Liz Strauss at Successful Blog

Thinking, writing, business ideas … You’re only a stranger once.

October 23, 2006

6 Reasons Readers Don’t Click Your Ads and What to Do about It

ME Liz Strauss wrote this at 11:03 am

Busted!

Customer Think Logo

Last night I did something that I found curious. Here’s what happened.

I was writing a piece and I needed to think. To get some space, I put the idea on hold, while I clicked over to check my stats. I’d hardly started, when a comment came in on Successful-Blog. I went back to talk about the Jolly Green wearing PayPerPost on his chest.

That done, I returned to my stats, but the window was partly covered.

By accident I clicked on an ad!

Oh no! Not that! Busted!

Someone Already Knew

The second the ad came up, I automatically looked away. NO! I’m not an ad clicker. No, no no! I needed out of there right away!

I looked around for a witness to my reckless clicking. No one here saw. Still I knew Some place, somewhere, in some stats, someone already had tracked me there.

Then I had an epiphany. Okay, I woke up.

What Was I Thinking?

What was this self-imposed ad rule about? It doesn’t cost me to click an ad, and yet for some reason, I think it’s smarter to check the website and go there direct. Talk about taking the long way home. WHY? Suddenly I had that and three more reasons to break my rule.

So what was I thinking up to now?

Reasons I Didn’t Click Ads

Last night, I stopped myself from leaving to look at the ad I had landed on. I saw that had I gotten there via a link from a friend, I might have called that service a GREAT FIND.

Here’s that epiphany . . . I was missing out by not clicking ads. It was time to reconsider my no ad behavor. It was time to ask Why do I avoid clicking ads with a passion? Here’s what I found. I don’t click ads because . . .

  1. I believe the product or service won’t be what’s advertised.
  2. I don’t have time to check out new things.
  3. I know that ad click makes me a statistic in a metrics report.
  4. Ads placed where I have to navigate to avoid them, have led me to feel that if I click it will make me a sheep who got caught.
  5. My focus is earning to pay off a university, not spending on stuff I didn’t know I want.
  6. Recent talk of click fraud makes me feel creepy.

Think about it. Do you avoid clicking ads as a hard and fast rule? Do different kinds of ads bring a different kind of response? Is there a time or a product that will get you to seek out ads to click?

What can you do?

The best way to change another person’s behavior is to change your own. Why not you offer readers information to let them decide whether they want to change clicking rules?

You can’t and shouldn’t ask readers to click your ads — a blog is about helping not hyping — but you can make a page that lets readers know your advertising strategy and where they fit in the mix. An Advertising Page can

  1. Explain your overall ad strategy.
  2. Describe how that strategy is in keeping with your brand.
  3. Let readers know how you chose the ad programs you did.
  4. Underscore how you considered their needs in your choices.
  5. Explain how each product or ad program works and why you offer it.

By sharing the how, what, and why that you’ve planned and considered, you can let readers know that the ads you put are worth checking out. It’s one more way of showing that everything that you do has customers at the center.

A page like that is a great resource for other bloggers, as well. Simply the act of building an ad strategy page brings your own thoughts back to how well your choices serve your readers, your business, and your brand.

What have we done lately to make our customers, our clients, our readers life easier? Everything we do always comes back to that.

– ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
Don’t Hijack My Attention
Customer Solve Your Own Problem
10 Reasons Readers Don’t Leave Comments





Filed under Blog Review, Successful Blog |




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31 Comments to “6 Reasons Readers Don’t Click Your Ads and What to Do about It”

  1. October 23rd, 2006 at 11:31 am
    Chris Cree said

    If it’s a site I want to support and if it’s an ad I find remotely interesting I’m happy to click away. I figure if it is interesting enough to catch my eye than whoever owns the blog might as well get a couple cents while I look and see where the ad that caught my eye takes me.

    I rarely buy when I click on an ad. But then I hardly ever buy when I watch an ad on TV either, so what’s the difference? The advertiser is still raising their awareness with me so I figure they are getting what they paid for either way.

  2. October 23rd, 2006 at 11:37 am
    ME Strauss said

    Hey Chris,
    There’s some interesting new stuff coming out lately that I’ve been ignoring because I won’t click on ads. Pretty silly huh?

    Your attitude is much more sane than mine. I wonder how I got thinking that way.

  3. October 23rd, 2006 at 11:47 am
    Big Roy said

    I purposefully avoid clicking ads on blogs/sites that seem to push it. I especially hate Google ads in the middle of posts. Ad placement and choice to me is important in deciding what a blogger is focusing on, readers or bucks.

    Some ads can be helpful. For instance your ad about Visual Thesaurus looks like a great product. I haven’t bought it yet, but I’m thinking about and may pull the trigger in the future. I had never heard of such a product and it was nice to find it. The ad is also very relevant to the readers of this blog. If you find me using big colorful words in posts you know I bought it.

  4. October 23rd, 2006 at 11:50 am
    ME Strauss said

    HI Big Roy,
    You just echoed my sentiments. I can’t stand it when I have to read around ads to find the next line of text I’m supposed to be on. Certain sites do that as a regular thing and I find it ugly as well as without class.

    I figure I only have so much room here, so I should use it for what I would be proud to show you if you came to my house.

  5. October 23rd, 2006 at 12:25 pm
    TechZ said

    I can’t rememeber (I think it was Doug Karr’s blog), where he shows us a prominent sites ad placement, basically the content was a TINY box and the rest of the page was just ads. I don’t click ads myself, mostly because I use a host file and block them, thereby preventing them from loading in the first place, it also blocks malware/spyware.

    On the rare occasion I do click ads, is not because its flashy, but its something I might require.

  6. October 23rd, 2006 at 12:29 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hi TechZ.
    Advertisers have done a great job of teaching us not to pay attention to them. Haven’t they? Now, we can take our time and put our attention only where we feel the need.

    That’s really how it should have been all along. TV had a lot to do with getting the idea in the wrong order, I think.

  7. October 23rd, 2006 at 1:28 pm
    John Dodds said

    I agree completely - I’ve still not clicked on a site-based ad in all my years online and wonder when or if advertisers are going to realise this. The implications, if they do, will be quite significant to say the least.

    P.S.There must be something in the water today because yours is the second consecutive piece to which I’ve been directed by regular blog feeds and both have had headline typos. I wonder if this is a new attention attracting device?

  8. October 23rd, 2006 at 1:34 pm
    ME Strauss said

    John,
    Welcome,
    You’re new or you would know that my eyes and my brain often don’t get along. :)

    Obviously someone is clicking those Google and Amazon ads, because Google particularly is doing fine OR maybe it’s just the structure of their keywords system that keeps them together. I don’t know.

    But there are folks who make large ammounts of spendable currency with those little ugly things. Go figure.

    I need to fix the title of this post. :)
    Thanks for that.

  9. October 23rd, 2006 at 2:03 pm
    Chris Cree said

    I guess I’m not a such a blogging purist to be offended by ads. I still read magazines that place ads in the articles. So it doesn’t offend me to read blogs that have them.

    I read for content. If there is no content and all ads, then I’ll quickly move on anyway (just as I do with a paper magazine). But Problogger.net is a good example of a blog that has ads in the text. Darren’s content is usually good enough that I don’t much care.

    Of course I often read most of my blogs via RSS, so it isn’t much of an issue anyway at this point.

  10. October 23rd, 2006 at 2:11 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Chris,
    I don’t ads you can jump over. I mind the ad you have to literally wind your eyes around. They make me crazy trying to see. :)

  11. October 23rd, 2006 at 2:33 pm
    Chris Cree said

    I’m with you. I don’t like annoying ads. Subtle is good in my book.

    Oh, and if you weren’t feeling guilty enough today…

    When you deliberately dodge the ad and go directly to the advertiser’s web site on your own, you are actually cheating the blog or site that was kind enough to refer you to the advertiser. I used to do the same thing.

    Then I got over myself. In my case it was just pure pride that kept me from clicking on ads. :)

  12. October 23rd, 2006 at 2:38 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Chris,
    Yeah I think mine was pride too. I just didn’t realize that I was doing that. It sort of took me right off my chair last night when I caught myself, feeling bad that I clicked on ad.

    I had to get to the psychology behind what I was doing. It’s always fun when I psyche myself out. :)

  13. October 23rd, 2006 at 2:44 pm
    katiebird said

    I rarely click on ads. Mainly because I know I’m not going to buy anything :)

    But, I sort of like seeing them on sites — they add an element of interactivity and visual diversity that makes a site seem ‘fun’ to me. Like there are presents lurking just under the surface.

    I think that split, I don’t click/I love them, has made me a little goofey about the ads on my site. I like seeing them there (I’d like it even more if I made money from them) but I know that I probably wouldn’t think to click on them….

    So I put them up and take them off (It must be confusing for my readers)

    Liz, I LOVE the idea of writing an Advertising page. It would give me a chance to think through my feelings in addition to letting everyone know how I choose which ones are there.

    Thank you so much (Yesterday was a put the ads back day — so they’re all over my site!)

  14. October 23rd, 2006 at 2:46 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Thanks, Katie,
    Now I just have to follow my own advice. :)

  15. October 23rd, 2006 at 2:48 pm
    katiebird said

    I was going to ask where it was hiding…

  16. October 23rd, 2006 at 2:49 pm
    ME Strauss said

    It’s hiding right here — inside my head. :)

  17. October 23rd, 2006 at 3:36 pm
    Big Roy said

    On the advertising page idea. I flirted with that idea on my blog with books. Making an entire page with Amazon links to different books mentioned on my site. Ultimately I decided against it. But it’s still a good idea. Especially if the products/books/software were related to Successful Blogging. I could see it as a resource and the go-to place in the Blogging community, if done right. Of course I have faith in you Liz to do it right.

  18. October 23rd, 2006 at 3:52 pm
    ME Strauss said

    HI Roy,
    I was thinking more of a page that explained the advertising strategy, but one that did both might also be cool. :)

  19. October 23rd, 2006 at 8:24 pm
    Chris Cree said

    Hey Roy, you can check out the WP plugin Now Reading if you want a good way to present books with Amazon.com info. You can see it in action in the Library section of my blog (links in the left sidebar). I modified it a bit to present the info the way I wanted it to.

    In fact I just remembered that there are a couple of other changes I wanted to make…

  20. October 23rd, 2006 at 8:29 pm
    Martin said

    Liz, I think an Advertising strategy page is a grand idea.

    It’s a great way to include the reader and make them feel more attached to the brand of your blog (being totally open and honest with your readers is the way to go today) … so I’m taking your idea and running with it. :)

  21. October 23rd, 2006 at 8:33 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Martin,
    I would expect nothing less. Go for it. :)
    Now I have to do my own.

    Are you coming to the party? And hey where’s your 25 words writer man?

  22. October 23rd, 2006 at 8:34 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Chris,
    That sounds so cool. I’m coming over to see it too.

  23. October 23rd, 2006 at 8:50 pm
    Rick Cockrum said

    My brain hurts.

    I occasionally click on an ad if it has a product in which I’m interested. I would like to credit the referrer if I buy.

    I do have a reading page, with books I think are important for my space, and the links to the ones I don’t host are Amazon links, which I note. I think such a page is helpful. I really like the plugin Chris uses.

    A page about my advertising strategy? One part of me feels like it’s an apology for putting ads on the site. Another part wonders who cares. A third part says be open about why I’m doing what I’m doing.

    My brain hurts.

  24. October 23rd, 2006 at 8:55 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Rick,
    Don’t make your brain hurt.

    All I would say is . . . the products I chose are chose by these criteria. x y z

    Then, I chose the Visual Thesaurus because when I first saw it I was intrigued and after I used it a while I thought this might something writers who come here might find a use for.

    That sort of thing — an About Page for your products. :)

  25. October 23rd, 2006 at 9:20 pm
    Rick Cockrum said

    I’ve been thinking about something like this for potential advertisers. Maybe the two purposes would mesh.

  26. October 23rd, 2006 at 9:22 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Gosh, Rick, that’s an even better idea!

  27. October 24th, 2006 at 10:41 am
      Why Readers Don’t Click Ads and What to Do About It by Blogging Pro said

    [...] Liz Strauss realized something in her recent accidental click on an advertisement: it’s not such a bad thing. [...]

  28. October 29th, 2006 at 12:54 pm
    whoa said

    For me it’s not ads in between the content (that’s how they generate specific context for their ads) but when they do it so it looks like something that it’s not.
    There are a few tutorial websites where you want to see each item on the list of tutorials, but then you click on this or that link that was totally in between the list, formatted as a part of it but it did not contain a tutorial but an ad… I usually report to adsense this abuses because they prohibit to do so.

  29. October 29th, 2006 at 2:22 pm
    ME Strauss said

    I agree with you, Whoa. To me that’s just misleading. In fact it comes close to fraud in my book — it’s just missing the fact that I had to pay to find out they “lied” to me.

    You’re right to report it.

  30. November 1st, 2006 at 2:26 pm
    Coletânea de links por Bruno Alves said

    [...] 6 Reasons Readers Don’t Click Your Ads and What to Do about It [...]

  31. December 12th, 2006 at 10:37 am
    Lost Wolf Productions » Blog Archive » Successful Blog - 6 Reasons Readers Don’t Click Your Ads and What to Do about It said

    [...] Successful Blog - 6 Reasons Readers Don’t Click Your Ads and What to Do about It [...]

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