What’s the difference between a  Facebook text ad and a Google text ad? Well it is simple really. Google ads are plain old text ads whilst Facebook ads have little pictures attached that help to illustrate the text.

Personally, I love picture text ads. I think they are a great way for advertisers to grab people’s attention and convey a message to their target audience in a way that a plain old text ad just can’t do anymore.

In our ad management system – Trafficspaces, we made a conscious decision to support Picture in Text Ads by default. It was a no-brainer. Here are the two main reasons why:

1. Ad Blindness

Plain Old Text Ads are ubiquitous and have lost their novelty. There are way too many of them across the web and after a while, they all tend to look the same.  This is bad news for advertisers. Pay Per Click or no Pay Per Click, advertisers are interested in results.  If people are just going to “not see” the ads, then they are a waste of time for both publisher and advertiser.

2. The Craigslist Effect

I’m not sure if you experience this as well. Whenever I search for something on Craigslist, or any other classified listings site, I always tend to seek out the ads that have pictures first. It is just instinctive. Sometimes, I even amend the search tool to only show ads with pictures.

It isn’t surprising. Our perceptive senses are highly tuned towards pictures over text. Why spend time reading a whole load of text when you can get the same message with a picture.

Here is a screenshot of a typical Trafficspaces “Text + Picture” Ad (with Dynamic Themes enabled)

When you signup for your own Trafficspaces platform, and setup a text ad space, you are implicitly telling potential advertisers that they can show Facebook style Text + Picture ads, and with all the benefits that come with them.  

Now that’s how to stand out from the crowd.

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