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Image Ad Blending Works Really, Really Well

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Re: Image Ad Blending Works Really, Really Well

#131

Post by icebraining »

revorad wrote: post #83
tptacek wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the article? Was maybe Patrick too subtle about the point that many (probably most) of Google's users perceive the paid placement at the top of every SERP as a search result? These "blended" ads are labeled as sponsored results as well.

That's why I find advertising such a ridiculous business model for a search engine. Let's spend all this time and money and invent the most amazing technology to find the best results for any search and then... let's sell the top spot to the highest bidder. I don't have a better business model to offer, but I do think the world would be better off if Google were more honest about ads and made it more obvious that the…

I don't get it: the ads I see on Google have a clearly different background color. How are they not obvious?

Re: Image Ad Blending Works Really, Really Well

#132

Post by mechanical_fish »

extension wrote: post #114
patio11 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're a teacher, and you're at a site looking for how to teach a lesson on subtraction, and I tell you bingo cards do that, and you pay me money for bingo cards, you're saying in the most explicit way that people know how that bingo cards were exactly what you were looking for.

If you're getting 100% conversion then I guess you can do no wrong. But anyone who saw your ad and didn't buy was looking for something else. No matter what you put in your ad, it's not going to be more valuable than the content it displaces, save for strange and rare accidents.

anyone who saw your ad and didn't buy was looking for something else

What an astonishing statement.

Let's disregard the fact that some of the most popular entertainment in history first appeared as advertisements (everything from the annual, ephemeral crop of Super Bowl ads, to the 72-years-old-and-counting "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", to arguably every music video ever). Let's disregard the clear evidence that people deliberately search for popular TV commercials in YouTube. Let's ignore the philosophical debate about whether every one of 37Signals's blog posts is also an "ad" for 37Signals products, or whether every one of my HN comments is also an "ad" for YCombinator. [1]

It's still obvious that an ad can be valuable without leading to a purchase. If I go out to buy an electric guitar, I don't do so by clicking on the first guitar ad I see and then pressing the green BUY button. Instead, I do some kind of research. At the very least, I go to a store with a bunch of different kinds of guitar and stare at their packaging and styling. More likely, I visit the sites of a bunch of guitar makers and then choose one. But just because I chose to buy a Strat rather than a Gibson Les Paul doesn't mean that I didn't derive value from viewing Gibson's website, or reading their blurb about Les Paul.

Similarly, just because I'm ultimately not going to buy bingo card creation software doesn't mean I don't benefit from knowing that such stuff exists.

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[1] Yeah, but we're discussing a cheap little low-class interstitial ad on a website, right? Should I even try to compare it to a whole fancy thirty-second spot, or a music video?

Maybe, because a 140-character ad is better for many purposes than these bigger ads. It certainly takes less than thirty seconds to read.

Re: Image Ad Blending Works Really, Really Well

#133

Post by lftl »

extension wrote: post #67
patio11 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ads are clearly not a zero-sum game, any more than links offsite are a zero-sum game. Transfers in attention are like transfers in money. It is entirely possible for both sides of "I give you money, you give me a banana" to end up better off. Similarly, if you're looking at a list of ways to teach kids subtraction, "I give you thirty seconds, you show me subtraction bingo" leaves both sides better off.

But with advertising, the attention transfer is involuntary . The user is always trying to spend their attention on something else, and they aren't getting what they pay for. If attention is currency then advertising is clearly bait-and-switch fraud.

The user is exchanging some portion of their attention to receive whatever service the publisher is providing.

If you want to watch this football game, you give some portion of your attention to our advertisers. If you want to view whatever the regular content is on the site patio11 advertised on, you give some of your attention to patio11.

There's nothing involuntary about it. If you don't like ads, don't watch TV shows, or view websites that show ads. The only part that's different from a normal transaction is that you aren't very strongly forced to give up the attention the publisher is asking from you. You can get up during TV ads, run an ad blocker, or develop ad blindness on sites. This extra ability of yours doesn't change the face that you agreed to possibly give up some of your attention to an advertiser to use whatever service you're using.

Re: Image Ad Blending Works Really, Really Well

#135

Post by patio11 »

prawn wrote: post #127
patio11 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're a teacher, and you're at a site looking for how to teach a lesson on subtraction, and I tell you bingo cards do that, and you pay me money for bingo cards, you're saying in the most explicit way that people know how that bingo cards were exactly what you were looking for.

Why not submit your site to that community for review (assuming it's as relevant as you say) and get a real star rating in the process? Your listing would look the same as your current ad and you presumably wouldn't be paying to advertise (unless the site accepts only paid submissions).

Because BCC's landing page / free trial is superior to the experience of the organic site, for both teachers who want bingo cards and for me. If it were one of the organic listings, I'd have to manually create 8 cards or whatever and then upload them. They'd go behind a signup wall. People would then be asked to signup to the site to download the eight cards. Very few of them would buy BCC. Instead, they should sign up for my site, where a) they can create more cards and b) the ones who experience a lot of value from classroom bingo will actually pay me money.

Re: Image Ad Blending Works Really, Really Well

#136

Post by jacquesm »

dhruval wrote: post #68
teej wrote: post #31

I'm going to come out in defense of patio11 here. Not because the ad isn't deceptive - it undoubtedly is. But because he fell into the dark side of a grey area and it's worth discussing HOW good people end up there. From a rationalist perspecive, the ad is justified. He is effectively capturing the majority of the market possible through adwords. So what's next? It makes sense to take your know-how in one market and…

This actually is not a gray area at all. It is specifically against Adsense TOS. See here under 'encouraging clicks': https://www.google.com/adsense/support/as/bin/answer.py?answ... Nor is this a new idea. Google addressed this issue back in 2007, and specifically warned publishers not to post images next to ads. I know because I was one of them. Here is a snapshot of my earnings from a site I ran back in 2007. Note…

These are not adsense ads, so adsense t.o.s. do not apply. The ads are served up by buysellads.com. (see last line of the blog post)

Re: Image Ad Blending Works Really, Really Well

#137

Post by MartinCron »

DiabloD3 wrote: post #43
tycho77 wrote: post #26

It's actually kinda crazy that I looked at this image http://images2.bingocardcreator.com/blog-images/ad-blending/... for about thirty seconds and literally did not see the ad, at all. I am now impressed/scared of my mind's ability to completely disregard probably unimportant information.

Its funny that there is an almost exact same thing in audio processing called masking, where a loud signal will hide a quieter signal similar in frequency. Maybe this is the visual processing equivalent?

It's "search satisfaction", I think. People expect to look for (and dismiss) the obvious stuff.

This is similar to the notion that having the TSA check for liquids at airports is dangerous, because when they find a bottle of shampoo, they stop looking for other stuff.

Re: Image Ad Blending Works Really, Really Well

#138

Post by alexhawket »

Patrick is falling into what, I call, the marketing trap. I like some of Patrick's advice, but I wouldn't follow this... ever.

Patrick has a nice little niche business but that's all it is, a niche. Niches, by definition are really small, focused and low in demand.

In a niche, the stream of new customers eventually dries up and the temptation is to move further and further over to the marketing dark side to keep the ship afloat.

Deceptive marketing tactics work, but they shouldn't be necessary. If that's where this is headed, then just go full darkside into scamming and call it a day.

Grey and black hat techniques are a bad as crappy products, terrible service, bad systems and stolen ideas. If you wouldn't think of using any of those, then don't use scammy marketing.

If you find yourself pursuing deceptive tricks, it's a sign your niche is not big enough and your product is not high enough in demand.

This is the most common trap analytic/scientific minded business owners fall into.

Many people on HN have voiced concerns that the current crop of startups are increasingly using deceptive practices to boost their businesses.

A well planned business should not have to do this.

It's one thing to decide to be purposefully evil, but rationalizing it as necessary is amoral and possibly illegal.

Re: Image Ad Blending Works Really, Really Well

#139

Post by lazugod »

jfager wrote: post #125

I think the most jarring part of this ad is something that isn't patio11's fault: it's juxtaposed against an ad that completely stands out as an ad, which makes the 'blending' that much more 'blendy'. Without that other ad in the adjoining slot, I think the visual difference between patio11's ad and regular site content would be more stark, putting it at about the same shade of moral gray as a Google search ad.

Oh. I had assumed that the blatant ad was a fake, tacked on by patio11 for just that reason.

Re: Image Ad Blending Works Really, Really Well

#140

Post by lazugod »

TylerE wrote: post #13
tghw wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand, but when you say "ruining the internet", I would prefer deceptive ads that blend in than those that make my eyes bleed, which is often the case with banner ads.

The difference is I can't adblock text.

Patio11's ad is an image, and would be blocked. But you're still right, in that the closer one gets to mimicking unpaid content (such as Google or Reddit's sponsored ads, which are text) the harder it is to programatically block.
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