Why's no one beating up the ad side?

If advertisers want to put up "engaging" PR-style content, why wouldn't they do it on their own web sites instead of ours?

 

Because "our" site gets more readers.
You'd hope, anyway.

 

That doesn't seem like a compelling reason to get them to pay significantly more than they are now. Though I could be wrong.

 

Well, like I mentioned with my son and video game ads, you can charge more (in theory) if you can show your readers want these ads and will respond to them. What the Internet has done is shown how amazingly inefficient most advertising is -- paying buckets of money for "exposure" that doesn't engage 99 percent of the viewers or readers, and in fact makes them resentful and sends them scurrying away from your ad.

 

I'm just wondering how many newspapers have systems to link ads to content and also to users. My chain is just starting to link ads with content, but I brought up targeting ads to users in a meeting and all I got were blank stares. At my paper, there are tons of readers who live in the big city now and with targeted ads, the ad staff could go after companies out of the area.

But unless you have a system to deliver relevant ads in place, all you have are blank billboard ads to sell.