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Poll: If you can’t serve relevant ads on your website, you are better off NOT serving ANY ads on your website. Agree or disagree?

So many times when browsing online I come across the most atrocious ads. For example, I was just on a BSA publisher website checking out their ad code when I saw an ad served up by Google AdSense for “Win Laser Hair Removal”. This is a blog about web design, why would you even attempt to serve up an ad for laser hair removal on a blog about web design? I just don’t get it. So, what do you think? Do you think it’s OK to serve up non-relevant ads on a website when a relevant ad is not available? Would you rather monetize the page view vs. just showing nothing? Please vote below and add any feedback you have in the comments below.

If you can't serve relevant ads on your website, you are better off NOT serving ANY ads on your website:

  • I agree (67%, 39 Votes)
  • I disagree (24%, 14 Votes)
  • I am indifferent (9%, 5 Votes)

Total Voters: 58

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  • http://www.ferodynamics.com/ Ferodynamics

    It’s not all about relevance. Relevance can help you increase sales but it’s not an exact science. People will click on anything, people will buy anything, the same way they will eat whatever you put on a menu, even if they have never tasted it, or are not particularly hungry, just bored, meeting a friend, or working on some new idea, who knows? People are unpredictable. You can make assumptions but that’s it. Free will.

    • http://buysellads.com Todd Garland

      thanks for the feedback, interesting points you make. I guess you could argue that the reason why I noticed the irrelevant ad on the site that sparked this question was because it was so different. With your menu analogy, perhaps if I were at an Italian restaurant and then came across a Thai dish on the menu it would stick out more and get noticed.

      However, shouldn’t there be some relation to an ad being served and the type of site it is on? Surely, even though I am on a blog about web design I may be in the market for a hair removal product. But, isn’t that the wrong place to get me interested in hair removal? Don’t you thin it would be more likely to get me interested in something related to web design?

      • http://branchr.com/ Christian Owens

        I agree, to an extent.

        The ad doesn’t necessarily have to be relevant to the website though, oh no, thats a thing of the past. The ad should be relevant to the user, through behavioral targeting techniques. Serving something that’s of interest to a person far outweighs that of serving something relevant to the page, in most cases. Behavioral re-targeting is a fantastic example of this.

      • http://www.timeofcreation.com/ Tim

        The reason you see those out of place adds is because Google is tracking what you are searching for or searched for, and then displays those adds regardless of the site you are visiting, they are trying to make smart targeted advertisement, but obviously its not perfect.

  • http://www.vectorish.com Miki

    I completely agree. What would be the point to show ads that your audience is not interested in. It works better for both parties. You can charge more, you get better ROI and people actually enjoy what you give them.

  • http://www.animhut.com/ sriganesh

    i saw it too, even some time i got a popup porn live chat ad in one free hosted site.
    I happy to be in BSA, i get only relevant ads in my blog, thanks to BSA. so iam not worrying what type of ads will be shown. thanks BSA

  • http://www.vectorportal.com Riki

    I would guess that 50% of all Internet advertising is not relevant (just look at CPM ads on any site) or Adsense ads. This is a problem of ad networks where publishers do not have control over ads. This is why BSA is so successful in my opinion – because publishers have control (to accept or decline irrelevant ads) and advertisers have control over where they want to advertise. This is not possible with Adsense-like networks. Targeting is always a problem with networks that restrict control to advertisers and publishers. Magic algorithms with relevant keywords do not work here – you either know exactly where to advertise or you don’t. Computer calculating this thing out always make mistakes. That’s how Laser Hair Removal shows on my and many other sites.
    With BSA, this is not the case and that’s why this network works.

    BTW, that Laser Hair Removal ad is showing on my site quite often. So if you have problem with hairy back and are interested in design, you might click on it as well…;)

    • http://desaindigital.com jeprie

      Design and hairy back. hmmm.. what a connection. :)

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  • http://www.beautycenterinc.com John Daly

    I prefer first relevant ads but now days people only looking for more and more traffic on their sites. Normal users can only search in search engine what they want. Yes it’s right people click any ads but if you have relevant ads then you get targeted traffic.

  • http://pc-boxen.net PC Boxen

    i think some unrelated ads are better than no ads. Ads hurt nobody but give you some extra money. So i think: Why not?!