share from the network’s perspective:

• Well known household brands who have already established equity with consumers are likely to see higher display CTRs than companies whose brand/products are new and unfamiliar. This is a fact we witness daily on the network.
• Targeted display campaigns that run in conjunction with offline flights are likely to see higher CTRs. Ditto; witnessed daily on our network, and no doubt across all other venues used on the media plan.

Whether your campaign objective is direct response or merely exposure, you will inevitable get a brand lift out of your display efforts. Consumers purchase products form companies with which they are familiar and in which they believe. It is very challenging to create that type of connection without display.

Advertising is an organic process, as much as it is scientific and research based. Not every effort will result in an immediately discernable ROI. Sometimes, you need to step back and evaluate the big picture of your efforts and how everything interrelates (rather than micro-analyzing the individual components of your plan).

Here are a few simple tips for using display effectively to achieve brand response objectives:

• Recognize that banners make a great hub for your efforts.
• Time your online display campaigns with offline initiatives.
• Develop search and social media strategies that compliment your core campaign focus to capitalize on the multiple response patters that will spawn from exposure to your display ads.
• Make reference to current promotions on your corporate or brand website.

And for the publisher community, my tip to you is to be more objective about the locations in which you place your banners. Don’t allow these decisions to be driven solely by short-term dollars and cents. If you are placing banners in areas of your site that offer little value to advertisers, you are simultaneously harming the perceived value of your inventory.

If you don’t have a frame of reference for which placements are valuable and which are not, then ask an ad network – we do this every day! And if ad positioning decisions are controlled by your web design team (aesthetics vs. value), then push for more say in the process. Your efforts here will pay off in spades down the road.

Are your display ads in good company?

By Julia Casale-Amorim

The topic of brand safety online has been one of much lively discussion in recent months. A lot of this chatter is being spawned by the influx of brand advertisers dipping their toes into network waters as they endeavour to further optimize the media dollars that get invested into online campaigns.

Much of the dialogue surrounding “brand safe” has centered on networks’ publisher rosters, their quality screening procedures, their ability to provide complete transparency, the sources of their inventory, yada yada yada. And some discussions are now going so far as to investigate the ways in which networks are targeting ads. Targeting tactics that are currently under review by bodies like the FTC are stirring valid concern from advertisers who are fearful of potential consumer backlash.

One topic that seems to have been missed all together is the nature and quality of the advertising that shows up alongside yours when you run a display campaign online. Sure, your campaign might be running on a trusted, brand name website known for publishing high quality content that reaches your audience and complements your brand; and the ads might be served using privacy friendly methods.

But, what about the other ads being displayed on that site?

Shouldn’t the notion of “brand safe” extend outside content and to the ads a site places as well? Aren’t they technically part of the site’s content? Some publishers…scratch that…some very well regarded, brand name publishers are allowing distasteful advertising to appear on their properties in attempts to boost earnings in an uncertain economy. Unfortunately, in doing so, they are not only degrading the quality of inventory on their sites, but in the long term, their reputations as prominent online brands.

The unfortunate corollary to this activity is that many brand conscious advertisers are placing campaigns on these “reputable, high-quality” sites, doing their due diligence to safeguard their brands, only to find their ads showing up alongside tacky “reduce belly fat” and “teeth whitening” messaging, to name a few recent examples.

So, my advice to brands advertising on networks, look a little deeper into the methods these vendors use to screen publishers and don’t be blinded by a site list of top notch brands. Are the ads publishers allow to run on their sites part of the screening procedure? Is this something that can be controlled in the targeting process?

To networks, consider adding this important screen to your QA methods, as a means to further validate the quality of your offering. Don’t just accept any advertiser into your network. Vet the product, vet the company, vet the creative. It’s your reputation that’s on the line.

And to publishers, think twice about what ads you approve to run on your property. In this wonderfully rich digital universe where there exist so many options among which to choose, you really need to do everything that you can to preserve the quality of your site, the integrity of your brand, and the value of your inventory.

Would you wait 30 seconds to read this post?

By Julia Casale-Amorim

Online media is about user-controlled experiences, but now you’ll need to wait to read that news article or get your local forecast, at least according to David Payne of ShortTail Media.

As published today in MediaWeek, ShortTail will initiate a beta test of the “Digital 30”, a full-screen, deliberately intrusive placement built to showcase traditional 15- and 30-second TV spots. Like an interstitial, this video ad will load between web pages.

Now the article didn’t indicate whether the ads could be skipped over like an interstitial, but it hinted that viewers will be tested for their tolerance to view full length spots.

Does this intrusive ad unit have a future online? Last time I checked the interstitial was a dying breed.

Far from new, the interstitial was first adopted towards the end of the last decade and has been used on and off by various publications ever since. It never actually died, but it’s never seen much consistent adoption either, most notably because it can have a negative effect on the user experience offered by publishers that support it.

While I agree completely with Payne that that we need to embrace bigger, bolder creative online, I don’t agree that in doing so, we should become less sensitive to the user-experience. A positive user experience is paramount to successful advertising in the social media era.

Online media is about engagement and interactivity. Not about disruption and spoon fed advertising content.

Just as easily as someone can point their browser to your site, they can point it elsewhere. And with the blogosphere as active as it is today, there’s a good chance that your article is available elsewhere, perhaps in a summarized version with commentary.

As soon as you disrupt your relationship with users and send them elsewhere to find their content, you risk losing them; they may learn that they like that new source better and keep going back. So, even if you pull that damaging ad unit off your site, you might be hard pressed to fully recover your audience. Don’t give users any more excuses to leave your site than they already have!

Large video-capable units that run alongside content don’t disrupt users or make them wait for content, but instead create an opportunity to engage with them on their own terms.

Television has always been a passive medium and the disruptive 30-second spot works well in that model. Online media is dynamic and user controlled; traditional tactics applied “as-is” just don’t fit the bill.

Does the 30-second spot make sense for online? Sure it does! But not in the form of an intrusive interstitial. To be successful it needs to be reinterpreted and applied within a socially-minded, user-focused context.

If we’re going to start thinking up new ad units, let’s think up ones that take advantage of today’s richer, more dynamic Web, and the ways in which consumers interact with it.