Peel Away Ads

October 9th, 2008 by Chris

How often do we find something new that we think can be a game changer? Not often, but it can still happen.

For instance, today I saw my first peel away ad, and I was very impressed. You should see one at the top right of this page.

The example one they provided for me here is a little obnoxious, I’ll admit, with the blinking “Check this Out” but others I’ve seen do not have such text, and otherwise give no indication of what is “underneath” except to show that actual corner of the “underneath” content.

What do I like about these? Well, they’re engaging without being intrusive. But mostly I like them for some of the same reasons I like interstitials. They really don’t take up any screen real estate (how many of us have something important in a corner?) and they’re harder to block with ad blockers.

Really what gets me excited is the screen real estate thing. This is a great way to add new advertisements to your site without actually messing with your layout at all. You could use it to promote a third party ad or an affiliate offer, or even use it to promote content within your own site such as subscription tier or a newsletter. Ecommerce sites could use it to promote current sales or clearance products. The possibilities are endless… and, integration is a snap. No matter what kind of software you use on your site, it is just a javascript include, so it is as easy to ad as Google Analytics tracking code.

I honestly just saw this for the first time about an hour ago (maybe I’m a little behind, in Googling around I see it is at least 1 year old) and I can’t stop thinking of ways to use this on almost all of my existing sites.

I’ve Googled around and noticed that a few places sell scripts that do this, I’m linking to the most popular and one of the cheaper versions (one was like $300). If the example ad on this page isn’t working for you, this text link will. They have one of those obtuse sales pages that I loathe, but they’re selling an unlimited use license of the script for $37, which seems like a good deal. Buy it once and use it on all your sites.

If you think of a good way to implement these, please come back and post a comment or a reply to the forum post here on this topic. I think it’ll be nice to see how others are using them and do a little group brainstorming in that way.

No related posts.

Posted in: Generating Revenue »  by: Chris

3 Responses to “Peel Away Ads”

  1. Dan  Says:
    October 9th, 2008 at 3:10 pm

    A little behind, but you are right they are a nice way to add advertising. The best implementation that I’ve seen is actually to promote a contest on a website. It draws attention to the contest without making you change the layout of your site. That and special offers for products your site sells.

  2. Daniel  Says:
    October 13th, 2008 at 5:45 am

    Interesting!

    I think that this may be better for making people aware of newsletters, collection of email addresses etc…

    Special offers are good too because it gaurantees some non intrusive coverage on every page.

    For example we give people free gifts once they order over $95 on AtLarge. Be nice to have this run at the top right making people aware of this.

    It is a bit cheesy though. Its a bit annoying flashing top right and I wonder if it is the right thing to do on an ecommerce site, but perhaps better on content related sites.

    Good to know about all the same!

  3. Chris  Says:
    October 13th, 2008 at 6:32 am

    Dan, the flashing bit is optional, none of the other examples I’ve seen use it. I also wouldn’t include it in any implementation I did.

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