Hidden Treasure in a Website – Placing In-Text Ads

People filter out the ads. This is true on TV, in a newspaper, and mostly – online. We read online content, look at pictures, view videos, but we don’t notice the ads. Fighting back, the advertising industry launched a battle over the attention of online readers. Wonderful companies like Eyeblaster pushed the evolution of banners forward and, in fact, saved the monetizing business. Banners began jumping around, animated characters walked onto our screens, full page ads covered sites entirely, and when moving the mouse away from the content, we mistakenly activated sound from banner ads. Even the relatively quite Google Adsense ads are now mostly replaced by animated banners. It seems like all efforts to withdraw the visitor’s attention away from the content and onto the advertising is now legitimate.

But, in my opinion, this battle can’t go on forever. Exaggerated reach media annoys visitors, who in turn, look for alternative sources of information. Only very few of them will chose to pay a subscription to avoid ads, while with the growing competition, most will simply move on to another site. With growing concerns about having too many ads, serious online publishers choose very carefully which types of ads to put on their sites. And then, when the ads quite down and show reduced efforts to grab attention, the readers actually give them less attention, and consequently – revenues from advertising drops.

The solution is right there, in the middle of your website. Look carefully… there’s a hidden treasure in your website. The content of the website can serve as a layer for placing subtle ads. Now, I’m not referring to selling your writing skills – and your soul – and writing false reviews in disguise of objective opinions while getting paid for them. That’s a different story. I’m talking about in-text advertising.

When used correctly, in-text ads appear as double-underline links within the content of a website. They do not interfere with the flow of reading and they do not fight over the reader’s attention. The site’s visitors know that these links lead to ads, but they do not distract them. Only when such a link interests the reader, she can hover over the link with the mouse. Then, a bubble will appear with a relevant ad inside. If interested, the visitor can click on the ad and continue to the advertiser’s landing page. If she’s not interested, she simply moves the mouse away and continues reading.

If you haven’t read the About section, I must pause now for a quick remark – I work for Infolinks, a provider of in-text advertising. I am biased. However, I like to wake up each morning smiling when I go to work and as long as I can afford it, I wouldn’t work for something I don’t believe in. I chose to join the Infolinks team because I think this is the right way to go. So, here it is. I’m from the industry. But that’s the best place to gain professional experience, which I hope you can benefit from when reading along.

In-text advertising is a great source for monetizing a website. In text ads complete other types of advertising without affecting them. Relevant in text ads actually enrich the content with relevant ads that visitors find interesting. True, they are still ads and readers would prefer not having them, but the fact is that they generate revenues that help make the information free. This is something that visitors appreciate. Compared to jumping banners, in text ads are the least intrusive method of advertising, yet the high relevancy yield good conversion rates for advertisers – which means that the online publisher is well paid.

When ads started to appear in websites, some people were against it, but with time, we all preferred having the Internet free with ads, then not having it at all. With website revenues dropping, in text advertising could save the day. Noticing that hidden treasure in our websites and monetizing it in the right way will keep the information free and our readers happy. And look around, you see in text advertising more and more and in numerous websites. Finally, after several years, in text advertising now pays very well and has become a legitimate method of both advertising and monetizing.