Website Monetization Tip #4: In Text Ads – Open in New Window

To Open or Not to Open in a New Window

Some website publishers ask if they can open the landing pages of the in text ads in new browser windows. The answer is that technically, yes, it’s possible, but since it’s not a good practice, you’d better avoid it. If you really have to, you can ask your provider to set your in text ads to open in a new window, but please read this first and give me a chance to discourage you.

What is a New Window?

Any hyperlink leads to a new web page. The link can be customized to either open the target web page within the same active window of the browser, replacing the original page, or open it in a new browser window, leaving the current browser window open with the original page. In other words, it either replaces the current page (same window) or keeps the current page open (new window). When designing your website you need to determine how to configure links generally – open in the same window or in a new window – and there are many discussions about this subject which I will leave for others to conclude. When adding in text ads to your website, this question comes up again.

Can a Visitor Stay Forever?

It is important to understand that no visitor stays in your website forever. Eventually, as much as they like your content, they will move on to another site, close the browser, run out of electricity, or sadly pass away. So why not prepare for it? Give your visitors a good exit experience together with a good reason to come back and bring others with them. Forcing a visitor to stay by technical means will not keep her forever anyway and it will probably worsen her experience and overall feeling towards the website.

So, understanding that visitors leave eventually, there’s no reason to mourn departed visitors. Rather than having them leave with no goodbye, it would be better to have them leave through a relevant ad, with a click that generates you as the publisher some revenues.

Advertisers ask for Attention and Pay for it

Have you wondered why advertisers are willing to pay you for each click? Apart from you being so nice, they actually need the attention of your visitor to their message, be it a public service, commercial product or simply another website. When they planned their landing page, their ads, and their advertising budget, they had some goals in mind which require the clicking visitor to actually give attention to their ad’s landing page. Embrace this fact, don’t fight it.

Usually, when a website publisher asks to open the ad’s landing page in a new window, he does so because he doesn’t want to lose the visitor. But face it, this is exactly what the advertiser wants – that your visitor give full attention to the ad’s message. When you make it easier for your visitor to leave the ad’s landing page and go back to your page, you hurt the advertiser’s goal. When advertisers are not happy with the conversion they get from your visitors, they won’t want to work with you. Through automatic processes, advertisers will stay away from your website and you won’t notice it at first, but your website will get ads that pay less and that are less interesting to your visitors. With time, the user experience will diminish and your bottom line revenues will decrease.

When the ad’s landing page opens in the same window, the user gets a more natural flow of web surfing experience and the landing page has a better chance to get attention. When you open the ad’s landing page in a new window, the chances are higher that the user will not give the same amount of focused attention to the advertiser’s message.

In Text Ads Advantage

As opposed to other hyperlinks on your website, in text ads provide the visitor a glimpse into the advertiser’s message. Upon mouse hover, the double underline link opens a bubble with an initial ad. This is like a opening shortly in a new window. But then, remember – if the visitor is not interested in the ad’s content, he will move the mouse away, the bubble will disappear, and you will keep you visitor in your original page. It’s only when the visitor has genuine interest in the ad that he clicks, and in such cases, it’s good practice to let him follow his interest to the ad’s landing page without interference.

The Back Button

If you adhere to advice above and let advertisers get the attention they pay for, your in text ads revenues will grow. As for your visitors, if they ask about this, you can always point them to that arrow shaped button which reverses time… the back button. Once they have regarded the ad’s landing page, they can choose to proceed to wherever the advertiser has suggested – buy a book for example – or simply hit the back button and return to your original web page.

Notice: sometimes the back button won’t work. Due to the complex path that the browser goes through   from click to the landing page, and sometimes due to the advertiser’s configuration, the back button sometimes doesn’t work. Although providers try to prevent this from happening and keep the back button enabled, with different browsers and different advertisers, it is sometimes impossible to avoid.

For cases with no back button and for cases when the visitors simply like the advertiser’s landing page and stay there, your website should be attractive enough to have users come back to it voluntarily. That’s the right way to keep your visitors, not by technical means.