21

Apr

Pandora: Ads that get noticed without getting in the way

Posted by: Jeremy Reither

If you’re a web publisher that earns money from advertising, one of your goals is probably to get visitors to click on those ads. Two of the ways publishers do this is by trying to ensure ads are relevant (well suited to your site’s audience), and located/placed appropriately (where the ad is noticeable but not intrusive). Maximizing relevance is a real science, and comes with understanding your audience demographic. With ad placement options are limited, but if you want a great example of placing ads conspicuously, yet unobtrusively: Pandora.com

It’s all about finding that balance between annoying in your face pop-ups and other floating ads (which get attention, but tend to be a nuissance) and subtle, easily overlooked ads (which don’t inhibit the user experience, but also don’t generate any revenue for you or value for the advertiser). I’m nominating the “pseudo-floating” banner (I just made that up) that Pandora uses as an even more effective means of achieving the right balance.

Pandora.com’s banners seem to overlap the visual frames of the site – making the banners look like they’re floating (above other content) – but in this case there is no other page content behind the banner. I don’t have any of Pandora’s click-through numbers to back up my statement, but I bet it’s a subtle but effective styling.

By the way, Pandora, as a free music service, is brilliant, too. Whether you care about CTR or not, the site is worth a visit.