Firefox Users Bad For Advertisers 900
Posted
by
CowboyNeal
from the smart-clickers dept.
from the smart-clickers dept.
rocketjam writes "According to CNET, German advertising technology company Adtech reports that during the months of October and November, Internet Explorer users were more than four times as likely to click on ads than Firefox users were. During the period 0.5 percent of IE users clicked on ads compared to 0.11 percent of Firefox users. Speculation on reasons for the difference in click rates range from Firefox's integrated pop-up blocking to seeing the average Firefox user as more tech-savvy the average Internet Explorer user."
more than four times as likely to click on ads (Score:3, Insightful)
One of the reasons we use Firefox is because it blocks pop-up ADDS. So why would a firefox user go and proactively click on adds after going to all that troubl???
Sheesh, go figure...
heh (Score:2, Insightful)
Skewed (Score:5, Insightful)
One and the Same (Score:3, Insightful)
(And, aside from that, they can stop most all of the ad-blocking problems by just having the website proxy all advertisement images on it, so they really shouldn't bitch about something with a fairly simple technological solution.)
Not FireFox... (Score:2, Insightful)
take 2 coinsiding facts and obscure the link (Score:3, Insightful)
This is one of those things where things have got confused. These 2 facts coinside:
- If you've used your computer for longer then you are likely to have discovered a new browser.
- If you've used your computer for only a short time you are experiencing run away popups and all that you get when you click an AD.
^ combine these 2 and remove how you made the connection and you can make it seem like firefox users are just tight.
Don't descriminate against firefox users! I expect the same could be said to any non-windows browser, and any browser that isn't installed already with PCs you buy at Walmart and PC world.
Another thought (Score:5, Insightful)
Stats are stretching the truth... (Score:2, Insightful)
Many adverts don't display correctly on firefox (Score:5, Insightful)
Many adverts aren't rendering correctly on firefox, including some flash/dhtml combos and some dhtml ads.
I don't expect this is the main reason, but it doesn't help.
Also, click through rates and conversion rates are different issues. Probably many more IE users accidentily click on ads or click on them and lose interest than firefox users who are much more likely to only click through on an advert if they are interested in buying. (this is a guess we don't breakdown by browser type at the moment)
Re:A different way of advertising... (Score:5, Insightful)
if someone goes to the effort of ignoring ads, working around their measures is more likely to piss them off than get their business.
Re:AdBlock (Score:5, Insightful)
Also if I don't like the site I'm on, I will typically block as many ads as I can (like weather.com), but I don't bother with most ads on slashdot.
I just hate really intrusive ads. Unfortunately, the intrusive ads are the ones that get the attention, and thus the clicks, of the users. Maybe if the advertisers actually offered something I wanted, they would see more success.
Re:What next? (Score:1, Insightful)
firefox users are more security conscious generally (where do you know firefox from? friends? or IT news site? mozilla.org?) whereas ie are preinstalled. A large portion of the population use their computer just for work, searches and such an they won't even have heard of spyware.
a better statistics would be how many people actually BUY product from ads. Since the clicks in firefox are more likely to be clicked because the product create an interest to the user.
about your point, you might be better off with "car-savvy are less likely to crash" but you will have to take into account they are also more likely to speeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed.
Re:AdBlock (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Browser ID spoofing (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:AdBlock (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually it really makes no difference, since I won't click on the non-annoying ads either.
Re:AdBlock (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:AdBlock (Score:5, Insightful)
An extra button or shortcut labeled "help this site" wich opens all ads in background tabs ? I would use it.
Re:AdBlock (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly - by filtering _all_ ads you're destroying the current structure of the internet. IMHO filtering excessively annoying ads (flash, animated gifs, popups, etc) is fair enough, but don't you want to encourage the advertisers to use non-intrusive text only ads?
Re:AdBlock (Score:5, Insightful)
ad market destroyed itself (Score:2, Insightful)
That, and the fact that still a lot of ads badly placed (for example, selling morgages on a britney spears fanpage) no wonder no one clicks on them.
I do think ads can work in benefit of advertiser and visitor, but now most web users have grown such an aversion to them making ads more and more ineffective.
Re:AdBlock (Score:3, Insightful)
Despite its faults and follies, it's a great site and one of my primary sources of news. In fact, I like to see the ads and there have been several times when I've clicked through and purchased stuff, too.
And coming back to answer your question - simple non-intrusive methods like Google will make money out of ads, and eventually websites will find a way of getting through the ad-block.
Re:What next? (Score:4, Insightful)
I remember reading somewhere that most of them were people like housewives and retired folks, looking to make a quick buck. In which case, it's far more likely that those folks will use IE than Firefox.
Perhaps you could have a ratio of sorts - 50 clicks of IE is worth 1 click of Firefox
Fake "X" (Score:2, Insightful)
That most Firefox users know are fake and will not click....
I've found that alot crap adware/spyware is install by users clicking the fake "X" or "Close" to get rid of the ad.
And teaching no-tech savy users to click the Real X, is harder then you would think....,
---- There are only 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary, and those who don't
---- "NIPPLES!! I HAVE NO NIPPLES!!!" -- Happy Noodle Boy
Who's fault is it anyway? (Score:5, Insightful)
I blame the advertisers themselves. Ads kept getting more and more intrusive, abusing pretty much everything they could. In response, users started blocking pop-ups, keeping an anti-ad hosts file and generally ignore advertisements altogether. Firefox is merely another thing that makes it easier to get rid of ads. If they'd remained the nice, standard non-moving/flashing/whatever banners, users might not hate them this much.
Re:AdBlock (Score:4, Insightful)
Take slashdot (as an example), if everyone blocks ads, how would they "adapt"? My guess would be A) they won't, or B) they'll be reduced to making paid subscriptions mandatory, and perhaps increasing the number of advertisements masqueraded as genuine stories (such as the recent Cannon printer promotion). Is that really a better alternative?
Re:What next? (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually, this might be the same with Firefox. I am much more likely to (ahem) surf to a dubious site with firefox than I am with IE!
Sesostris III
Re:AdBlock (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:AdBlock (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:AdBlock (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:AdBlock (Score:3, Insightful)
We must always have the right of what to view and what not to view, business models built on denying that choice deserve to be undermined whether its /., CNN, or any other site. Of course, that means the content providers have the right to decide not to provide content at all anymore... mmmm, catch 22.
Re:AdBlock (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:AdBlock (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:AdBlock (Score:2, Insightful)
If you don't like the site you're on, don't go to it. It's that simple.
Re:AdBlock (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:AdBlock (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:AdBlock (Score:5, Insightful)
True, the s/n ratio was much more reasonable
Commercial sites that sell stuff will continue to exist. Research sites will continue to exist. I'll bet most ad supported sites will continue to find a way to exist also. Let's face it the good ones started out with no ads then decided "well hell, this got popular so let's see if I can't make a little bit of money". If they go away, oh well.
If most people want to block ads and that destroys a business model who are we to say that is wrong? There is certainly nothing illegal about and no realistic way to stop them.
Finkployd
Re:AdBlock (Score:3, Insightful)
Take slashdot (as an example), if everyone blocks ads, how would they "adapt"?
Maybe they'll run on top of some torrent-like software. Perhaps the individual comments could be passed around separately. Instead of 'articles', we could have broad groupings to put news in. We could even designate some computers as servers so they aggregate most of the comments, which we could then read at our leisure.
Probably Not Good News for Firefox (Score:3, Insightful)
Advertisers got the big head (Score:2, Insightful)
Advertising always was, and should go back to being a gamble on the advertisers part. When an advertiser buys an ad in the local newspaper, there is no guarantee that you will see it or if you do, pay it any attention.
I wouldn't mind seeing an ad or two myself, but they are ALL currently disabled because of this mindset that they have. They don't need to know if I looked at an ad. They don't need to know where I came from when I get to their site. My browser is set to not give any referrer information also.
Marketing people are pure unadulterated evil. If marketers were all banished to Canada, software would get better. Let us geeks decide about features. Don't artificially limit anything.
Oh well.
Re:AdBlock (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no such agreement, as much as some content providers would like to believe so. Furthermore there is no agreement that my browser will accept cookies, or display images, or interpret javascript, or even render as the author intended.
And if you want to get technical, shouldn't the "agreement" be that the user will click on ads? Simply looking at them does not help the provider one bit.
And again, even if you destroy the business model, what are you left with? There doesn't currently appear to be a business model that can replace ad-supported websites.
No, there doesn't. But realiscally they have nobody to blame but themselves. Most people are not offended by text ads or even non intrusive graphical ads (read: no animated gif, no flash, no monkey punching, etc). By flooding the market with annoying, intrusive, and increasing misleading ads, they have drummed up quite a bit of hatred for the whole concept. Witness the results of this. There is nothing anyone can do about it if the population decides that enough is enough.
Go ahead and block ads if you want, but I don't want to see you crying when more and more sites move to subscription or simply shut down.
I won't. Subscription only sites will only survive if people consider the site to be worth it. For example why would I ever subscribe to NYT when I can get the same news from news.google.com and get multiple sources to boot? Google doesn't seem to be in any trouble these days, and they found a clever and agreeable way to handle ads (text based). So either content providers will innovate like this (funny that a text ad can be considered innovation these days, but it is), of they will die. Just like every other industry when change comes their way. Well, either that or they will try to get ad viewing/clicking enforced by legislation I suppose.
Finkployd
Re:AdBlock (Score:3, Insightful)
But some of these epileptic-fit-inducing ads just make me work all the harder to eliminate them.
This is all part of capitalism. Adapt or die.
They have bigger problems.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:My experience with Google Adsense ads (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:AdBlock (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:AdBlock (Score:3, Insightful)
I know advertisers and sites will try to get around this as much as possible, now that Firefox has enough of a user base to start paying attention. I know that most advertisers won't take a clue, and rather than backing off so they don't alienate their reader base, they will get more intrusive and alienate even more people.
Re:AdBlock (Score:3, Insightful)
Is this a "bad" thing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Getting back on track here... it's simple Mr. Advertiser. If I want to buy a product, I will. You don't need to MAKE me buy it with your ad, you just need to get it into my head that it might do what I want. If I don't choose to buy it, TOO BAD!! Stop trying to justify your existence by pouring money into advertising and marketing and put that money into research and development to make a better product. Remember, the real hierarchy of the consumer/advertiser/producer relationship is this:
1. The producer only exists to serve the consumer
2. The advertiser is simply a notification agent (hmmm... could be replaced with a small shell script)
3. The consumer is the monarch in this relationship and should have little to do other than make a decision about where to spend their money.
4. The stockholders are the least important as they should be happy to even get a cent from this deal.
But it's all screwed up today and people are slowly being zombified by the current corrupted version of capitalism. Resist folks. Resist. You'll be better off for it.
Bad metric (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:AdBlock (Score:5, Insightful)
But this may not good to the web, the web user and the advertisement business.
The web has been filled with a wrong idea, which is if I put whatever through the web, at large quantity, some people will click/reply it. The first case of this idea is spam, the second one is banner ad. In most case, those ads are't related with the contain of the pages showing them. Also those ads aren't visually compatible with the pages showing them. More and more of them are become annoying, they are hurting the viewers' eyes and wasting their time and bandwidth. They are diseases of the web and dark side of the advertisement business.
Advertisement should be useful and enjoyable to the viewers. Otherwise, it will harm the advertiser. Also, harm the advertisement business.
Thus for the good of web, web user and advertiser, those irrelevant banner advertisement should be stop.
New smart and useful advertisement will adapt the existance firefox and adBlock.
blocking Google ads (Score:3, Insightful)
127.0.0.1 adservices.google.com
127.0.0.1 googleadservices.com
127.0.0.1 pagead.googlesyndication.com
127.0.0.1 pagead1.googlesyndication.com
127.0.0.1 pagead2.googlesyndication.com
127.0.0.1 pagead3.googlesyndication.com
127.0.0.1 www.googleadservices.com
Re:AdBlock (Score:4, Insightful)
Repeat after me: THE STANDARD DOES NOT SPECIFY HOW CLIENTS RENDER
Re:AdBlock (Score:1, Insightful)
Haven't read every post, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:AdBlock (Score:4, Insightful)
Finkployd
Re:AdBlock (Score:1, Insightful)
Those types are the majority on the Internet, and while things like AdBlock exist for those of us who don't view the Internet as a TV replacement, that majority still won't give a shit.
That's not how ads work (Score:5, Insightful)
You're assuming the point of advertising is to make you click. Strangely, many "new economy" ad execs sold their wares the same way. "Yeah, the users will CLICK and GO to your WEBSITE and BUY THINGS!!!11 ON THE SPOT!!!!111"
Bzzzt! Wrong, Slick.
The point of advertising is (say it with me) brand recognition. You aren't going to buy a Coke* on line when you get thirsty, but if all the sites you visit regularly have a Coke banner, the next time you're in the MiniMart, you might just say, "Hmmm, if I get a Coke then some hottie will hang off me, and there will be dancing and music and lots of sweat!" Then you fork over your dollars for one.
Why do you think there are billboards, and they are successful (in terms of getting companies to pay Viacomm and ClearChannel)? Because they build that brand recognition, not because you are going to run out that minute and buy a Hummer. Why are there ads in magazines? You gonna "click" on one of those, hah? Why does your 1 hour TeeVee show have 40 minutes of "content" (to be very generous) and 20 minutes of ads? You can't buy anything on the spot, so why are they trying to hawk "Hot Pockets"?
Now, it is possible for advertising to adapt to the web, but that won't happen until the ad execs actually figure out why and how the web works. I've sat in enough advert planning meetings (the "token" tech guy) to permanently lose all feeling below my neck due to lack of oxygen, and I can tell you that they don't get it yet. Maybe the current generation needs to die. I dunno.
*Yes, we're all aware that you can buy your dork-related goods [thinkgeek.com] on-line by clicking on the ads. We're talking about the average person here, who isn't interested in a new case, binary clock, or t-shirt that says, "Got Root? [please get me a girlfriend]".
Re:AdBlock (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:AdBlock (Score:5, Insightful)
When the advertisers look at their ROI and see that all of the traffic from site x is crap, they will pull the ads and the site you were trying to help will need to find another method to support itself.
Re:AdBlock (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:AdBlock (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:AdBlock (Score:5, Insightful)
How sad is it that this is the misguided view people have?
Let me fill you in on how the web works. You put a process on a machine that responds to requests on port 80 (or 443, whatever). A client sends one such request and if you respond with a document, than the transaction is finished. No more obligations, nobody is being a dick, and nothing else has to happen.
I am under no obligation to request images referenced in the returned document, or swf files, or even view the entire document. You gave it to me freely as outlined in the various RFCs that document this process.
Just because one day someone decided that they could make money by putting ads on a site does change the fundamental architecture and process flow of an http transaction. The understanding was always that the end user controlled what and how they interpret this data.
Nowhere did the contract (implied or otherwise) change to dictate that the user WILL view the site with IE and have all possible plugins installed, furthermore they will view all images. Text based browsers still exist, special need browsers exist (for the blind for example), browsers that let you turn off images, browsers that download just the html for offline viewing. This is all perfectly acceptable but it does not support the (poorly thought out) business model that involved ads. There is no "ad blocking" going on here, all that happens is a client chooses not to burden their net connection and computer resources by not requesting additional files that they do not want.
And you are right, the client does not own the content, but nobody ever said they did. Conversely if you are giving me data just because I ask for it, you do not have any control or say in how I use the data. Within legal boundaries, obviously I cannot violate your copyright.
How the content is presented is completely irrelevant, since I control that, not the webserver. This is ALWAYS how it has been. Browsers can change stylesheets, background colors, fonts, choose not to display images, etc. This is how the web works. Trying to pretend it is a print media and that the layout and presentation is decided by the provider is just an exercise in self delusion.
Finkployd
Re:AdBlock (Score:3, Insightful)
Adblocking is no different than picking up a paper labeled "free" and shaking out the advertising inserts.
Re:AdBlock (Score:4, Insightful)
Because people who have an extreme pet peeve for web sites that have the nerve to block all of the content with ads for a few seconds will never come back
For some, ad-blocking is an ergonomic issue (Score:3, Insightful)
I wish advertising people would realise that they are totally alienating some potential customers.
Re:AdBlock (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:There are a number of factors... (Score:1, Insightful)
Now, this seems kind of stupid to me. I don't remember a time when I would have been fooled by that. But my dad doesn't understand the system. It doesn't immediately occur to him that he could just wave the mouse pointer over the box on the screen and see it change to the hand icon, indicating a link and not an actual system message. He doesn't immediatly know that everything he sees on a web page is suspect. He doesn't realize the level that advertisers will sink to, and probably has some expectation that the law will prevent it from being too bad or too misleading. People like us have seen all kinds of interesting tricks from phishing scams to Google-bombs and other carefully-crafted hoaxs for fun and profit, but many casual internet and computer users haven't seen them, and certainly haven't disected them, analyzed them, and come to expect them the way we have.
In short, my dad isn't stupid. It's just a completely foreign environment for him. I wouldn't understand everything I saw if I were wandering around at the bottom of the ocean, either.
Re:AdBlock - will cause evolutionary 'Arms Race' (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, like you said in your title, it might because a "arm race", but it's a race there is no point for a website/advertiser to try to win. Because let's face it, if someone is determined to race you, they are annoyed enough about it that you're not going to profit (through a clickthrough) from you displaying that ad.
Re:AdBlock (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:That's not how ads work (Score:2, Insightful)
The branding model works for products with a defined feature set where the differentiation isn't huge - think breakfast cereals, hamburgers, most modern cars (Any car will get you from A to B - and the difference between a Hyundai, a Volvo and a BMW isn't that huge relative to their price differential. The value consumers derive from the brand explains the price differential. Same thing with having a knckoff or a Gen-U-Whine Luis Vuitton handbag.)
The purpose of advertising is to drive sales, otherwise it's worthless from a business standpoint. Branding is one way of driving sales - and it works in defined ways in defined markets. The other way to drive sales is the direct marketing model - your "Call now, operators standing by" model. Both methods play off one another. You can call Dell 24/7 and order their brand of mass market computer - and you can call 24/7 to order the latest, greatest in home gym equipment from someone you never heard of with some lump of muscle you've never seen before as spokesmodel.
Both models work to drive sales, but they work in different ways. To say that the purpose of advertising is branding only, is to overlook the fundamental business reason behind branding and advertising, which is to drive sales. And sooner or later, any advertising model or channel that does not work to drive sales will be cut from ad budgets. If 'net advertising doesn't work to drive sales, it will disappear.
Brand awareness is overused though - it tends to be the braindead ad execs excuse for any failed ad campaign. "Well, okay, so sales dropped while our campaign ran, but at least you've built brand awareness!"
Stop by the Direct Marketer's Association sometime - they're Evil and in favour of spam (Opt-out email advertising? You gotta be kidding me!) but their members did $11.8 billion dollars in sales from "Yeah, the users will CLICK and GO to your WEBSITE and BUY THINGS!!!11 ON THE SPOT!!!!111" kind of advertising. Branding is one marketing strategy. Direct Marketing is another. Viral marketing like we had here yesterday is yet another. All three can be used simultaneusly to good effect, as long as there's an overall strategy behind it.
Re:Is Firefox unethical? (Score:2, Insightful)
I see that most people here are trying to defend the practice of ads on web pages. To remind everyone, the net started out for a different purpose than selling stuff, and (to the complete shock of certain individuals) hasn't changed in that respect. Just because a bunch of people are trying to make some money does not give them the right to screw everything up along the way.
Actually it gives the people who keep this place together the right to kick those adverts in the arse.
My analogy:
Imagine the people who built and maintain the internet as contractors. They built a house (the internet).
Now a bunch of crack dealers (advertisers) barge in and start selling dope (advertisements).
Is it unethical for the contractor to board up all the windows and lock all the doors (block ads and other junk)??? Or was it unethical for those crack dealers to come in and start selling smack in the first place.
Think about that when you say that advertisers keep the internet together. In reality the only thing they want to keep together is their bank account and profit.