Page 218 - Electronic Commerce

Marketing on the Web

added interactive effects by writing Java programs that could respond to a user’s click
with some action (other than simply loading the advertiser’s page into the browser). Some
of these interactive ads even act like miniature video games.
Some designers created banner ads that appear to be dialog boxes in the hope that
confused users would click them. Several examples of this type of banner ad are shown in
Figure 4-7. These ads are designed to induce users to click a button in the ad to fix the 193
“error,” but the banners actually link to Web sites or begin installing a program on the
user’s computer.

FIGURE 4-7 Disguised banner ads

Text Ads
An ad format that is simple but effective is the text ad. A text ad is a short promotional
message that does not use any graphic elements and is usually placed along the top or right
side of a Web page. Google was the first company to use text ads successfully on the Web.
Google places text ads on its search results pages. When you visit Google and use it to
search for information, the page that provides the links relevant to your search query
includes short text ads for products or services related to your search query. Google found
that these ads were less obtrusive than banner ads and that they were very effective because
they reached people who were interested in learning more about something (as reflected in
the search query they had entered) related to the advertisers’ products or services.
Text ads were so unobtrusive that Google was criticized when it first included them
on its pages. Observers noted that site visitors might not be able to distinguish the paid
ads from the search results. In response to this criticism, Google and most other search
sites that use text ads now clearly label the ads with language such as “sponsored links” to
prevent users from being confused. The use of text ads was one of the innovations that
helped Google become one of the leading search sites on the Web. It gave Google an
effective way to earn money while providing users with a useful search experience.
A number of sites that provide information use text ads in another way by turning
some of the text in the stories they display into hyperlinks that lead to advertisers’ sites.
This type of advertising is called an inline text ad. Newspaper, magazine, and other sites
that users commonly visit to learn more about a topic often use this technique. For
example, a newspaper site might have a story about local banks. Banks that are
mentioned in the story could have their names presented in the story as links to ads for
the banks’ services. The newspaper would charge the advertising banks a fee for placing
the link in the story.

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