The right hand sky scraper is the offending banner and no I didn’t cut off the bottom “Now through May” thats how the ad appeared on mail.yahoo.com. The left hand large box is expandable that popped out from “Rollover to Save”.

The top link – AdChoices – takes you here and lets you opt in and out of certain categories as well as shows you the information it has on you. They have my location wrong, or just never updated it since I moved but provide a lot of great information everyone should know about why/how advertising is displayed to you. I’ve repeatedly said Behavioral Targeting is one of the best tools in the world but I firmly believe in advertising education and allowing people to control what they see. If you want irrelevant content or a pay-wall so sites can recoup costs then enjoy!

The bottom link – Ad Feeback – takes you here which looks like a brand awareness/brand lift study.

Yahoo has not incorporated both of these on all banner placements, not sure if its b/c this one had the best placement 300×250 right side, above the fold which will no doubt get the highest number of eyes and clicks. Or if its something specific to the T-Mobile ad campaign. I can’t be BT targeted, maybe demo?

I saw the above banner and was horrified, so obviously I clicked. Then I arrived at one of the most entertaining sites I’ve been to as a digital marketer in a while. I just wish I knew who did the site or what real company it was promoting…PointRoll is mentioned once but that’s it.

I’m not going to spoil the fun, go check it out here. Make sure you browse the site a bit for some awesome quotes like:

“We have 100% delivery. Sometimes you don’t even need a computer!”

“Our motto, “Keep it in the box,” (you know, the banner!) ensures our staff of talented clickologists never strays from what we know works: The highest standard for the lowest common denominator. It’s what we were founded on. It’s what works.”

“It’s not just a theory, it’s digital fact.”

Last week the IAB announced the creation of a new logo (see below) to tell users they are seeing the ad because of behavioral targeting. As an act of self regulation and transparency the logo was decided on to avoid government interference on BT practices. For more information read this.

A warning label on behavioral targeting ads is totally and completely unnecessary. All media is purchased based on the consumers’ media habits, demographics, psychographics, previous purchases and other piles of research and life style stats. We place no warning labels on TV spots, informing the carefully selected audience that they are seeing the ad because they fite percisely into our media plan.  

As a media planner, I should hope that all ads would have this little logo on it – all the ads placed are done sone because of meticulous research and well thought out budget allocations based on the target demographic and client goals.

But, Pandora, we need to talk. I don’t know what you’re trying to say about me with your recent ads. Does my love of Dragonettes ‘I get around’ and my thumbs uping of Uh Huh Her’s ‘Explode’  imply that I’m a little bit of a whore? Do you think my recent addition of 50 Cent’s “Have a Baby By Me” is a sign that I desperately need birth control? Is that why 90% of the display ads I saw today were for NuvaRing?

I don’t know if the ads were due to behaviroal targeting (I was actively shopping for high heels and looking up bars in SF) or if Pandora was profiling my song choices (check out the above mentioned here, here and here).

One more thing, and this ones for the NuvaRing people, I really don’t want to check out how easy your product is to use. I was terrified there was going to be some sort of how to video. One of the easiest ways to  reduced CTR and decrease engagement – using the word vaginal in your copy and vaguely imply that by clicking the user will see a how to insert video.

(Aren’t you so glad I brought this blog out of retirement?)

According to TheLongListofTheLongestStuffatTheLongestDomainNameAtLast.com

“AT&T was the first to dish over some money to HotWired to display the beast they created, a 468 x 60 banner that came to life on October 25 1994″

I wonder what it’s click through rate was….

via @cstoller

I’m not sure if it is because of my heart trauma or not, but I love this banner ad from Cleveland Clinic. The action version is even better!

The website is pretty fantastic too. Its clean, streamlined, sociable and succinct.

While these ads annoy me to no end, I would kill to work on this account. This is one of the few accounts that has increased their spend recently and they are just blanketing the web. 

Not sure if their on a behavioral buy (although I don’t look up diet information), could be demographic (because all 25 year old women are obsessed with their weight) or maybe they’re just buying remanent ad space by zip or DMA.

The website (yes I clicked, I was curious) is positioned as a San Diego woman’s blog. Anyone else click through on these and have a website targeting their DMA?

I ran a couple of quick Google searches which is where it looks like No on 8 has spent their dollars. But No on 8 has been successful within social media too. 

Some of the search results are a bit confusing though…

Someone should inform this designer that we actually read left to right.