Giant SWF files that dominate your screen, magic owls that fly over content, and of course, those endless popunders selling tiny cameras that you can use to get footage of bathing beauties frolicking in your fabulous backyard pool.
In a struggling market, ads vie for your attention with bigger, flashier graphics, but a better solution is evolving on the Web, coming from the sharp minds behind innovative sites.
A Quiet Revolution
Google started it with their successful AdWords program—small, yet eye-catching modules with a few succinct lines of copy and a link. Anyone with a credit card and something to promote can create, preview, and then buy a small, inexpensive ad to appear along with the results of a keyword search.
It's all based on keywords. You purchase keywords and your ad is displayed whenever someone searches for those words (or word). So to reach collectors of deadly man-eating robots, you might buy the keywords "man-eating" or "deadly robots." The more popular the keyword search, the quicker your impressions will sell out.
Pricing for AdWords is based on the position in which they're shown. Google positions your ad based on how many users click on it over time. Current rates are between $8 and $15 per thousand ads shown depending on positioning. There's no minimum deposit required and accounts are opened with a credit card.
Google boasts unnaturally high click-through rates and you're pretty much guaranteed a super-targeted audience. Hey, if a user searches for "inflatable alligators" and you sell "inflatable alligators," how can you not go for this?
It Begins
Once Google proved that this method of advertising worked, all the smart kids started to build their own versions. The first person to jump in and set up a home-brewed version of the AdWord program was Matthew Haughey, designer and developer of the weblog community Metafilter.
He called his self-serve advertising TextAds and billed them as "A non-invasive, non-annoying, low-cost way to get your site in front of thousands of people." I bought one immediately and new visitors began dropping by my personal weblog unannounced. It was great. TextAds are priced at $2 per 1000 impressions and you get your very own stats page displaying clickthrough rates and other pertinent info. Metafilter contributors are notoriously hard to impress but they welcomed TextAds and saw them as a way to give back to the community while driving traffic to their own projects. Matt did a great job.
That's why Evan Williams and Jason Shellen launched pyRads and called it "Web Advertising That Doesn't Suck." The first Pyra product since Blogger, pyRads is an innovative way for the hundreds of thousands of webloggers to thank one of the last great free products on the Web—and draw a crowd doing so.
Like AdWords, pyRads can be purchased with a credit-card and they are priced affordably at $10 per 8000 impressions—a great deal, considering that pitching to Blogger users is more like grass roots PR than straight advertising. "The unique thing about Blogger users is that they are all publishers themselves. Thus, if you show them something new and/or noteworthy, many of them are likely to pass on the word via their blogs, the collective readership of which is potentially millions." And yes, I bought one of these too. (I was doing research!) Anyway, pyRads funneled a bunch of visitors to my site—they'll probably never come back, but that's no fault of Pyra, they rock.
If you want to pitch to another web log crowd, you can advertise on Daypop. Daypop is a search engine with a Blogdex-style top 40 list that keeps track of over 6100 "living" sites like weblogs and news articles. It's only $2 for 1000 impressions.
Oliver Willis is selling 1000 impressions for $2 to anyone who wants to reach a growing political/humor/tech/media/web friendly audience. Oliver is taking a slightly different approach than others by offering a self-serve text ad that takes a shape similar to the common banner. This could be a smart approach for a high traffic community already serving banner ads like Xanga.com.
Rini.org calls TextAds "a simple, polite, and inexpensive alternative to banners and other online advertising." For only $10 you can run a Rini (Real Internet News Initiative) ad to promote "your business, an upcoming industry event, or even post a link to your resume. Rini.org is an Internet news site so you know that you're reaching the right audience." Sounds good to me.
Or maybe you're just a plain old snob, "BlogSnob™ is an experimental service for members of the blogging community. It enables you to tell everyone about your blog, through simple textbased ads. It's FREE, it's fast, and it's downright simple. Besides, it's a great way to get to know about new blogs!"
Sell Your Own
pyRads has plans to provide a turn-key version of their text advertising program that will allow webmasters to sell pyRads on their own sites. In the meantime, HTTPAds are already there.
Founded by the creator of F*cked Company, HTTPAds is "A new way for web site operators to make money selling ads. It turns ad buys into impulse items by giving web masters the power to accept credit-card payment for ad space, automating the whole process. No merchant account necessary, and it just takes a few minutes to setup."
HTTPAds allows you to sell any kind of advertising on your site—banners, text ads, you name it—and all you need to do is buy a "zone" with your credit card. Last time I checked, Dictionary.com was experimenting with them.
Then there's AdFarm, "ads that aren't super annoying." AdFarm allows people like you and me to host advertising as well as buy it self-serve style. And it's all wrapped up in a pretty little site too. $7.50 per 4000 ads served on your site makes you a little "going out money," even if you stay home and spend it at Amazon.
Speaking of Amazon, they have a version of self-serve advertising too. Its called Sponsored Results. You need to have a product at Amazon to promote and $20 buys you 20,000 impressions on a keyword search. Livia McRee used this for one of her books and saw her sales rank improve dramatically. Cheap and easy guerilla marketing is good stuff.
Italians, Germans, and Dutch Oh My!
Like any good thing, self-serve advertising is being emulated worldwide. SkipAds are the Italian version self-serve advertising. If Italy isn't your thing, there are also German and Dutch microadvertising programs recently launched. Not finding your country of choice? Wait a few days.
To Sum Up
Graphic ads don't seem to be going away because there's something to be said for branding. I mean, people don't "click" on autowrapped cars but the message still gets out. Self-serve advertising at it's worst is merely a link-exchange that generates revenue for high traffic sites—still good for all involved. It's a great solution for individuals who want to attract new customers or readers on a $10 budget and it's a smart way for Blogger, Metafilter, and other small organizations to earn money (or at least stay in the picture).
While the mega sites are frantically posting the biggest, busiest, most intrusive advertising they can pull off—quickly driving away their users—low-tech self-serve ads enable smaller companies to earn revenue while they bolster their communities.
So what are you waiting for? Go place a TextAd, host an AdFarm ad, support Daypop, or go international and webvertize Italian style. Buona fortuna!