Well, I’m not surprised the pin was pulled on Adobe’s experiment with publishing ad-filled PDF files, but I was surprised when Ads for Adobe PDF was launched. Adobe has just notified publishers that the beta is over:
Thank you for your early adopter support and participation in the Ads for Adobe PDF Beta program. Unfortunately, due to a reassessment of priorities in the current economic environment, Adobe is discontinuing the program effective March 31, 2009.
To me, ads make lengthy, focused reading more work, and seeing as most people don’t like reading long documents on screen, the opportunities to monetize become limited to short documents — an area where Web pages seem to beat PDF files for popularity. Adobe has been coy on how successful its venture into context-based advertising has been, but it seems it was bleak.
Unlike search-based ads that appear alongside Google Search results, context-based ads try to match ads to the content you are reading/viewing and are much more difficult to monetize (as you only earn when someone clicks your ad). The click-through rates (CTR) are a fraction of what Google does with it search-based advertising, which means generating the same sort of revenue would take many times the number of pages to be displayed.
Google leads the way in monetizing context-based search so it was always going to be difficult for Ads for Adobe PDF to work well. In part, because Yahoo is not as good at finding the ads that get the most clicks for particular content, and because most slightly savvy online publishers and bloggers know how to blend ads into their pages to increase click-through rates significantly. The ads used by Adobe were so separate from the content, they never had a chance.
It will be interesting to see how Scribd responds in the coming months given it went down a similar route with Google AdSense.
[Screenshot: PC World]
More coverage
- CANCELLED – Yahoo! Ads for Adobe PDF Beta Program
- Adobe cancels in-PDF advertising program
- Adobe PDF Advertising Program Discontinued
