IAB: Social ad success requires extreme transparency

19.05.2009
For marketers, so-called social ads, which display data and actions from social-network members, can be either gold mines or landmines.

Whether these ads deliver a treasure or an explosion depends on social-networking sites and marketers following best practices, which the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has outlined in an 18-page .

Above all, site publishers and advertisers must be radically clear toward social-network members regarding social ads and give these people full control over the use of their information, according to the IAB.

After all, social-network members enter personal information such as their age, occupation, location, tastes, whereabouts and musings in order to stay in touch with friends and family, not necessarily to help a vendor promote its products and services.

It has become obvious that conventional online ads, like banners and pay-per-click text ads, don't work as effectively in social networks as they do in other sites, like search engines and Web portals. The reason is that when they are in a social network, people are engaged in activities, such as communicating with friends, that make them less receptive to these ads.