thumb|Classified advertisements in a newspaper
Classified advertising is a form of advertising, particularly common in newspapers, online and other periodicals, which may be sold or distributed free of charge. Classified advertisements are much cheaper than larger display advertisements used by businesses, although display advertising is more widespread. They were also commonly called "want" ads, starting in 1763, and are sometimes called small ads in Britain.
History
thumb |What is believed to be the first newspaper classified ad in America ([[The Boston News-Letter, April 24, 1704)]]
Handwritten classified ads, written by scribes and nailed to posts, began appearing in England in the 1600s.
Newspaper classifieds
thumb|A classified advert selling ukuleles
Advertisements in a newspaper are typically short, as they are charged for by the line or word, and are one newspaper column wide.
Publications printing news or other information often have sections of classified advertisements; there are also publications that contain only advertisements. The advertisements are grouped into categories or classes such as "for sale—telephones", "wanted—kitchen appliances", and "services—plumbing", hence the term "classified". Classified advertisements generally fall into two types: individuals advertising sales of their personal goods, and advertisements by local businesses. Some businesses use classified ads to hire new employees. even though display advertisements, which do allow images, can be found in the classified section.
Like most forms of printed media, the classified advertisement has found its way to the Internet, as newspapers have taken their classified advertisements online and new groups have discovered the benefits of classified advertising. A growing number of sites and companies have begun to provide specialized classified marketplaces online, catering to niche market products and services, such as boats, pianos, pets, and adult services, among others. Facebook marketplace provides classified-style services but prohibits the sale of firearms.
A number of online services called aggregators crawl and aggregate classifieds from sources such as blogs and RSS feeds, as opposed to relying on manually submitted listings.
Additionally, other companies provide online advertising services and tools to assist members in designing online advertisements using professional advertisement templates and then automatically distributing the finished advertisements to the various online directories as part of their service. In this sense these companies act as both an application service provider and a content delivery platform.
Statistics
In 2022, the digital classifieds market generated around $21 billion in worldwide revenue, according to a report by Statista.
Newspapers' revenue from classifieds advertisements is decreasing continually as Internet classifieds grow. Classified advertising at some of the larger newspaper chains dropped by 14% to 20% in 2007, while traffic to classified sites grew by 23%.
As the online classified advertising sector develops, there is an increasing emphasis toward specialization. Vertical markets for classifieds are developing quickly along with the general marketplace for classifieds websites. Like search engines, classified websites are often specialized, with sites providing advertising platforms for niche markets of buyers or sellers.
See also
- Classified magazine
- Newspaper display advertising
- Personal advertisement
- Secondhand good
- Tradio