Just as the advent of “talkies” – movies with recorded audio tracks – revolutionized the motion picture industry, so has the use of audio advertising enhanced internet marketing. With companies like SitePal and LivePerson providing not just free text to talking for your website, but actual talking people for your website, the online world is becoming more and more interactive, and more and more engaging.

On television, commercials are broadcast with higher volumes than the programs they interrupt. This is to catch the attention of channel surfers, dvr-users, and people who think commercial breaks exist in order to restock their snacks. On the internet, the addition of audio to rich media ads works similarly: it attracts attention, and makes your ad stand out from the masses of online marketing that fill the screens of most users.

Benefits of Audio-enabled Ads

Adding audio to your online advertisement or website doesn’t merely make your ad stand out. There are many benefits, which include:

• Higher click-through rates. People are more likely to click on an ad that engages them.
• Enhanced branding. The more senses people use to assimilate information, the more likely they are to remember it. When viewers hear your brand as well as read it, they’re using two senses.
• Invites action. An audio request to “click here” or “click for more information” is more likely to be used than a flat button. Interactive ads have better pull.
• Increased communication. It takes less time to listen than to read, so audio-enabled ads can be used to convey larger amounts of information

In addition, if your audio-enabled content is a video of you, the business owner, you’ve just put a personal face on your company, and users respond far more to a real person than to any advertising text.

Live Characters

While any audio content – music or speech – is more engaging than a still ad, or silent video, one way to really hook viewers is to make your website talk with live talking characters. Any talented Flash programmer can create an animated person to speak on your website, but if you aren’t tech-savvy, or prefer not to get that involved in programming, there are commercial sources of talking people for your website.

• SitePal offers a stock collection of animated people that can greet viewers with a pre-selected audio greeting, or engage in limited pseudo-conversations. They will soon be offering the ability to create original avatars (animated people representing real people), and already include text-to-speech with their pixellated people.

• LivePerson which has long been the industry standard for real-time text chat, used primarily for technical support, also works with audio projects. While their products are not free, text to talking for websites is now offered under their higher-end Timpani product.

Types of Ads

• In-Page Ads include traditional banners, vertical ads, and anything else that appears within the standard page-frame without obscuring content. Developers who wish to incorporate sound into these types of ads should make each unit interactive. Ads should allow the user not only to trigger the audio, but also to disable it, as unsolicited audio may be both annoying and unexpected, resulting in an effect that is negative.

• Out-Of-Page Ads are a newer type of rich media advertising, and are increasingly popular and prevalent on the web. More flexible than in-page ads, these ad-units break the page frame, appearing as floating ads, pop-ups, page overlays, and even transition ads that are placed between pages of content. Often mimicking television commercials, audio is a crucial component of these ads, which often include talking people for your website, either in animated or digital video formats. Some developers of these types of ads program the audio content to auto-start, which is acceptable as long as some kind of user-triggered “off” button is also provided.

Guidelines for Audio-Enabled Ads

As with all interactive ads, audio-enabled rich media ads should be programmed within the guidelines provided by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). Such guidelines are voluntary, but most publishers, advertisers, and other industry professionals choose to follow them, though they are primarily directed at in-page advertisements.

These guidelines, which can be found at the IAB’s website (www.iab.net) include recommendations to include on/off and volume controls within audio ads, and to allow users to trigger the audio rather than using auto-start features. (Some publishers and ad-networks require this, except on out-of-page ads.)

Technical Tips – In addition to general use guidelines, many advertising networks recommend the following:

• Audio should be compressed to 16 Bits (22KHz)
• Dialogue should be compressed to 8 Bits (11 KHz)
• Background music should be a short audio loop, not an entire song
• As much of the audio as possible should be pre-loaded
• Size limits imposed by your ad network should not be exceeded.

Whether you ultimately choose to use Flash to create a talking virtual host, or free text to talking for your website, contract with LivePerson or SitePal to incorporate animated talking people for your website, or simply include a digital movie with full sound, enhancing your internet marketing with audio-enabled rich media will only benefit your business.