Banner ads infiltrate the inbox

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 10 Feb 2009 at 15:38

A new piece of software is offering to put a banner ad next to every email you send.

The software, created by Glooq, is a simple plug in for Outlook that allows users to maintain a library of static and animated banner ads they can insert into emails.

The size and location of these ads can be adjusted by the user allowing them to create tower-style banners, or less intrusive thumbnails. This could be rendered mute by the fact that they show as GIF attachments, meaning that many email programs will block them for security reasons anyway.

This was also a problem we encountered in Office 2007 which has removed support for animated GIFs as a "security precaution".

When it does work, having a flashing ad next to the text is as distracting as you'd imagine, but, according to a spokesperson for Glooq, it's also a cheap way for companies to get their message across.

"The credit crunch is on everyone's lips, and this really is a cost effective way of driving people towards websites. If you think of how many company emails alone are sent out in a day to customers, it's a simple method to increase clickthroughs."

The company is currently offering a free 14-day trial of the software, which you can download here.