Optimizing Your Ad's Visibility and Exposure

Most advertisers never consider getting premium placement for their ads, but this additional investment can go a long way in generating increased exposure for your business for less money than it would cost to buy a larger ad.

It may be seem obvious that newspapers are read from front to back. The earliest pages thus get the most traffic and attention. Yet every design student also learns that each set of facing pages - called a spread - is read clockwise, beginning at two o'clock. By opening a newspaper and letting your eyes go where they may, you can see how this works. They'll instinctively start on the upper right side of the right page and work their way in a circle from right to left.

This means a right-side page enjoys greater visibility than the left side. Another idiosyncracy about periodicals is that they're often set on a table or chair face-down. People riding buses (i.e. in a crowded space) likewise find it easier to turn from the front page to back than open and read the pages inside, which increases the space the newspaper needs to occupy. In other words, the back page is a gold mine when it comes to trolling new sales prospects. Even people who don't read the newspaper at all will likely see that page as they're walking across a cafe or other moving through a public transit vehicle.

There's one other nuance about newspaper design that's important to consider, and that's the way a layout artist goes about placing ads on facing pages. Here's the basic rule of thumb: An ad with its motion or figures facing or moving to the left is likely to be placed on the right side of the layout. If the figures are looking or moving right, the ad will probably be placed on the left. Similarly, when an ad's motion faces upward, it's bound to be placed at the bottom of the page, while figures looking downward will merit higher placement. The design concept at work here concerns a natural visual flow. Because a reader's eye is moving in a circle around the spread, the artist tries to facilitate that journey by having all the motion face towards the center, or inward, rather than outward from the spread. As you look at magazines or other publications, you can see how that the ads, illustrations and photos will typically face inward to the center of the newspaper.

With this in mind, you can practically pick your ad's position on the the page - top or bottom, left or right, by determining the motion in the ad design process. If you purchase premium placement - a rightside page, you'll want to have your motion either facing left from your vantage point (stage right from the ad's vantage point), or facing upward, since it's not likely, unless it's a small ad, that the designer will place any ads at the top of a righthand page

And if there's no motion or figures facing in any particular direction, the layout artist will probably place the ad closer to the center of the page. That's not a bad placement either, when you think about it.