WebProNews

Interesting offering from Toronto-based Inoventiv. It allows advertisers to create a searchable ad unit, facilitating a "navigational" style interaction between the user and the site ...

... rather than forcing them to click through to an offer site unseen. (Example: dating site Lavalife.com would show an interactive creative inviting users to "search for local singles".)

(1) It sounds like it will be effective for certain kinds of advertisers.

(2) Inoventiv isn't the first company to realize that users respond better to content ads when they seem "navigational," but their presence is possibly giving a wake-up call to some major players which could continue to shape the design of online ad units.

One imagines that other interactive features could be incorporated into ads, too. A search is a type of quest for info, so what about the other staples of the buying process such as mortgage calculators, car lease calculators, and other such gizmos? Depending on whether they're proven effective, they could find their way into more ads. It's like taking an effective part of your website and moving it one step forward in the buying cycle. Intriguing.

Maybe eBay could run ads highlighting products and their current bid amounts, and time remaining in the auction...

Andrew Goodman is Principal of Page Zero Media, a marketing consultancy which focuses on maximizing clients' paid search marketing campaigns.

In 1999 Andrew co-founded Traffick.com, an acclaimed "guide to portals" which foresaw the rise of trends such as paid search and semantic analysis.