Pixel advertising is breaking through into the promotional mainstream While television advertisers are scrambling to conquer Tivo® and get people to actually look at their ads, a new breed of fast emerging media may be just what they’ve been looking for.
The new media that could save the day for advertisers looking to recapture lost viewers is called “pixel ads”. Pixel ads are found on web sites that sell micro-ads sized in 10 by 10 pixel increments. The tiny ads are placed on the pixel ad site’s home page and link to the web sites of the various advertisers.
Here is the domain of Pixel Bay (www.pixelbay.org) a leading US based micro-ad site. Pixel based ads originally conceived of by Alex Tew of the UK, became popular with the launch of Tew’s Million Dollar Homepage (www.milliondollarhomepage.com) in early September and catering to mainly European businesses and consumers. But US based advertisers had nowhere to go until the arrival of Pixel Bay.
While television and other so called mainstream media advertisers are desperately trying to make ads that will be watched by consumers at all, pixel ad sites like Pixel Bay and MDH are literally attracting thousands of viewers daily who come to their sites just to look at the ads.
In fact average visitors to PixelBay.org look at a minimum of 4 - 5 advertisers with each visit. In fact, some advertisers report doubling their web site traffic in a matter of days along with greatly increased sales.
The micro-ads are intriguing because of their small size. Basically curiosity forces you to look at them and find out what they are. This writer spent about 5 minutes per visit to each of the above sites “pixeling” (hovering over and clicking on ads). I bookmarked many of the sites and left the pages open so I could go back and click ads I hadn’t seen yet throughout the day. It’s totally addicting. I remember having a similar addition when Tetris was released.
Pixel ads could also help many advertisers reach the coveted echo-boomer generation who are notoriously cynical and averse to advertising. Because of their “cute & cuddly” and off-beat nature, pixel ads are an ideal vehicle to advertise to this demographic.
Toli, CEO of In Touch Media Group and creator of PixelBay.org commented, “It’s a whirlwind,” referring to the many advertiser calls In Touch has received. Betterly is also surprised that, when visitors click on the advertiser’s ads, “they are on these sites for hours. Already, the guys that bought the first ads are reporting tremendous volume shifts.”
Echo-boomer, musician and rock blog owner Bishop Dolarhyde commented: “…the flow of new traffic to my site stayed steady with my 2,000 pixel block which is still ALOT smaller than your average internet ad. No banner ad I have ever purchased, even at MANY times the size, has out-performed Pixel Bay micro-ads. I’m happy to say that about half of my traffic for the first week came from Pixel Bay. I plan on buying more little blocks to scatter on the page. I am excited about other creative ways I can use these micro-ads to promote my site”.
To sum it up: pixel ads are perfect for advertisers interested in getting their ads really looked at and lots of fun for consumers to explore. These micro-ads are the future of advertising and a win-win all around.
Bruce Prokopets & Toli Cefail
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