As an example to David’s earlier thought, I am a huge fan of Apple’s ads on NYTimes.com, and I will click them every time I visit. I may not necessarily but that click, but I will likely explore. I am a consistent Apple consumer and will continue to buy their products, those ads just reinforce that. And I’m rewarding the NYTimes for their innovation.

It seems to me illogical to assume that because print and broadcast ads cost more, they are necessarily more important or better at attracting consumers. Besides the ads that shipped with Sunday papers specific to a store, I cannot remember ever using a print ad. I have bought stuff from web ads more times than I can count, and I think people are starting to catch on.

Just a thought.

I’m busy, but I’ve bookmarked this exchange. I’m sure there’s a lot of lessons here.

Cheers,
kpaul

i think the goal is engagement. a click is a step to deeper engagement opportunity through the banner’s rabbit hole. an engaged viewer or reader is more likely to convert to customer or consumer. we’re seeking engagement as we build our own brands through social media platforms and word of mouth.

we’re all advertisers, but we may not like to view ourselves that way. (we’re also all journalists, and most have heard me rant that before, but anyhoo…)

i’ve been looking for the advertiser and ad sales discussion in the saving journalism conversation since the days when i was still blogging at lost remote and it is an elusive prey. reading the pertinent passages in WWGD gives you jarvis’ take on agencies and media buyers when it comes to online.

we have to remember what was the feature benefit of selling advertising against news originally: it was the credibility of the platform over the sheer audience reach. i argued at poynter that the industry eroded that credibility through brokered advertising in an immature marketplace.

for now, the pageview impression and click through economy is what we have to deal with, and it may not be the best model. instead of outsourcing advertising or cutting deals with warehousers for inventory, i’m making the radical pitch that the actual traditional model might be worth exploring. if news organizations spent as much time innovating advertising as they did storytelling, would they be in trouble now?

> Brand awareness: This doesn’t require clicks at all.

> Sales/action: If you are just clicking on the ad to help bring in money for the publisher, it’s doubtful you will be buying something or signing up.

> Build traffic: The click might help temporarily, but very few advertisers just want someone to click an ad and then move on. They want *interested clickers* or why bother.

This idea that people should click on each other’s ads to help bring in money or somehow advance an advertiser’s goals doesn’t fit with what I believe advertisers really want. When you can bring in an actual advertiser to this conversation to get their take on this, then I will listen.

I think it makes sense for you to tell (or remind) people that clicking ads makes sites more money, because I’m not sure John Q. Public knows that.

And, I think that your opinion piece was important in determining the context of the tweet because you were saying that the average person trusting online ads is paramount in fixing the system. If more people trust ads, the more they will be willing to click on ads, even ones that advertise things that they may not want to buy.

If clicking on ads is fraud, then how is it supposed to work? As I understand it, impressions are one level of revenue, but clickthroughs are another. While it may be unethical for the news orgs to tell their readers that clicking ads makes them more money (which I concede to Mark), I think another party can do so without it becoming fraud.

For the record, I didn’t mean to step on any toes or make anyone angry, or ragequit the conversation. I realized I was probably putting words in David’s mouth without talking to him, and didn’t want to end up wrong. I’m sorry if I ever gave the wrong impression.