PardonMyFrench

Townhall.com - The Online Ads Graveyard

Today, I got an email from Townhall.com that showcased the video interviews they conducted at CPAC last week.  Ignore the fact that I've tried unsubscribing multiple times (more on that later) from their emails over the years, so I clicked on an interview with Michele Bachmann which directed me to a YouTube video that was listed as private (more on that soon). Towards the end of the interview, I hear that Ms. Bachmann occasionally blogs at a section of Townhall called tipsheet.

And that's when I got abused by online ads.  Giant belly fat ads.  Expanding ads.  Popups that followed me up and down the page.  So bad that I couldn't spend any time trying to read any articles.  I mean look at this...Does anyone there care about content on the site?  

So I went back to the site just a few minutes ago and the home page is just as bad especially with the home page takeovers and multiple ad placements.  Look for yourself

I buy a ton, if not the most, political ads on the Republican side.  Townhall should be a key component but it can't be anymore. These ads are a Chief Revenue Officer's or Sales Executive's ad revenue maximization plans gone bad.  Seriously, do they even realize that people need to read content in order to monetize it.

That also goes to the email sales mentality of not being able to unsubscribe (and I'm not the only one).  Throw in the YouTube private link which makes it impossible to find in YT search results (thinking the clicks are coming from emails only) and you get the idea of a desperate site looking to squeeze every dollar out of the site before it folds up.

You can't buy direct on this site anymore if you care about your brand.  I'm not even sure it is worth sneaking it in on an ad network buy because think of how bad the ad position would be.  I used to feel that way about Drudge and even with Drudge's auto refresh, it still gives great placements.  

Townhall?  Right now that's where good online ads go to die.  I hope someone at Townhall fixes their ad model because it used to be a good site.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

P.S.  - Even though we don't work on Sarah Palin anymore, I'd recommend pulling those book ad creatives from the site or talking to the publisher about pulling the ads if you have any care in your brand.

 

 

 

 

FTC's Do Not Track Comments

I'm a little over due with this post, but I'm hoping you'll find it interesting anyway.  Last month, ClickZ a great (mostly internet) marketing news site posted a story requesting industry or consumer input on the FTC's Do Not Track proposal.  Not sure what that means? Simply the Federal Government is worried about your privacy on the internet and how you can be helped to avoid being personally identifiend on the internet if that's what you choose.  Still confused or perhaps you are my Mom reading this...so here goes...

Most of the time websites and technology companies that serves ads drop cookies on your machine. You can delete them if you know where to look.  Some of these cookies you ask for when you want a website to save your ID and password.  Most of the time the cookies are anonymous and help advertisers track results, sometimes companies move you into behavioral targets based on what you do online, and sometimes companies match data and get even more scary information on you.  Occasionally, you'll see or hear about a company like Facebook releasing personally identifiable information.  Well the Federal Government wants to help you.

ClickZ reporter Kate Kaye was nice enough to send me a note with a bunch of questions and here are my replies.  What do you think about my answers?

1. How should a universal choice mechanism be designed for consumers to control online behavioral advertising?  I don’t think consumers should be able to monitor what is tracking their online behavioral. I think there should be mechanisms for consumers to opt out of behavior targeted ads.  I’ll answer in more detail in some of the other questions
2.  can such a mechanism be designed to be clear, easy-to-find, usable, and understandable to consumers? How can such a mechanism be designed so that it is clear to consumers what they are choosing and what the limitations of the choice are? HTo me there are two clear and easy paths for advertising.  One is behavioral targeted ads and one is non-behavioral targeted ads.  I don’t think there should be ANY obstacles to non-behavioral targeted ads including the tracking of them.  Advertisers should be able to buy on paid search and display ads bought without the benefit of behavioral advertisers – this includes retargeting ads.  If you are on a website and reading content, the publisher should be able to make money and the advertisers should be able to track with cookies.  This is the same model of TV advertising. However, I think behavioral targeted and retargeting ads should have notification in the idea of a frame around the ad unit in yellow or green or some kind of icon on the bottom right hand that notifies consumers that this is a behavioral targeted ad.  A click thru on this icon should take users to a page where they can opt out of the behavioral targeted advertising including having the cookie purged from their machine.  Also, the consumer should be able to see what behavioral triggered this ad. The one area for compromise would be in same session clicks where ads are triggered based on recent clicks.  Perhaps that immediacy of those ads can be carved out as a loophole.
3. Should the concept of a universal choice mechanism be extended beyond online behavioral advertising and include, for example, behavioral advertising for mobile applications? This absolutely should be extended for mobile where the abuse I think could be far more dangerous if your phone number is grabbed.
4. What is the likely impact if large numbers of consumers elect to opt out? How would it affect online publishers and advertisers, and how would it affect consumers? I don’t think in my model much would be affected.  Sure some of these behavioral targeting companies will be put out of business but let’s be honest, what kind of data do they have on people?

And those were the questions I chose to answer.  What do you think?

PardonMyFrench,

Eric