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MediaBuyerPlanner: AOL has confirmed that it is indeed testing ads within AOL Mail, a move considered unusual because, while both Yahoo and MSN Hotmail run ads on their front email pages, AOL is a paid service and subscribers who pay generally expect the service to be ad-free, writes DM News.
The media company said that it has been testing banner ads at the bottom of the Read Mail screen for the past several weeks. Ads do not appear within emails, and are not targeted in such a way that they appear alongside relevant emails (as they do in Google's Gmail). Ads are served from AOL's general ad rotation, the company disclosed, but it declined to say how many advertisers are participating in the test.
At least one subscriber posting on an AOL message board is unhappy with the ads, writing, "I have flashing banner ads at the bottom of individual emails now, and they are incredibly annoying! They're like having spam inserted directly into my emails!"
AOL has seen substantial subscriber losses recently - losing 835,000 U.S. subscribers from Q4 2005 to Q1 2006 - as email subscribers switch to other, free email services. To combat the loss of revenue, it has been seeking new marketing and media partnerships.
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Comments
I've been with aol about 13 years, since back in the days when my bill was $300-400 a month when they charged by the minute, and I am LIVID about these ads! I went around and changed my email address everywhere, prepatory to cancelling, since we have comcast for broadband and don't need aol, but when I called they lowered my monthly bill to $4.95 a month so I kept it, and I use thunderbird (free download at mozilla.org) to pull my email off and read it offline, no ads that way, plus I re-downloaded aol 8.0 (keyword aol downloads) and I'm using it now, there are no ads in 8.0. I figure it's worth 5 bucks a month to keep my favorite places, but I'm starting to transfer them as well, in case I cancel aol completely. This is unforgivable, it's the biggest corporate misstep since new coke.
Posted by: M Thomas | 06.18.06
There are far more unhappy AOL customers than "one" on a message board. The message boards are loaded, and ebay has gotten enough complaints about their ad to be aware of the problem. But AOL does not care. After 11 years, I will be canceling soon.
Posted by: Cathy | 06.27.06
I do no like all of that posted at the bottom of my Emails and my read mail.
Thank you PS You need to correct this problem.
Posted by: Gayle | 01.05.07