AOL.com super-sizes ad units

Advertising on AOL.com just got bigger. The Internet portal has become the first to offer skyscraper units that are almost double the size of the next largest ad unit being sold on the site.

by Helen Leggatt

aol%20logo.jpg AOL.com, the fourth-ranked Internet site according to comScore (June '08), attracted nearly 111 million unique visitors and experienced a 2% YoY rise in ad revenues this June. It’s hoped that the introduction of the new, super-sized ads will attract big advertisers and drive an increase homepage revenues.

The first advertiser to use the 300 x 600 ad unit is Samsung Mobile, promoting their Olympics-themed scavenger hunt campaign.

So why is AOL.com the first to offer these large chunks of advertising, which can also expand out to 810 x 730 and include rich media content such as video and audio?

"The reason why other portals may not have done this yet is for aesthetic reasons," suggests David Smith, CEO of mediasmith, a digital media agency, via MediaPost. "They want to have a home page more editorially pure, just like the front page of a newspaper."

If you have the budget and want to grab and engage your audience, bigger could be better. However, size doesn't always matter and your ad creative, targeting, placement and call to action are all better areas to focus on.