On many websites, readers who scroll to the very end of an article are likely to encounter rows of small advertisements belonging to a weird subgenre of digital marketing known as chumbox ads.

Named for the angler’s practice of using bits of dead fish to lure other fish, these ads comprise arresting images and baffling text. They have one goal: to make readers click. And when they do, readers may find themselves on an unfamiliar website with an odd name, faced with a photo gallery of regrettable tattoos or a listicle on 22 celebrities with ugly spouses.

Below a review of “Joker” on Slate the other day, there were dozens of chumbox ads.

“Construction Gone Very Wrong, You Will Cry Laughing” blared one, from a site called Travelfuntu, under a photo of an empty swimming pool.

“Lonely Lion Would Not Stop Crying, Until These Puppies Came Along” said another, from a page called Healevate. The image that went with those words showed a pair of dachshunds next to a big cat.