Visitors to The New York Times' website on Tuesday were greeted by something new -- a full-page ad for The New School that appeared before visitors even reached the homepage.

It was the first time NYTimes.com had run a welcome ad, although the company previously showed full-page ads when visitors clicked deep into the site. According to an Ad Age report, The New York Times Co. recently told its shareholders it was trying out new ad units.

"We will see how our reader behavior is affected by the ads and determine from there how often we can do this, but we do not expect it more than a few times each week," said Todd Haskell, the Times' VP-digital sales and operations.

Online revenue growth has slowed for the Times to about 11.6 percent in the first quarter of this year, compared to 21.6 percent in the same period last year.