We all hate to see ads everywhere and I am no exception, but they are a necessary evil. You may wish to consider that if it were not for advertising a lot of sites would become subscription based. This thread is to discuss which form of online advertising you are MOST willing to tolerate and / or read and which one the LEAST to acknowledge.
I am more tolerant of ads that are of specific interest to the topic at hand. So on a motorcycle site an ad for custom bike parts would be acceptable to me. However an ad for toothpaste would not be.
Also, I will not even view popups. I use a popup blocker. I hate the adds that take over the page and you need to click to close them also. An add that appears like an add would in a magazine with the test typed around it and interest specific is unoffensive to me.
I agree with Tena. I would also add that random banners are okay too, as long as they are appropriate.
Because of a simple "magazine" style ad on a news website, I started visiting an exercise oriented site. I have now purchased a couple of products from there. So, that type of ad works, at least for me.
I don't tolerate pop-ups, email, emailed "newsletters" (which are just spam in disguise, in my opinion), and I really hate the animated, flashing banners and the ads that move on top of everything that I'm trying to read. Grrr! Basically, anything that is "in my face" when I'm trying to do something else is very annoying.
Small banners, or even larger banners that are *not* animated, are appropriate and useful, as Nighthawk pointed out.
Roz
I see my opinion is not all that different from everyone else. I feel banner ads are the best way to go for any web site. Horizontal or vertical doesn't even matter. I am one to read ads as I go but I am highly annoyed by anything flashing or moving on the page. E-mails to my inbox just get caught in my spam filter most of the time so they prove useless and popup windows will deter me from even visiting a site. Popups are the worst invention and in todays world the few that I might not mind now and again have been ruined by everyone taking advantage of this type of advertising.