Made you click! Why it’s getting harder to tell the difference between ads and content online

It’s getting harder to tell what’s an advertisement and what’s “real” content online. For example: Google has been testing a new background color for its sponsored search results for a while. I just noticed it this week, when Googling with a laptop on battery power caused my display to be dimmer than usual. The background color is lighter, and in my case, almost indiscernible from the white background of real links.

Try as I might, I couldn’t tell the difference between ads and links. See for yourself in the image to the left. Can you tell? In this case, it was particularly annoying because I searched for car repair estimators, and the sponsored links were also misleading — they did not offer estimators, but rather upsells to repair shops.

Now, we all like using Google ads sometimes, and the program can be really useful to us, especially if make use of things like PPCnerd automation scripts to make the process easier. Google Ads is in fact a very effective marketing tool for many businesses. The method of Google Ads Remarketing has also been successfully trialled and implemented in many different industries, even assisted living which managed to get previous visitors of sites in the over 60s bracket to return.

However, the positive effects that the ads program has is almost nullified when Google and other companies are trying to manipulate the differences between adverts and actual content.

Blurring content and advertisements makes both less useful. I know people who sell ads, and agencies who buy them, giggle with glee every time they successfully blur these lines and generate a faux click like mine. (“Ha! Made you click!”) And money changes hands. But whatever advertiser paid for my click was cheated — I certainly was never shopping there. And of course, I was cheated out of my time.

It’s a golden goose, Google. Don’t kill it.

Of course, Google is hardly the only offender. Blurring the line between ads and content is Facebook’s business model. They even use unaware consumers to do this dirty work through their sponsored stories (“Bob liked this auto repair shop; you will too!”).

The media world, drowning in panic, seems ready to abandon the clear lines between independent content and sponsored content. Let me remind everyone that this isn’t only annoying; it can be illegal. When any person or company makes a statement about a product and doesn’t clearly disclose it has a financial interest in that product, the firm behind the statement can run afoul of the Federal Trade Commission’s endorsement rules.

How about this alternative: Instead of misleading me, create content I want to see. Offer up the best car repair estimator, and I won’t feel cheated when you make me click. Plenty of smart companies are investing in good content; some have even learned there’s power in offering good, unbiased content, even if it occasionally works to a competitor’s advantage.

The age of making money by misleading consumers and ad buyers is fizzling out. Don’t be the last to know.