In the spirit of testing different ways to make ads on Digg better (similar to what we’re doing with Digg Ads), we’re launching some new ads today called Digg Content Ads and we’d love your feedback. These ads are in limited release so only a small percentage of folks on Digg will currently see them. We’ll be rolling out additional ads in the coming weeks.

Digg Content Ads are basically widgets that contain previous Digg homepage stories that are relevant to the industry or company that is advertising on Digg. For example, Symantec is testing the model with banners that pull in popular security-technology stories from the Digg archive:

At Digg, we think ads will feel more relevant (and thus work better for brands) if they feature the kind of content we look for online.  One way to do this – one that’s very native to the Digg experience – is to encourage advertisers to re-aggregate stories that have already been popular on Digg. The stories might be about a brand’s products or services, or they might be stories of general interest to that brand’s customers.

Also, it’s important to point out that advertisers cannot promote stories that haven’t already been promoted to Digg’s homepage organically. However, if the stories have passed the age of promotion eligibility, they may be featured in a content ad even if they were never promoted.  In other words, Digg Content Ads allow advertisers to re-publish existing stories into ad banners, and give those stories additional exposure within paid media; but they can’t use this approach to artificially boost a story onto Digg’s homepage.

As always, this is a work in progress and we will iterate based on feedback from the Digg community.

Thanks,
Chas (more here)

Correction: Example ads are “Symantec” and “security” related stories.