Watch Your Ad Load Times

March 17, 2008 · Comments

Doc Searls has it right. If your site has ads that take forever to load, MY attention is in jeopardy. And now that I’m thinking about it, you know who suffers worse? Your site. Because I probably didn’t even NOTICE the ad that took forever to load. Instead, I noticed that your site loaded slow.

(Yes, I’ve heard of Adblocker, but that’s not the point).

And you, as a business and a brand, pay attention: flashy and long load times won’t win you my support. Your stupid ad moving all over the page makes me have a negative impression, not a positive one.

What’s your take on this?

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  • Isn't there any way to postload the ads once the browser finished displaying the website? That could be a solution...
  • James
    It comes with other trade offs but keep the ads contained in iFrames, this allows your page and the ads to load at separate rates.
  • You may want to look at http://www.openx.org/ :) More control over your ads.

    -Jeff
  • Hi Chris,

    You're spot on the mark with this one. It's not the ad sellers that loose...it's the site owner...

    I have a very short fuse for slow loading sites.

    I'm sure there's some sort of ajaxy technology that could pull the ads in after the site loaded
  • Sites that have multiple flash ads take away from the content. I don't want some flying car distracting me while I read your article.

    Also sites with multiple ads from different servers will load a different rates and that could make the entire page lag.

    Keep it simple on the advertisements.
  • Is this really the issue or is it better directed at page and web design? I don't notice the ads as I'm not visiting the page for the ads but rather the content of the web site. I only notice ads that are right in my field of vision and more often than not, the ad has no direct relationship to the page content.
  • It's a good point Chris, and it should be noted that there are standards for this put out by the Inactive Advertising Bureau:

    http://www.iabcanada.com/standards/cuap2.shtml

    Note that these are the Canadian standards but they are similar to ones for the U.S. and other territories.

    Even if you're not developing ads for sites that require you to conform to IAB specs (many big publishers do) it's probably a good practice to do so, as they work hard to balance load time with creative needs.
  • Couldn't agree more. The worst things are the flash widgets that dance across the screen over what you're trying to read. There's a special place in hell for people that dream up and implement things like that, right alongside the spammers and the malware hackers.
  • This has nothing to do with ads, but my take is that I'm about to kick my web-hosting company to the curb. My blogs are loading very slowly, and they can't seem to find the problem (you might know a little something about troublesome hosting companies, eh?).

    The difference between 2 or 3 seconds and 7 or 8 seconds? For the people I want reading me blog, it's huge.
  • I totally agree. I figure you've got about 3 to 5 seconds to grab their attention and if it's not loaded in that time, they're gone.

    I've been using Firefox for over a year now and didn't realize that some changes I made were affecting IE. IE wouldn't load the page until everything had loaded, where FF, loaded quick.
  • The thicker the crust of advertising, the easier it gets to tune out. It all retreats into Bladerunner-style scenery.

    I don't think the main issue is necessarily load times. I've started poking around a forum on a topic I'm interested in, and the "our sponsors" header takes up all of the space above the fold that isn't reserved for navigation. The advertising becomes a costly nuisance and a recurrent usability annoyance. The experience loses its seamlessness.

    It's like trying to hold a dinner party with some stranger who paid for it sitting in the middle of the rug letting out loud yelping noises from time to time. OK, the party gets paid for, but there is a cost.

    I'm certainly not opposed to monetization--we've all got to pay the rent, and there's nothing wrong with trying to come up with good models to do that. But a good model needs to respect the reader before all else, and to introduce itself when it is wanted, not when it's an annoyance.

    Adwords is a pretty primitive implementation of that idea, but at least they get the balance more or less right.

    Must stop writing things, am becoming less and less coherent.
  • Chris, you're right on the money (pun intended) - the more desperate they are for my attention, the less valuable the message they're trying to sell.

    I'm all for ads, it's become the norm. I believe that we have an innate ability as humans to filter out advertising that has no value or relevance in our lives. As such, the ads that are relevant to our needs or interests will be properly designed to attract the attention of it's demographic audience.

    Regards,
    Rick
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