A couple of months ago we got a call from a company called - J Carter Marketing. They called us, at the Sentinel, because they’ve (supposedly) noticed our creditable website and high page views.
The deal they offered was something like this - “Let us put advertisement on your site and we’ll give you X about of dollars every time someone views/hits the ads.” The ads that they will be putting on our site aren’t ads for J Carter Marketing but for their clients. You see, they get clients and call places like the Holland Sentinel to place their clients ads.
Now that we’re all caught up on what J Carter Marketing is - I can explain my problem with them.
First of all, they have these ad types called interstitials. That means the ad interweave with our site and make the viewer think the ad they are seeing has something to do with our company (the Holland Sentinel) or the story they originally clicked on.
This creates all sorts of problems, starting with reader confusion. The reader will often take the ad to seriously and act upon it as if it were serious. Of course this is exactly what advertising is supposed to do - it however begins to lower the Sentinel’s online credibility.
Take for example the below ad. This is an ad many of our viewers come across when viewing our website. They see the front page and when clicking on a local news story, they are quickly shown this ad for 15 seconds, and then directed to the story they originally wished to see.
For some, this ad seems ridiculous and we would never act upon it’s action statement by clicking to find out more information. We are considered, a knowledgeable group. However, many other unknowledgeable people also view our site and think that they really are the one millions viewer and have won a prize. They will try to find out more information and end up being another statistic on how online advertising works.
Mean while… Aaron Schaap at the Holland Sentinel is receiving various phone calls and emails from people wanting to claim their prize (example below). I have to explain to them the idea of advertising and that they are not really one-millionth viewer of our website (which was viewed years ago) and we aren’t affiliated with the company that says you are.
Real email from viewers:
Just asking - I checked out your web site today looking for an article about our company working in Holland. A screen popped up and said I was the 1,000,000th person to log on this web site and to click below for my prize. I clicked and nothing happened. What’s up with that??
As I said earlier - I have a couple problems with all this. The second problem is the fact that it doesn’t work in the Safari web browser - Apple’s main Internet browser. You see the ad but stuff gets messed up and your redirected to a page that doesn’t exists. It makes it really annoying to view our website.
posted on October 6, 2003 | 2:00 PM EST
Add to the discussion.
“Let the products sell themselves”
-mike watt (the minutemen)
if you want to make some money with allowing advertising on your site use google adsense this is a much better way and the ads are clearly marked as being from google.
I’m familiar with google adsense but we get a little more money on this style of advertising than we would with google’s adsense.
However - that said, We really shouldn’t do national advertisments. Local advertising is much better than national advertising and offers a better ROI for clients. Including brand awareness and better search engine placement (not much but it helps) for being on our site and their ad linking to theirs.
According the the NAA’s (Newspaper Association of America) recent research - local advertising on local sites attract more consumers than national news sites/national advertising.
Example:
Atlanta
12.9% - ajc.com
1.4% - msnbc.com
0.7% - cnn.com
Chicago
13.0% - chicagotribune.com
12.7% - suntimes.com
5.2% - msnbc.com
4.4% - cnn.com
… and the list goes on.
Source: NFP/Consumers.choice, 2002
Mr. Schaap,
When this post first came to my attention I simply disregarded it as clutter. Now when potential clients come across this page and it deters them from doing business with us I am forced to enter a comment.
Some of what you have written is either incorrect or false. Surprising work for someone that works for a newspaper. For example, you show the creative for one advertisement and not the page it is loaded on. The page CLEARLY states this is an advertisement and offers the user a ‘skip’ button to advance at their will. Second, the ad does not show for 15 seconds as you stated. If you have an issue with a certain advertiser that is fine. Don’t attack the messenger that helps support the site you are employed with.
As you will see below, your New Media Director, Mr. Aaron Pinkus, is more that happy to do business with us.
Dated November 7, 2003
“Melinda,
I wanted to drop you a note and let you know how pleased I am with the advertising packages we are working together on. When I first made the decision to go with the program I was hesitant thinking how a program like this could go wrong. I am very pleased with J Carter Marketing and how you conduct business.
Thanks again for all you do.
Aaron Pinkus
New Media Director
The Holland Sentinel
http://hollandsentinel.com";
Well, Melinda Haber I’m glad you’ve had a chance to check out my personal website. This site is a place for me to discuss various issues stretching from technology down to my personal comments on things that are going on.
As far as my words above, I am sorry you are not happy with my post. My post was written in the frustration of receiving phone calls and emails from upset users on hollandsentinel.com. Whether Aaron Pinkus is happy or not is not the point of my post.
As a company that helps people advertise I’m sure you would be open to user input - so let me just say a couple things about your product.
I think you guys have a great idea and a great system set up for your customers to advertise. However, with everything, there are a couple problems with it. One is the type of advertising that you are doing. Some are fine but others create problems for the people that use our site. They make us look bad.
“The website provider has detected a Virus on your computer. Click here to download updates.” — Hopefully this looks familiar to you because it is ads like this that you are displaying on the Holland Sentinel website. This makes people think we are endorsing your products and when these products are nothing more than a Gater ad or some spyware ad - it is not beneficial to anyone.
Two As I have stated above, your product does not work on various browsers. More and more people are using different browsers and they need to be able to view a websites content. Have you ever gone to a site using your code? I’ll bet my next paycheck that it won’t work in Safari or possibly a couple other browsers.
More than likely, your answer will quickly be - “There aren’t very many people using Safari”. and you would be correct. However, as a company - you should also be aware that Apple currently ships out all their computers with Safari as it’s default browser. Internet Explorer is not being made for Macs as said in various reports throughout the web (link 1, link 2, link 3).
So, I would suggest you take a look at some of the ads that are within your system and make it work for people other than Internet Explorer 6.0 users on a brand new PC. Once you do that, I’m sure people will be flocking to your company because it really is a good idea and can help not only your company succeed but your advertisers and individual sites like the Holland Sentinel.
I’m available at any time for a conversation on this matter if you would like to discuss this further.
I think having to go through the auction page to get to the “Real” Sentinel page is kind of a sneaky way to advertise. All of us blocking popup ads still get to see this commercial. On the other hand… advertising does pay the bills. Maybe ‘creative’ is a better adjective than ‘sneaky’. It depends on your perspective, eh?
Hope you don’t get into hot water over your personal opinions.
I’m ok with advertising as long as it doesn’t deliver false information. The ad above falls directly into the False information pile.
Melinda Haber says:
The page CLEARLY states this is an advertisement and offers the user a ‘skip’ button to advance at their will.
My Answer
You are correct and you guys have done a great job at defining this. However, there are a lot of how should I say this - dumb people out there that don’t understand what advertising is. This is where the importance of what the ad says or represents is so important. (see below for question on screening process). Although: The skip button or redirect only works on certain browsers.
Melinda Haber says:
Second, the ad does not show for 15 seconds as you stated.
My Answer:
Yes, it does. Feel free to go to our site and pull out your stop watch as I have.
Melinda Haber says:
If you have an issue with a certain advertiser that is fine. Don’t attack the messenger that helps support the site you are employed with.
My Answer:
What’s your screening process on ads that your company delivers? Does any ad go in as long as it doesn’t have any profanity, or adult content, or is the screening process looked at more carefully? For example: looking for Value statements and correct representation of the client. I’m actually very curious on your process.
mike watt Says:
“Let the products sell themselves”
-mike watt (the minutemen)