Must Read: Advertising Observations

[Michelle]

Internet advertising firm Doubleclick said on an analysis done earlier this year that only 4-5 people out of a thousand visitors click on Internet Ads.

Eyetrack III likewise conducted a survey and let 46 respondents view mock websites with different ad formats and presentation in it. Below are some of the observations drawn from the said study that can influence you the next time you place some ads in your website.

1. People avoid looking directly at various ads while looking at other types; performance really depends on placement.
In Web advertising, there is really such thing as "invisibility effect".In some cases eyes fixated close enough to the ads to be able to view them in peripheral vision; in other cases they looked at ads directly;
and in many cases, they didn't see them at all. And placement of ads mattered a lot

2. Visual breaks in design serve as barriers to seeing ads.
Respondents tend to avoid looking at ads with either white space or border placed between the ad and the written content.These conditions seem to be a great barrier that stops ads from being viewed by visitors.

3. Advertisements that blend into the look and feel of the web page attract more eyes and are most likely to be clicked.
Ads that has approximately the same or is somewhat closed to the background as the rest of the page receives more attention and eye fixations that any other format.

4. In Web advertising, size does matter; half-page types works well.
The best performing banners are those sized 368 x 850 pixels, followed by the 300 x 250 pixels.

5. Ads placed or closer to the top left part of the page are generally viewed first before ads elsewhere.

[mini_0]

Very true , Your ad placement can significantly influence the click throughs . Don’t simply look for a block of empty space on your site and drop the ad in. The content of your site is what the ad content is keying off of. So it is important to integrate the two as closely as possible. We’ve all seen the ads that flash and move, while they might attract your attention initially, many savvy users will simply tune them out, instead focusing on the content of site. So do yourself a favor and integrate the ad into your content. Take advantage of Google’s color customization options.