If you take a look here, you’ll see the latest ad format that Internet Broadcasting has rolled out. It’s a big one, to be sure, taking up the lower third of the page. (It’s the tire company ad.) The “IB Hover Ad” stays in place on the bottom of the browser, even when the user scrolls down. That’s a fairly intrusive experience, but IB says it’s not as bad as other forms of web advertising. We spoke with Eric Koepele, Director of Digital Sales at Hearst Television (Hearst is an ownership partner in IB). He candidly agreed the ad is large, but said the feedback he has been getting so far has been positive from advertisers.
“We are impacting the user experience in a less negative way than we were,” said Kopele. “If you look at these in comparison to front-page take overs, it’s a much less negative user experience. It plays really well as the concept of advertising as content.”
Kopele also told us that the ads are frequency capped at one, so visitors will only see the hover ad once per visit. He says IB partner websites charge two to three times the cost of push-down or front door ads. Further, users can minimize the ad, leaving a branded button on the screen.
This is a big ad unit, to be sure. And it most certainly affects the user experience. We’ll be interested to hear what you think. Stations have to make money, but is this the next BIG thing?
UPDATE: Jeff Kimball, COO at IB, tells LR that early click-through results are in and that IB is seeing rates of more than two percent. That’s versus a 0.6% average click-through rate of a pushdown ad.