Are widgets the future for online marketers?

At least one online advertisers says yes, widgets are the future. Michael Brown, CEO of HealthPricer, an online comparison shopping engine, says widgets advertise more effectively to consumers.

by Kristina Knight

Banner ads and pop-ups, two of the oldest online advertising forms, have been shown in several studies to be largely ignored by consumers. However, advertisers continue to push ad dollars into the platform.

"Advertising online is going to have to get a lot more creative to gather people," said Brown.

By comparison widgets, which are still fairly new to the Internet, offer advertisers the chance to contextually target ads according to the content consumers are searching for or are researching.

Brown says the best way to target an in-market consumer is by the search they are conducting rather than by ads targeted based on an online profile. "People have a specific interest," Brown said. "If you have an advertising mechanism that is contextually relevant to that information, you're serving something that will capture consumers' attention."

HealthPricer has begun to use widgets in their consumer shopping engine, however, because the widget base is relatively new were unable to give a comparison for the platform. However, HealthPricer's Q2 revenue figures overall were very strong.

The company showed 289% growth, some of which can be attributed to widgets but most is due to programs already in place. Brown did reveal that traffic from HealthPricer's Interactive product ads did convert to sales at a slightly higher rate than targeted traffic brought in by Google.