Ergonomics of a New Web Ad Unit

A friend of mine over at Premium Access Media is making some rounds with a new ad unit they’re testing.  I wouldn’t normally be given to rummaging around the advertising area of User Interface / User Experience design, but there’s some worthwhile things to think about here.

§Cons

There are a number first possible issues that come to mind. The biggest one is that bottom of the screen is sometimes a place that sites will float their own menu bar.  If such an ad unit overlays a site menu and inhibits user navigation, the advertiser and ad supplier forever be evil with little hope for recovery.  The host site will also lose lots of face.  The the ad unit to sense an existing floater in this region could be challenging - to unpredictable….  Not a happy engineering endeavor. Also, I get used to the notion that when I scroll down, ads go away.  This breaks that relationship to ads, and may keep up any ire I develop, in forcing me to close the ad.

§Pros

That said The non-rectangular ‘skline’ is a nice touch, as it allows for a new dimension of branding.  As much as I generally disfavor what is displayed to me in web ads, I actually get excited to see how companies would take advantage of this opportunity to brand themselves.  It’s a challenging area, as breaking outside of a box region can go from tacky to terrible fax paux - but the successes will be big wins, I think.

§Click-throughs, CPC, CPM

I’d expect higher than normal click-through rates, but with a caveat.  My sense is that there will a sharper break-point between for traffic given on quality ads vs. terrible ads.  Since this ad unit remains on-screen all the time, I personally expect the ads therein to be more beautiful and enjoyable… as well as more yielding and semi-subtle.  This is a great opportunity to please the visitor and win brand status.  If I get any weight-loss-flashers or other wank there I’d be very upset at the site that allowed that kind of trash to be stuck at the bottom of my screen.  Even average ads will enter into the It’s Not Pretty category and be displeasing.  So I think those managing this ad unit (Premium Access & affiliates) will have to be more selective in screening & applying an ‘aesthetics policy’ to the advertisements that go out. Given all that, I’ll also expect the cost to use the ad unit, in CPC / CPM will be higher.  Not the level of a video ad, but higher than traditional ad units. It’s interesting that all of their initial advertisers for this unit seem to be gaming companies.  I think it says something to the comfortability that the gaming culture has with novel experiences.  The sports industry would probably find a way to put their glitter and polish out through it, too.


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