Online advertisement has progressed a lot in past few years. With the advent of Internet, advertisers soon perceived the future of Online advertising because they could see the immense possibilities in online advertising, which were otherwise not possible through Television, Radio or Print advertising. Initially, the online advertising were primarily designed on posting simple text based advertisements, because lower bandwidth of the internet would not allow rich media ads. However, with DSL and Cable internet options available, advertising companies started preparing more animated and rich media ads, which include videos, soundtracks and flash technology. Advancement in technology also enabled advertisers to serve ads to visitors, keeping in view his interests and geographical factors by tracking user’s location and net browsing history through cookies. Google Adsense is successfully using this technology. In the following paragraphs, we will put some light on the most popular ad types:-
Auto-Sound ad: This ad starts playing sounds automatically, whenever mouse cursor scrolls over it. It is used to grab instant attention of user, while he does not seem to pay attention to ads.
Floating ad: This ad usually moves across the user’s screen or floats above the content. In most cases, it also scrolls up and down along with page movement and keeps the original content blurred, until viewed or closed.
Two-phase or Polite ad: This type of ad aims to cause minimum inconvenience to user by loading in two phases. It reveals in a brief shape during loading of the page and emerges to its full shape, once the page download is completed.
Expanding ad: It is an expandable ad, which normally occupies a smaller area, but expends to a larger area when user brings mouse over it, clicks it or allow it to expand in a few seconds automatically.
Wallpaper ad: This type of ad replaces background of the content being viewed. User cannot help but notice this change.
Trick banner: This ad actually tricks the user by presenting itself similar to a system message or error, having clickable button to get over it. These ads are good in garnering above-average CTR (Click Through Rate), however, the user often close it or go back after realizing that they have been tricked.
Pop-up ad: As the name suggests, this ad pops up, or appears in front of page, the user wants to visit. It can be a little banner as well as full page. Pop-up ads do not enjoy respect in present day browsing and for that matter, many browsers provided an option to block these kinds of ads.
Pop-under ad: Pop-under ad functions similar to pop-up, with the difference that instead of popping up, it loads behind the page the user views and once he closes/ minimizes the page and other active windows; he finds the ad.
Video ad: This type of ad is similar to banner ads; however they stream video upon user action. The video in most of the cases resembles those television ads. It can become irritating if the closing button brings the user to advertiser’s site, instead of actually closing the video.
In Text Ad: Usually called as Contextual advertising, in this method specific keywords in the text content of a webpage are aligned with advertising, so when user move over mouse or clicks the link, he is directed to the ad instead of explanation or details of the keyword. This type of ad is often flagged as unethical by journalist circles.
Exit Ad: Also known as hover ads, they do not cause disturbance to the user until they think of leaving page. They appear like floating ad whenever you move your mouse to either go back or close the page.
Map ad: In this type of ad, text or graphical content is linked in or over a particular location on a map such as Google maps. You can find examples on sites, offering you to date with local girls around you.
Interstitial ad: This type of ad will appear before the user visits his/ her actual page. This puts the user to wait, however, they can skip it in most cases.
Email and Mobile Ad: These kinds of ads are served to users on their mobile phones and Email usually in the form of text or Multimedia.
