Ask HN: What ads would you like to be shown online? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What ads would you like to be shown online?

1 pointmelomal11 comments

Granted this is an odd question and most of us would probably say no to ads in general.

But unless we want to start paying $5 for access to this newsletter, another $5 for another subscription and so on and so forth, ads on websites will be a standard way to generate revenue.

Now with all the privacy and user data that has been pillaged over the years, poor performance from an ad spend perspective and consistently poor delivery of remarketing ads we are essentially living in an era of a cesspit of ad options.

Curious to know what HN prefers when visiting websites:

- Do you prefer targeted ads OR website theme relevant/related ads (more discovery focused)? - Is it preferable to have clearly visible ads or less intrusive such as Google Ads and Quora which effectively blends in with organic results? - Text-based or image-based ads?

Having spent 8 years working across the marketing 'stack' one thing for sure is that ad-tech needs improvements for both the website user, owner and advertiser too.

I can host a website for 10 bucks a month, or 100 a year. Even a fregan like myself can scrape together that much. What exactly do I need to pay for that requires "monetizing"? If people like reading my drivel, they'll visit.

Trying to monetize a newsletter or a blog with ads is a surefire way to join the race to the bottom of the quality space.

Completely agree but the reality of it is, most people want to monetize but they cannot outside of ads or ebooks etc. Your drivel may only reach X number of people but when you are getting Y amount of readers, I guarantee you will look to find a way to monetize, because your time is money.

What about ads that have to adhere to a style guide of the website/blog? As it, the font styles, colours etc do not have to be exact match, but close enough that it would fit into the website. The other side of this is that Google has done this and so has Quora and sometimes it feels a little crappy that they do this.

I don't agree, I will not look to find a way to monetize, because I do not work for money. My time is not money, my time is worth a lot more than that.

In part, it is because I have been tempted by monetization before, after achieving a large readership on several websites I administered in the past, and it never worked out in my favor. Even when I received 10K USD in a year running non-tracking, text-only ads on one site, I think I was doing myself a disservice, cheapening the apparent/perceived value of the content.

I don't want ads on my website, ever. And I think any website with ads is lowering its own value and the quality of the website and the perceived value of the content as well, and getting very little in return. Only large content aggregators who compile huge piles of content can make ads worth it.

I don't see how font styles and colors affect the cost of the website. Could you elaborate on that, please?

Quora has crap content, and I don't read it, nor click their links. Their entire objective is monetization and lock-in, and it is very rare that I see a Quora article that's worth the trouble of obtaining it. Putting text which you wrote into Quora is doing yourself a disservice, because it is immediately placed behind a monetization barrier, and made inaccessible to many.

Google has a very good content engine, but they are a content aggregator, as mentioned above. They are also just barely balancing out between making content more accessible vs placing it behind a barrier inaccessible to many.

> I think I was doing myself a disservice

Were you able to run a data comparison in terms of users/time on site/number of pages etc. I would assume that this in itself would clearly tell you if the ads were harmful or not.

> I don't see how font styles and colors affect the cost of the website

What I mean by this is that when you visit a site with these native ads, the ads themselves would have to adhere to strict design requirements laid out by the publisher. The idea being that it is less intrusive for the overall UX which in reality should limit the problems you mentioned in terms of 'quality'.

The neon, 90's style banner ads are very off putting when you browsing a site, which is what the above is trying to combat.

Here,s what I mean by that:

I,ve gone through all the effort of writing my content... Publishing my content... I have been blessed with a visitor who is interested in what I have to say... Joy!

I want them to read what I have written, potentially changing their life for the better. It would be a great honor and privilege, in fact. It is the main reason I write.

If I had a choice between that and a ten-dollar clickthrough to an affiliate, I would not make the trade. It may not seem like an either-or choice, but it is.

Their time is also very limited, it is the scarcest resource any of us have, and their attention span is fickle. Even if their attention strays for a split-second by looking at the ad, I have already lost them, potentially to never have them again.

I don,t need data to tell me that anything extraneous I put on the page is competing for attentiom with the content which brought the being reading it in the first place.

I like to see what people are selling. Ads don't bother me. Always interested to see new products. Retargetting etc. bores me because I'm already familiar with the product. The pitches can be obnoxious. All in all it is never a big deal for me with display ads, I can just scroll away.

First hand experience retargeting gets <1% CR. But it's so cheap, like honestly so so cheap to run and forget about it that people just don't bother with the fine tuning.

Thank you for the input, this is something that I would say is at the top of my list.

I dont like targeted ads because they create yet another content bubble...

Thank you for the feedback! Targeted ads seem to get a love/hate relationship for many people.

I prefer native ads that are targeted and relevant to my interests.

Thank you for the feedback. Native ads in my opinion are key and ultimately need to try and match up even more so with the content. As in style, colours, fonts etc.

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