Well I love some avatars on DP and I do notice it whenever I make post. Some of DP Member's avatars are really cool. It doesn't help for traffic but it does buzz your site.
Effective to the point where members will start selling their avatars, if they haven't started already...
Only if you buy lots of them, because people see it lots and think "what the hell is all the fuss about" and visit the site
Or they can help you pick out a certain member if you remember their avatar, that is unless they are advertising on half the forum.
Only if you see it a fair bit, I know a fair few members off the top of my head but no idea what their avatars are.
I ignore any advertising I see in avatars, especially if multiple users have the same avatar. But to be honest, I don't even understand the question.
i think avatar advertising is somewhat effective for brand awareness but not much effective for instant flow of traffic. think about it, almost all the regular DPers have avatars and how many of them we actually read and then visit the URL? to get some attention, one needs to buy boat of them
I've never thought about advertising via avatars. I dont think it would be that effective, seeing as most people (including myself) are far too lazy to type in a url they see on an image. I'd much rather just click a link, and sometimes I'm too lazy to even do that
I've never really tried avatar advertising (as there isn't really a way of knowing how much traffic it's bringing). I think i've visited one or 2 sites avatars advertise, not often though :/