So readers, thank you for coming and reading and all, but if you really want to do us a favor, click that Hewlett Packard advertisement on the right. Yeah, go ahead. Click it. Click it right now!
Michael Agger of Slate asks whether clicking ads on your favorite site helps. Of course, the answer is yes:
The best general to-click-or-not-to-click advice I found was from Internet marketer Seth Godin: "Ads are the new on-line tip jar." His method is simple: "If you like what you're reading, click an ad to say thanks."I've often wondered this myself, and I'll sometimes click through ads on my favorite sites like Slate and TNR.com by opening up the ad page in a separate tab and closing it after a few seconds. Sometimes I'll glance at the re-directed page and close immediately, and other times I'll worry that I've closed it too soon and that my contribution will be ignored because the ad company monitors time spent on their site. So occasionally I'll actually click the ad, and then click twice more on the opened ad page to pretend that I'm shopping for an HP, or that I'm itching to learn more about the new Yahoo! ad campaign, because two clicks should be enough to convince the company that Slate.com has serious, engaged readers who like ads.
Or maybe I've just thought about this way too much....
"So occasionally I'll actually click the ad, and then click twice more on the opened ad page to pretend that I'm shopping for an HP, or that I'm itching to learn more about the new Yahoo! ad campaign, because two clicks should be enough to convince the company that Slate.com has serious, engaged readers who like ads.
Or maybe I've just thought about this way too much...."
Both of these describe my behavior pretty much to a tee. especially the part about thinking about this too much. Because then I think that maybe I'm doing a disservice to the advertisers. I mean, I really like The Economist...but I know I'm not going to really learn anything interesting by clicking on one of the BP adds...and I'm probably not really their target market...ack...I never felt this conflicted in the pre-tivo days when I got up to get a drink during the commercial break.
Firefox needs to implement a "Feign Interest" feature, where you right click an ad, select "Feign Interest" on a menu, and Firefox opens the add in a hidden page and randomly clicks on it to simulate browsing.
The further moral conflict/questionable ad metrics it creates would be awesome.
Guess I'm kind of a jerk for using one of those "ad blocker" features. Oops.
I just clicked the United Technologies ad on the right, and it opened up a picture of a Sikorsky S-70i Black Hawk helicopter. I feel a little guilt as I have no plans to ever buy one.