No really where does your eye go first when you look at a magazine or newspaper ad? Ad positioning and placement are too often overlooked in the name of saving a few bucks. The truth is you can have brilliant copy and masterpiece creative, but if the ad is placed where no one is looking you have wasted your time. Naturally, those prime placements are going to be a bit pricier, but from a CPM perspective the ROI can make for a bigger bang for your advertising buck. Typically for print publications the closer your ad is to the front of the publication, the better the likelihood your ad will get seen. Spots like page one or the third page of the newspaper or inside cover and next to the table of contents in a magazine is optimal print placement. The one exception to this is back covers, inside and outside of your publication; this is prime placement as well. Covers are pretty pricy so if you have to place inside, adjacency becomes important. The preference would be to have an ad next to an article and not next to another ad. This increases your chances of being seen by 11%.
Here are some additional considerations:
- Above or below-the-fold: Conventional wisdom is that an ad that is placed above the fold would be a more effective placement and conventional wisdom is correct. Additionally, the ad is seen even if the publication is not purchased.
- Color: A color ad has a 45% higher effectiveness rate than a black and white ad.
- Size: Naturally bigger ads are more noticeable than smaller ones, but depending on the campaign it may be more cost effective to run smaller ads more often.
- Right-hand or left hand side of page: Though right-hand is more expensive in some publications, they typically don’t necessarily perform any better.