Do you see value in being able to advertise during URL redirects?
I have a product that is in beta that allow you to advertise to users for a specific number of seconds before redirecting to the target URL. The scenario below might be easier to understand.
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You have an affiliate site. Your users read your blog posts and you leave outbound links to relevant content.
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User clicks the link and is shown an image and text of something you make commission on.
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If user clicks the product he/she will be sent to a product page and hopefully convert.
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If not, the URL redirects and the user is on his/her way within a number of seconds (10 seconds is the default).
This is a demo link: rokk.it/indie-hackers-demo
The app allows you to use custom domains as well! Do you see any validity to this idea?
I believe that many people, such as myself, will feel this is bait-and-switch and just close the browser tab. Before 10 seconds I would definitely bail.
Also, how does my ad-blocker handle this situation? If it shows me the redirect warning page then I'm definitely never going to back to the original site or the "relevant content" that I thought I was going to.
Hi, the time it takes to redirect is set by the user who created the redirect link. It can be from 1 to 30 seconds. In terms of ad blockers, they currently do not block these ads but they will be blocked once my domain is added to AdBlocker filter lists.
I would definitely make is shorter than 10 seconds. That's quite a lot of time. I know that some free image host of back in the days did this, and might still do this. There was this site call adfly (or something like that) did something like this. I hated it because of the duration.
Shorter time does mean that there's less chance to convert into a click, so you're left with just impressions as your metric, so the revenue might be smaller in those cases.
The challenge is that adding something like this is making a compromise between user experience and making revenue. I'm not sure how possible it would be but maybe playing around with the ad format or the ad copy might make the length a bit better (.i.e. Can the ad illicit happiness, or surprise, or something of value that's not just the standard ad copy?)
Is there a way you can iterate on the ad format so that when it's delivered, it's not seen as abrupt? Are there ways to make the user experience better while this is happening?
Just something to think about in case you want to iterate on this
This is very helpful. I think the key is to make this less ad-like, at least as much as I can. The duration of ads is set by the user, its 10 seconds here so people viewing the demo have a chance to get a good look.
Thanks!
I actually think it's a good simple idea. There are a number of websites I've seen that do something similar to this already. I think as long as there's an option to redirect immediately if they're not interested. Online adverts are common place now, you get them during youtube and facebook videos, on just about every site you go on and as long as people have an option to click away, then it could work
Hi, I appreciate the feedback! When creating a link I include the option to enable a "skip ad" button during the redirect.