A Publisher’s Guide to Effective Widget Placement

11.10.2010 – 12:53
EDISONDA user experience studio has conducted usability and eyetracking tests of the AdTaily widget, to assess its performance and functionality. Based on the results of these tests, we have come up with some tips for our publishers, which we want to share with you, so that you could get more out of using this self-service advertising solution.

Content vs. advertising

As a publisher, you find yourself in front of a dilemma: you want to put together your website’s content and the advertising space (widget) together in a way that will make both your readers and your advertisers happy. It’s not an easy task.

On one hand, placing the widget in a highly visible part of your website will make it more attractive to the advertisers, because all they want is your readers’ attention.

On the other hand though, your readers do not like obtrusive advertisements. Also, you don’t want to have to redesign your entire website, just to display the ads in a more prominent location.

It doesn’t have to be a problem. The needs of your readers and your advertisers can be reconciled, and this short guide, based on the aforementioned research, will help you in achieving that goal.

Where are the ads most visible?

The following widget placements are the most effective, in terms of how much attention they get from the website visitors:

  • the top of the page
  • the right column (in the three-column system)
  • the central column
  • above the page fold (in most cases)

The picture below is an example of results from the eyetracking test. It illustrates which parts of a website the viewers pay most attention to (the red spots): Visibility of different website elements

How to make the widget more noticeable?

  • Adapt the look of the widget to its surroundings (by changing it’s frame and background color, text of the button, etc.), so it wouldn’t clash with other elements of the website, and so that the viewers wouldn’t notice right away that they are looking at an ad.

  • Don’t make the widget look exactly as its surroundings. Distinctive elements are more noticeable, and attract more attention for longer.

For more detailed information about why the above widget placements are the most effective ones, please read the full (PDF) version of this article.

By anna.rys | Posted in For Publishers, News | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Translate Your AdTaily Widget into Any Language You Want

04.10.2010 – 11:27

Widget translation feature

You want to use the AdTaily widget on your website but you know that most of your visitors don’t speak English? That’s not a problem anymore! Our new translations feature lets you translate the widget, all the instructions, and even the confirmation and acceptance e-mails, into any language you want, so that you could communicate with your (potential) advertisers better. The widget is available in 14 different languages already, and if you think any of the translations are inadequate or incomplete, you can always correct them. It’s really simple.

How to submit or correct a translation?

Sign in to your AdTaily account, choose the “Websites” tab, and click the “Edit Widget” button. A page where you can change the appearance and language of the widget on your website will be displayed: translations1

Choose the language you want to use from the drop-down menu. If the language you need is not there, or if you have noticed that some things in an existing translation need to be changed, choose the “add new or correct your language” option. On the following page, you can choose the language you want to add or correct from the drop-down menu. After you click “Next,” a page where you can enter the translation appears: translations2

Now you can enter or change the text in the chosen language in the designated textboxes. The English equivalents are displayed on the right from the textboxes, so that you could always go back and check if the translation makes sense. The text you are currently writing is framed in red in the widget on the right hand-side, making it easy for you to see how your changes will look like right away. Once you translate the widget, click “Next.”

In the following step, you will be asked to translate the confirmation view. You can translate this page in exactly the same way as the previous one. Translate everything except the words in the brackets (such as “{{moderation_time}}”). After you’re done, just click “Next” once again.

After that, you will be requested to translate the confirmation e-mail, which the advertisers receive after purchasing an ad through the AdTaily widget on your website. In the last two steps, you can also translate the acceptance and rejection e-mails, which we send to the advertisers after you accept or reject the ad they want to place on your website. You can always go back to the previous steps, and check if you’re happy with everything you wrote. Then, just click “Finish,” and you are done!

You will be able to use the translation you submitted as soon as we accept it, which shouldn’t take more than 24 hours.

Happy translating!

By anna.rys | Posted in For Publishers | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Vote for AdTaily.com in the PayPal X Developer Challenge

27.09.2010 – 16:21

We are pleased to announce that AdTaily.com has entered the PayPal X Developer Challenge contest. The challenge has been to “create the most innovative payment app for businesses in areas such as services, social media, gaming, mobile and consumer electronics, using the newly launched PayPal X APIs,” and you can view all the details about this initiative here: https://www.x.com/community/ppx/devchallenge/.

Last Friday, on September 24, all submitted applications have become available for public voting, and the top apps, as chosen by the voting community, will be invited to exhibit at the PayPal X Innovate 2010 conference. There are no monetary benefits associated with winning the People’s Choice Award but being recognized as the public’s favorite application would be a great honor for us. This is why we would like to ask you to help us win this award by voting for us at https://ppdevchallenge.ebayinc.spigit.com/Page/ViewIdea?ideaid=354.

In order to vote, you have to have a Paypal account and create a profile at x.com (PayPal’s new developer site). So, if you already have a PayPal account, click the above link, sign in, and if you haven’t created your x.com profile already, you will have to do it by filling in this simple form:

x.com profile form

Just put in any screen name you like, tick a couple of boxes, click “Agree and Submit,” and you’re done and ready to vote for AdTaily in the PayPal X Developer Challenge. All you have to do is click on the little light bulb in AdTaily’s “Idea Display.” The red arrow indicates what exactly you should click:

AdTaily Idea Display on x.com

Thank you so much for supporting our idea and voting for us! If we do win, we will be sure to bring some reports and pictures back from the PayPal X Innovate 2010 conference, and will be eternally grateful to all those who voted.

By anna.rys | Posted in News | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

AdTech - a Brief Summary

24.09.2010 – 17:28

This was the first year that AdTaily, in the person of Marcin Grodzicki went to AdTech London. For those of you that are not familiar with it - AdTech is a leading advertising industry conference/expo with local editions worldwide. This year brought us about 300 exhibitors, 120 free seminars and 69 conference speakers and panelists.

We can’t tell much about the conference, as we felt that 700GBP for a day of sitting in rows and listening to smart people was a bit steep for our pockets. Also, from what you can hear from the panelists the outcome wasn’t very impressive (http://twitter.com/nickhalstead/status/25134002623).

However we spent some time at the expo floor, and we can tell that:

  • 1. Retargeting and Mobile are definitely the hot trends

  • 2. The noticeably-not-present were definitely the publishers, except for a few that you always expect (and that don’t really need it, as they’re already on top of what is hot). I guess some of them were just attending, but definitely you can see that publishers still don’t pitch themselves as advertising players (this excludes Google and Facebook, which again don’t need the attention)

  • 3. Agencies by far are the most active at the expo, which is sad as it turns the whole thing into a marketplace rather than an event of showcasing innovation and products

One thing that is definitely worth noticing though is that AdTech is not only the expo and conference. Since it gathers a lot of people from the industry in one place in a short timespan, it’s a good moment to schedule meetings with partners that fly in from as far as South Africa and attend drinks/parties hosted by other vendors.

Also accompanying events, often regarded higher than the conference itself, like the AdTradin Summit (http://exchangewire.com/summit2010/) are worth mentioning. In other words - even if the core of the AdTech got lost somewhere, it’s still a great time to catch up with the industry, listen to the voice of the crowd and make new connections.

AdTech

By anna.rys | Posted in Events | Tagged , | Comments (0)

AdTaily at MiniBar London

21.06.2010 – 14:37

MiniBar London is a monthly meetup for all tech/web aficionados which offers people „a chance to snaffle some free beer while discussing p2p, web applications, start ups, social networking and general Web 2.0 mayhem & fandango”. We had a presentation there and here is a short interview with Marcin from AdTaily.

By jimiasty | Posted in Events | Tagged , | Comments (0)