Everyone with experience in online marketing has heard of the term “banner blindness“. The fact that most ads in the early days of the Internet took the form of a horizontal graphic banner resulted in the fact that many users got used to them and never clicked on them, regardless of their content.
The salvation - mostly - came in the form of Google AdSense ads, which were simple, unobtrusive text links that caught the users’ attention precisely because they didn’t jump into their faces. However, the fact is that every form of advertising, when overused, gets old. And if you push them even more, some users become so aware of them that they’re never going to click on them - no matter what. You could call this phenomenon “ad repulsion“, and I’ve just experienced it first hand.
Observe the following page, also documented in the screenshot below.
It’s a web site that brings you screenshots from the popular MMOG Eve Online. The site’s design is decent, and it really does have some screenshots, however the creator decided to organize all of the text on site into chunks that are visually identical to Google AdSense ad blocks. The size, the color, the placement: it’s all the same. It sounds like a good plan if you want to slip in some real ads, right?
Wrong. I found out that I was unable to click on the text. I tried one item from the menu; then another, and then another. My brain subconsciously decided I’ve found nothing of value on the site. Only then I’ve stopped and realized that those chunks of text that look like AdSense actually are the content. I had to consciously force my hand to do click on these links. I tried it with a couple of colleagues at work, and they all felt the same - even those that don’t really know what AdSense is.
Try it. I’m sure you’ll feel the same; it’s a weird feeling, because your brain is constantly sending you signals not to click. This site would be a great starting point for a research on ad blindness; I’m quite sure a great number of users would simply dismiss the whole site and move on.
This tells us that those popular AdSense blocks probably aren’t nearly as effective as they were a couple of years ago. Actually, they’re exactly the opposite: it’s almost as if they scream: DON’T CLICK ME. Sure, we all know that AdSense has been a bit stale for quite some time, but when an advertisement does the opposite of what it should be doing, it’s time for alarm.
Is the end of AdSense era at hand, or will Google be able to fix this by changing the default layouts, fonts, and color combinations of AdSense blocks? My guess is the latter. After all, you can’t run away from text: where there’s text, there will always be a textual ad that can fit in. However, I think it’s time for a change, because those black and blue AdSense blocks currently might be annoying your users instead of enticing them to click.
*disclaimer: I’m perfectly aware that I’m also running AdSense ads on this site. This article is not a crusade against AdSense; it’s just an opinion and an observation. I personally have my doubts about AdSense ads but I haven’t yet decided to remove them from the site altogether.
Very good post, thanks for sharing this with us. However, strangely enough, I took a look at the page and noticed that there were in fact no AdSense advertisements to be seen, anywhere. Not sure if they have since removed them or just the fact that they are not responding.
@Bull3t: perhaps they’re inserted dynamically into the page and don’t always load. You can actually see the real AdSense block in the screenshot above.
That is a deliberate attempt to make the ads look like the content of the site, which is a dirty trick. Nothing more to it than that. I don’t like sites that do that either.
@Webomatica: true, but the focus of the article isn’t on that. It’s the fact that I found such text so hard to click. My brain is hardwired not to click on text that looks like that, and I guess it goes for many internet users out there.
Ah I see. Well, you can count me in that boat too, as I don’t click on banner ads or Google ads as much as possible. I do think this is a trend as some of those “heat map” things show that people have learned to ignore banner ads over time. One can only assume that Google ads are next.
I’ll agree it’s confusing and gives me the same ‘Don’t click’ feeling.
I pay absolutely NO attention to ANY web ads whatsoever. I will NEVER click on one. I will NEVER order ANYTHING online. If people don’t wake up, we’ll have thousands of “bat-signals” whirling around the sky at night, hawking everything from Drunken Donuts to McCretins, and copter-mounted loudspeakers flying around the cities. If you can’t sell a product or service by word-of-mouth, odds are 100-to-1 that it’s a piece of yak dung.
Wow. Great post. Those things are unclickable!