Google does a great job. It\’s managed to create an advertising system that allows anyone to make money from their website. It\’s created opportunity, and given it to anyone with patience, a willingness to learn, and entrepreneurial drive.
But it hasn\’t got everything right.
Create an AdSense unit, and you\’ll be asked to choose one of three ad types. You can receive a text-only ad, a graphic/rich media ad, or an ad that may be either one of them.
On most sites, a text-only ad is likely to deliver the best results. But not always. On sites with lots of graphics and pictures, a graphic ad can blend in well enough to deliver clicks. And graphic ads can sometimes pay on a CPM basis, giving sites with lots of traffic some easy revenues. Cutting out graphic and rich media ads completely can reduce your income. It\’s something to test.
But publishers don\’t get to choose which kinds of graphic or rich media ads they receive. Opt in to receive non-text ads, and you can find yourself showing a graphic ad, a video ad or even a Flash ad.
And if you end up showing a Flash ad, there\’s little chance that you\’ll make any money.
For most publishers, Flash ads just don\’t work. It\’s probably because they look so much like ads that everyone just ignores them. Whatever the reason, they\’re probably AdSense\’s weakest performing format.
In fact, many publishers have asked Google to allow them to receive graphic and rich media ads, but to opt out of Flash ads specifically.
So far, Google has ignored them.
It\’s easy to understand why Google doesn\’t want to listen. If the company gives publishers the right to opt out of Flash ads, it won\’t have anywhere to put them. Maybe one day it will stop accepting Flash units from advertisers, but until then, it has to have somewhere to put them and that means forcing publishers to accept them alongside other graphic ads.
Google is keeping advertisers happy at the expense of publishers.
There\’s a lesson there. The basic rule of business is to listen to your customers. But Google has two customers: it needs advertisers to pay to advertise, and it needs publishers to take those advertisements. When it comes to Flash ads, it can\’t make both sides happy, so it chose the option that causes the least harm — to both of its customer types and to itself.
Publishers aren\’t going to leave AdSense if they get the odd Flash ad. We can still opt out of graphic ads. We still have options. And we\’ll still complain.
Not all business decisions are easy, and some decisions are going to make some people unhappy. But they can still be right for the business as a whole.