thoughtcrumbs

Advertising studies and tricks

A few recent advertising memes:

• A good discussion at Jason Kottke's site about blocking RSS/Atom advertising. Feed aggregator developers say they're not planning features specifically to block ads, but that other features for usability (i.e., custom CSS files or per-feed filters) could be used to that effect.
• For Firefox users, this chunk of CSS will block ads.
• Most Hated Advertising Techniques, Jakob Nielsen's latest Alertbox, reviews data compiled by Ebay and Yahoo! researchers, some of which was from my study. Alertbox summary: Users vehemently dislike pop-ups, slow-loading graphics, and misleading ads. Nielsen reminds advertisers and site owners that this abhorrence stems from the violation of basic usability principles: users' options should be clear, plainly worded, and provide the desired information.
  
  I'd add that click-cost should be minimized as well: people halfway through a registration or purchase process shouldn't lose their place when clicking on ads, and the ads shouldn't go to pages that break the Back button.
• Also, Internet Explorer users are four times more likely to click on ads than Firefox users. (Thanks, Alan!)