Social Media Blog

Let’s face it, most social media users stay well away from the ads.  Regular social media website users either block or blank out the ads on any given website page.

Do you click ads?

We certainly aren’t writing this post to encourage ad clicks and it’s important to state that up front.  I stopped clicking on ads many years ago.  I’m pretty sure that when pop up ads became popular I grew to hate ads so much that I began blocking them out visually (or mentally) when I was on a website.

I still end up following a website link every now and then that puts me on a website that pops and ad up and if I’m lucky, firefox or the Google toolbar blocks the pop-up ad.

I’ve used Google Adsense myself and for the moderate traffic my site commands, it produces enough revenue to cover the monthly hosting bill.  It’s very important that as an Adsense or any ad publisher that you not try and trick the system to encourage ad clicks.

Ad Guidelines

There are strick guidelines for the proper usage and site owners are to never click or encourage clicks of their own ads.

Clicks on Google ads must result from genuine user interest. - Google AdSense Program Policies

As a regular Digg, Mixx, Facebook, etc user I’ve also always looked away from ads on those sites too.  I’ve been so focused on staying away from ad clicks that I’ve not been open to the ads on other sites.

Ad appearing on Digg - wecansolveit.org

While Digging along last week I saw an ad for WeCanSolveit.org.  Perhaps it’s the current political climate, or just the dream of a national energy policy - but I clicked the ad!  I found the site interesting but had to think for a moment about what I’d just done.  I actually trusted the whole advertising process enough to click on an ad.

During the next few days I started clicking on other ads that I was interested in seeing what was behind the banner.  Lincoln’s got some cool new cars on the way and Verizon’s ‘one-bill’ promo got me to peek.

Many of my friends have ad blocking and never even see the ads.  I’ve always thought that this seems a little overboard.  Especially when some of the ads might just be internal website messages.

The ads are one of the key revenue mediums for a site owner.  I’m certainly not clicking an ad to donate to the site, but I do feel now that I’m at a stage where I’m not “against clicking the ad.”

During the past few days, and especially on Digg, I’ve actually not held back on clicking ads that interest me. I’ve also clicked a few ads on Facebook. And it comes down to just two key elements.

• I spend more and more time on the site, and
• They are showing me ads that interest me

Now, I have no idea if they use any metrics to match me with ads. And some ads like “what is your credit score” I will simply never click because they seem to always lead to some type of high interest rate financial program.  But, I will say that if sites like Digg continue to provide me a great resource, I’m no longer actively against the ad click.  If the social media site owner benefits, good for them.

So, do you ever click website ads or not?

This story was posted on Saturday, September 13th, 2008 at 8:05 pm in category Social Media News. rss feed for this story RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.