In tough economic times, it's common to see references to Darwin. Revenue-weak companies must adapt or go extinct. With the web so ad-centric, expect to see more advertising embrace evolution to stay afloat.
The New York Times has a story of two companies creating ads that attract more clicks. They aren't approaching the problem as you might expect, with confusing ads that look like buttons or offers for gadgets if you can punch the monkey. Instead, they're combining demographics, context, and a concept called A/B testing.
The concept isn't new, though it hasn't been widely used in display ads. An A/B test compares the results of two or more versions of a website, landing page, or advertisement. When the pieces are mixed and matched, more powerful ads can be created from the parts that work.
One of the companies in the story, Tumri, lets its customers do just that. Designers create the segments of the ad, then Tumri creates the many permutations from the pieces, and gives the tools to evaluate the results.
It's still a process with a lot of work and data mining. Though we rib Jerry Yang's optimism, this is the sort of project that could revolutionize online advertising. Tumri could evolve into an offering like Google AdSense, that automatically adjusts the pieces of an ad to provide just the right one to the current user.
Google itself has a website optimizer that makes A/B testing on websites easier. It could be used for advertising, but it does not take apart pieces of an image.
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