Web Text Links Act as New Online Ads
April 20, 2004 -- Banners, skyscrapers, billboards, and pop-ups … it's almost impossible to go online and not be deluged (or annoyed) by some form of commercial advertising.
So now, online advertisers and Web sites are beginning to try a new tactic: Ads that aren't flashy, and which, in fact, are practically hidden within a Web page's text.
Vibrant Media Inc. in San Francisco, recently introduced such an online ad service called IntelliTXT.
Like other ad networks, the service delivers online pitches to participating members based on "keywords" on the Web sites' pages. For instance, a Web site devoted to the Java programming language may get ads related to computers and software. Meanwhile, a coffee site mentioning "java" would might receive pitches related to the caffeinated beverage.
But unlike other contextual ad services, the advertisements aren't animated or graphical images that require a set space on the individual Web pages.
Instead, the actual relevant text on the Web page becomes highlighted by a green, double underline that looks similar to an ordinary "hyperlink" — text that normally takes users to a related story or other resource on the Web.
When visitors move the computer's mouse over the distinctive text, a small window pops up, delivering a small text-based ad.
A Link Is a Link
A recent survey found that 80 percent of all online users are frustrated by annoying pop-up ads, according to Denise Garcia, principal analyst with GartnerG2 in Framingham, Mass. And response rates to online rates remain particularly low — less than five percent of all users will click on a graphical Web ad.
So Doug Stevenson, chief executive officer of Vibrant Media, says the company's new ad approach makes better sense, since the online audience is already comfortable with embedded text links.
And by using as its ad medium a Web page's actual text — the content that surfers log on to see in the first place — Web users are much more likely to see and click on it.
"This is the best area for ads to appear," says Stevenson. "If someone's reading an interesting review or a vacation story, chances are they are going to do a search on it. This is a powerful way to match the ad to the content and make the ad relevant, in context."
Stevenson claims that initial test of IntelliTXT link ads over the last year show readers click on its links 24 times as often as traditional banner ads. And he believes part of the appeal among users is its low-key approach.
"These are 'user-activated' ads," says Stevenson. "We don't show the ad unless the user chooses to see it [so] they don't annoy them like traditional ads."
Click Appeal
About 150 Web sites, mostly those devoted to special news and interest, have signed up to use IntelliTXT. And so far Web publishers say they're happy with the added capabilities and revenue the new ad type seems to deliver.
Vincent Nguyen, president of Smartfone.net, has been using the service for just under three months but says it is already performing "on par" with the other ad types on his Web site for news and reviews of next-generation cell phones.
"I was amazed in the first four or five days [of implementing IntelliTXT] at the number of people clicking through," says Nguyen. "It shocked us to death."
And since he's received "not one single negative comment" from site users about the new text-based ads, Nguyen has begun adding IntelliTXT ads in other areas of his site such as the online forums where most of the content is member-created messages.
"To me, this is the next best thing to sliced bread," says Nguyen. "I tell all my colleagues, it's not like you have to sell a lot of real estate [on your Web page]. It's just four or five keywords."
Blurring the Content Line
But IntelliTXT is far from a clear-cut winner in the online advertising world yet. A few issues could still cloud its place in the online space.
For one, as with any other contextual ad service, IntelliTXT can place ads within a page that could raise certain ethical objections.
But perhaps more important to IntelliTXT's growth is its acceptance among advertisers and Web surfers.
"[IntelliTXT] is very interesting stuff," says Gartner's Garcia. "It's offering advertisers contextual search, a way to say for example, here's all the [online] content about bicycles. It takes all that content and revalues it for advertisers to sells ads."
But she's unsure that the low-key link-based approach would really be better at capturing readers' attention than in-your-face graphics and sound.
"Consumers certainly do remember things whether they like them or not and rich media ads fare better when it comes to [establishing] branding," says Garcia. And while IntelliTXT could be less intrusive and annoying in the minds of Web users, "whether it's effective [for advertisers] remains to be seen."
More Money, More Ads
The good news for ad services like IntelliTXT and Web publishers is advertisers are in the mood and have the money to experiment.
According to Garcia, online ad spending is expected to grow 10 percent to 20 percent this year — a far cry from the 3.4 percent of the previous year.
Part of the reason, she says, is a rebounding U.S. economy means companies are willing to spend more on advertising, especially in a medium that can no longer be ignored.
"Consumers are online more than every before and the Net medium is almost at saturation with 69 percent to 70 percent [of Americans now] online," says Garcia. "Forty one percent of those folks are accessing the Net via broadband and advertisers see that as new opportunities in developing brand in the Net medium."