Where to place targeted ad's

[Gajandra D]

In a single website where content is king, where would you place an ad that targets the content or is content specific. A lot of sites generally place the ad which is relevant to the content very close or wrapped around the content. This is becoming more and more popular because those type of ads seem to have the best results and success.

Rectangular Ads such as 300x250 enjoy good placement in or around the middle of the site because you can always accommodate the the content around the ads. Similiarly banner ads have to be placed on the side of the content thus losing out on the attention pie of the customer. Same goes for the leaderboard ads that cannot be placed too close to the content. So how do you exactly come up with the right formula for placing content specific ads. Well for starters I think you will have to calculate exactly how much of free space versus content you have to play with and come up with the right size and placement to get the most effective ad placement. In some cases you might have to stagger the content and provide placement in between without distracting the customer. How effective this will be depends on how rich your content would be.

[David Tan]

A targeted ad wrapped by relevant and interesting content will be more effective... or will it?

I'm just playing here, but what if the article is so good and so interesting that I focus only on reading it. I read from top to bottom, bypassing the ad by reading around it and ignoring it completely (especially if every article has an ad placed in the exact side or position).

So what's the answer... write articles that are less interesting?

Actually, it is to write articles that generate interest for the product/service featured in the banner ad. Don't just write interesting articles. Write articles that make people want something. It should create a desire. The stronger the desire, the more the reader will go back to the ad.