A Web Ad Glossary

In print, it's easy to know the types of ads. Full page ads take up a full page. Half page ads are half as big. Four color ads are ads in color. Same in TV, a thirty second spot lasts 30 seconds.

But the web, being a new medium, has lots of new terms. Here's my quick list of some of the more common ones, along with a short definition of each. I'll also tell you what my research is showing as the most effective ad format, along with guidelines for using it.

Banner Ads - These are those little boxes that you see usually across the top of a Web site touting another Web site, or a product or service. The guidelines for these, including sizes and some methodology, were developed a couple of years back by the Coalition for Advertising Supported Information and Entertainment along with the Internet Advertising Bureau.

The common placement of an Internet banner ad is at the top of a Web page, though a significant amount of research and my gut sense is that a more effective place would be at the end of a Web page or at the end of an information unit.

Interstitial Ads - These are the ads that sort of jump in front of you as your browser. You're going to a Web site that uses one of these ads and the interstitial ad pops up in your face and stays there before your browser can load the page you're aiming for. Clicking on the ad takes you to the advertisers site.

There's no doubt that this kind of activity is going to help people remember things. There's also no doubt that it's going to tick off a lot of folks. Personally, I prefer not ticking off people as part of my marketing strategy.

Pop-Up Ads - These are kind of after-the-fact interstitial ads. A pop-up ad comes up after a site is loaded rather than during the initial loading stages. In order to get back to the page you were looking at, you need to close the window with the ad in it, or in some cases, switch to the window with the original site in it.

Transactional Ads - Transactional ads don't take you to the advertisers Web site. Instead they give you a way to request information of take an action without leaving the site that you're on.

Rich-Media Ads - Personally I would call these stuffed-media ads. These are the ones where the design techies get to display all their little tricks. Rich-media ads are the ones where things move, blink, beep, flash, sing, hum, dance, and, one would suppose, engage in mating behavior. Add these features to a banner ad and you have a rich-media ad.

Content-Based Ads - To some extent these are the equivalent of the old radio and TV show sponsorships where an entire show was "brought to you by Texaco." These are ads that give you something of value, for example a recipe that uses cheese products, along with the message (and a possible link) that tells you it is brought to you by an advertiser such as Kraft.

My research is showing content-based ads to be the most effective for most situations, if they're properly placed. That's because a content-based ad is sought out for the content.

The content, in turn, gives the reader a reason to seek more information. That information can be topical, or it can be information about the advertiser. Along with the reason, a good content ad gives the reader a method for getting that information with a mouseclick.

What's the downside? Content ads have to be placed in the proper context to be effective. That means they have to be in a place where prospects and customers will come looking for information. They have to be well-publicized and promoted. In other words, they need to be findable.

In addition, good content ads have to be, well, good. This is where you advertise by showing off, strutting your stuff, showing your wares, but you do it with helpful content that answers the question or solves the problem that brought the reader to the content.

Content ads are made for the web, but the content has to be good and the placement and promotion must be good as well for them to work at their best for you.