The 10 best-ever food blog ads

How many times have you been to a blog and been bombarded with ad after ad after ad?

Ads are regularly being injected after every single paragraph on mobile. They’re getting more and more invasive, annoying and taking up more and more space on a site. I usually have to click and close a subscribe pop-up window and a footer ad before being able to read what I came to the site to read in the first place. I feel more frustrated.

What’s more, the ads I see are rarely of interest to me.

When I’m reading a food blog, I’m looking for a meal to make for my family. I’m not interested in seeing clothing or toys I looked at on stores last week (and already purchased). At that point in time, I’m simply not interested in switching credit cards, hiring a car, purchasing travel insurance, buying Adobe software, a new phone or stock photo credits. These are all examples of ads I was shown today while reading some recipes.

Because I didn’t care about those things at that time, my attention wasn’t grabbed. The ads weren’t matching the mode I was in.

“The way channels have optimized for advertising is to remove intent from the equation in order to scale for more reach when people care the least. And this is a problem that is getting worse every single day.

Programmatic advertising … target[s] who a person is, rather than what that person is doing. They lack the correct intent.

What you want to is get the same person to see your ads more than once, at the right moment (intent), but with a different message each time, and spaced over a period long enough for people not to be annoyed by it.

Ad networks don’t get this at all. They are doing the complete opposite of this because their approach to targeting is based on building scale.”

The Uncertain Future of Advertising – Baekdal Plus
(Paid report, link provides access)

I read this report a couple of weeks ago and it made me so excited about the possibilities of advertising again.

Imagine if the advertising I saw matched my intent when I read a food blog. Imagine if they all matched the same focus, need and desire?

What kinds of amazing ads would these be on a food blog? Here’s what I came up with. Can you think of others?

#1: Ingredient delivery service

Click this button to purchase the exact ingredients needed to make this recipe. If it’s Amazon, perhaps it would be delivered in time to make it for dinner tomorrow night.

#2: Food delivery service

Don’t have the time to cook this meal? Click this button and get this delicious dish delivered to your house.

#3: Live support service

Are you stuck cooking this recipe and you’re confused, something’s going wrong or you are missing an ingredient and need instant help? Need dietary considerations advice? Don’t wait around in the comments section for someone to maybe reply and help you out, click here and for a low fee you’ll get instant help from the blogger who wrote this recipe.

#4: Printed recipe book

The ad mentions that specific recipe you’re looking at is included in it. You keep coming back time and time again to make these recipes, so why not buy a beautiful printed recipe book to have on hand without all the advertising, bookmarking. Plus, you’ll support the author and probably discover some of their other recipes you never found on their site before.

#5: Kitchen tools

The specific tools or appliances needed to make that particular recipe. The crockpot. The non-stick frypan. An amazing knife.

#6: Meal planner

Like this recipe? Purchase this digital guide to save yourself time figuring out what to pair with this recipe, and four other nights worth of complementary recipes, a combined shopping list with checkboxes ready for you to print off and take to the supermarket (or have emailed to you) with ingredients nicely organized by supermarket section. Oh, and provide a few different planner variations too for those with dietary considerations. Support your food blogger in the process.

#7: Tableware

Purchase this beautiful table linen (as seen in the photos) to really set the scene and impress your guests.

#8: Wine pairings

Buy one of these three wines which are ideally suited to pair with this meal.

#9: Food pairings

Buy these chocolates or coffee which are ideally suited to pair with this meal.

#10: Music

The perfect album or playlist to listen to while preparing and eating this recipe.

Wouldn’t these be the most amazing ads to see while reading a recipe?