Digital Ads and User Experience: Frenemies Forever?

Balancing digital advertising with a delightful user experience remains a conundrum for advertisers and publishers . With these best practices in mind, not only would the programmatic adtech ecosystem become more efficient, we could perhaps begin to hope for something as audacious as ads that enhance the UX!

Ads. Love them or hate them – or both – but you can’t ignore them. Like a bad cold, that is. Unfortunately for digital publishers, advertisements are an irreplaceable part of their revenue plans. As for advertisers, well, they gotta advertise! So, what’s the poor audience supposed to do?

Here are their options:

o Leave the site and find a new source of content

o Pay for data that is used to download heavy ads instead of the content they really want

o Curse the advertiser and publisher and soldier on

o Install ad-blockers

Are we doomed to be in an endless loop of publishers and advertisers trying to outrun the latest blocker technology or dreaming up new ways to beat the actual content?

It doesn’t have to be that way.

A lesson in UX worst practices

The best place to start is to ask why people don’t like ads. The root of the matter is that most ads ruin the user experience (UX). The intrusive rollouts, the auto-play videos, the gaudy flashing banner, the pop-up that covers the exact spot you are in a hurry to read, and of course, that ad for a lawnmower when you are clearly looking to buy a book. Given these digital ad ‘worst practices’, it’s not hard to understand why audiences are doing everything possible (except pay for content!) to avoid online ads on their screens.

The publisher’s dilemma is understandable – the need to balance their UX with revenue. But why on earth advertisers would want to serve their ads to people who don’t want to see them? Why would they want to put their name to something that is negatively disruptive to the audiences’ experience, annoy them and risk losing their respect (and business) forever?

The answer is that Programmatic advertising often doesn’t give them the choice. As the most prevalent model of digital media buying and selling today, the bad news is that the many players in the adtech ecosystem don’t really care about either the publisher’s dilemma or the advertisers’ credibility. The good news is that the ecosystem is evolving.

3 ways Programmatic Adtech is evolving (for the better)

1.  Data-driven programmatic

2.  Increasing control and transparency for the key players

3.  New technologies and innovations

BEST PRACTICES FOR ADVERTISERS TO IMPROVE AD-RELATED UX

Ad quantity, irrelevance, security concerns, intrusiveness and creative quality are all important reasons why audiences are driven to install ad blockers.  On the other hand, minimal page load time, creative quality, content relevance and context all help to build UX.

Considering that programmatic – by definition – means lack of visibility on where the ads show up – what can advertisers and do to improve the UX without compromising on their business goals?

1.       Go beyond display

2.       Drive engagement

3.       Improve relevance with better targeting

4.       Try new media buying formats

5.       Approach the UX with empathy

6.       Avoid click-bait ads to build credibility

Read More https://www.martechadvisor.com/articles/ads/digital-ads-and-user-experience-frenemies-forever/