Marketing Sherpa shares the results of an eyeball tracking study of how viewers looked at ad banners in a new newsletter in the first, second and third issue.

The three images show the results:
* 80% of people scanned the ad areas when reading the first issue of a new newsletter.
* 40% scanned the ad area when they got the second issue.
* Only 20% looked at the ad area by the time they got the third issue. Ouch!

Here are great key takeaways Marketing Sherpa gives:

1. Change the landscape
2. Change the look and feel of ads
3. Increase ad rotation

However, our newsletters do great, even with long-term readers. We often get our advertisers click-thru rate ~8%-10%. (That’s clicks, not just eyeball looks ;)

Here’s how:

1. We ditched the ad banner format. You should too.
2. We integrate the advertiser message and imagery into the rest of the newsletter, and do not have fixed placement areas.
3. We theme the newsletter around the advertiser’s message as often as we can.
4. We do four newsletters a month, but only two of them have ads.
5. We custom-write the advertiser message so it’s most relevant to our readers’ interests.
6. We never run the same ad twice in a month.
7. To advertise in the newsletter the advertiser must also have a presence on the general site (such as banners, sub-section sponsorship, contest, giveaway, etc.) so the viewer is more likely to accept the ad’s message faster.

Here’s a recent newsletter with two paid positions. Can you spot them? (click to enlarge)