Some larger online publishers are facing declining display ads with a bold strategy: bigger, louder, and more obnoxious ad units. AdWeek reports:

• The fixed panel, a 336-by-860-pixel banner that is wider than the standard skyscraper and follows users as they scroll down the page.
• The XXL box, a 468-by-648-pixel unit that can expand with video.
• The pushdown, a 970-by-418-pixel placement that takes up over half of the page before rolling up.

We recently added a slideup and a popup to the site here, but you should be able to click them once and not see them again (at least until you clear cookies), and at least they are marketing our own site.

But the idea of making larger and more obnoxious ad units some sort of standard for cross-selling seems to be against what is working. Most of Google’s ad revenues come from tiny text ads that are relevant to user demand. One of the best ways to have relevant ads is to create what users want and sell it. If they are going to spend that many pixels on the ads, rather than making bigger ad units the publishers should use the content area to sell and add premium services to their sites and start selling content.

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