Advertising

Using the Internet for advertising falls into two distinct categories:

• Selling advertising or sponsorship space on your website, and

• Buying advertising space on other websites.

Selling advertising space on Government websites is not an easy task. This is a rapidly evolving and fiercely competitive area and a dedicated, trained resource is required to managed, sell and promote this service. You are advised to source help from specialist agencies, eg, COI Communications.

The full value should be obtained from the sale of advertising on government websites.

Departments and agencies need to judge carefully the balance between the effort required to achieve the maximum value and the income that is earned. Payment for web advertising may not be based on space alone, but on the number of page downloads or ‘clicks on the ad’. Alternatively, an advertiser may wish to sell ‘button space’ on your website. These are fixed graphics with links to the advertised organisation’s own website or campaign, paid for at a fixed rate for a fixed period of time, sometimes regardless of the number of page impressions or ‘clicks through’. Advertisers may expect there to be a link between known user interest and who sees the advert. You will probably need to be able to prove levels of access .

• in designing pages, you should ensure that advertisers' brands do not compete with or detract from the effectiveness, integrity and appearance of their own branding or that of the government as a whole.

• attention should be given to avoid any implication of endorsement of products or services or of contradiction between government messages and those of advertisers.

• website users are often irritated by pop-up advertisements and related technologies (variously referred to as ‘interstitials’, ‘superstitials’) and particularly by those that draw animations within the main window overlaying the page content. It is therefore recommended that advertisements on government websites should be confined to the use of banners and buttons.

• where banner and button advertising space is included in Web pages, it is recommended the dimensions should conform to those of the industry-standard Interactive Marketing Units (IMU) defined by The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) at:

Advertisers should be advised to bear in mind the range of connection speeds used by visitors to government websites and the implications for viable file sizes of advertisement content.

• if you are using information about user behaviour to sell advertising space, you must not breach your own website’s published privacy statement and if in any doubt you must ask the advice of your Data Protection Officer.