A Simple Guide to Overcoming Ad Blindness for Publishers

Ad blindness is one of the main reasons publishers must rethink their monetization strategies. When it comes to dealing with this phenomenon, advertisers typically have multiple options at hand. Still, there are steps you can (and should) take on the supply side to successfully deliver ads to audiences.

The psychology behind ad blindness: detection theory

Ad blindness is rooted in the human ability to filter out unnecessary information—the psychological mechanism studied within the framework of detection theory. Due to this inborn capability, we ignore everything similar to those advertisement types we find irrelevant or unappealing.

However, this doesn't mean users overlook all ad units. Although we might not be looking at ads intentionally, we still see them from the corners of our eyes and our brain processes them, as argued by iMedia’s Brandt Dainow. In fact, people are inherently capable of tracking and discerning fairly evanescent signals.

That’s why we notice almost everything important that enters our field of perception. In a sense, we are biologically programmed to ignore information noise, while retaining the ability to instantly detect and process everything worthwhile.

With this in mind, the bottom-line objective for publishers is to serve ads visitors find worthwhile. While this may be difficult to achieve, there are tactics you can apply to decrease ad blindness rates in a non-disruptive manner.

These tactics constitute the groundwork of an efficient monetization strategy.

Monetization fundamentals: adding value to ads

Ultimately, you need to promote ad relevance, quality, value, and viewability if you want to trigger the audience’s attention in a non-disruptive manner. Although these factors won’t provide you with an instant remedy for ad blindness, understanding them essential to ensuring you serve the right ads to the right audience.

1. Ensure relevance with real-time bidding

Consider real-time bidding (RTB) as a practical way to serve highly relevant ads on your website. This approach is based on auctioning highly targeted ad impressions with advertisers competing over the users who are most receptive to their ads. All available user-related information (e.g., demographics, location, and online behavior) is collected and analyzed to guarantee that the displayed ad creatives are relevant to the audience’s interests.

You can also opt for direct campaigns with advertisers that make full use of big data analysis. The most convenient way to do this is to cooperate with online advertising companies (including ad networks and supply-side platforms) that have both the hardware and experience needed to make the best use of these technologies.

2. Promote quality with non-standard ad formats and creative thinking

Know the industry standards—particularly, the guidelines created by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB)—and make sure your advertising network or supply-side platform (SSP) follows them. In particular, keep an eye on IAB “Rising Stars”, because new, high-quality visual solutions have a good chance of sparking your visitors’ interest.

However, following best practices is just one of the ways to improve ad quality and battle ad blindness. Another powerful method is to provide support for creatives with unusual, stand-out design. In order to do this, you need to supply non-standard ad space and ensure the demand for it. You can achieve this goal through direct cooperation with advertisers, or with the help of networks and SSPs that offer custom advertising models. These two examples will serve as a good basis for your own monetization solutions:

• Homepage skins (also referred to as wallpapers) are creatives displayed in the background of the main content and user interface elements. Ad units of this type are typically paired with traditional banners.
• Custom ads with a strong emphasis on aesthetics are ideal for websites with a minimalistic layout. Full-screen ads of this type are used as one of the monetization tools by WeTransfer.

3. Choose value over volume

Investigate the possibility of cutting the amount of remnant inventory (ad space and impressions) used for low-quality, non-targeted ads. Although this tactic may cause a short-term reduction in revenue, you will likely countervail negative effects with higher profit from high-value campaigns within the course of a couple of months.

As argued by Roger Williams from Maxifier, this approach will eventually lead to better user experience, increased demand for ad space, and higher cost per 1K impressions (CPM). More importantly, it directly addresses the main cause of ad blindness: the audience’s negative reaction to the overabundance of low-quality, irrelevant ads served on many websites.

4. Increase ad viewability

Focus on viewability (i.e., the ratio of all displayed ads to the ones the can actually be viewed by users) as a key metric that will be especially important for advertisers in 2015. According to this infographic from Google, an ad unit is considered viewable if at least half of its pixels are displayed on the screen for at least one second. The average publisher’s inventory viewability was only 50% in November 2014. This implies that a very large portion of ads wasn't (and isn't) shown to the users. You can improve the situation by following these tips:

• Experiment with placing 300x250, 728X90, or 320X50 units just above the fold, not directly at the top of the page
• Opt for vertical banners that stay within users’ range of vision for longer periods of time
• Place some ad units below the fold (as this pattern accounts for 40% viewability rate)

By working on increasing your viewability, you ensure that more creatives are regularly in the visitors’ field of view, which increases the odds for these banners to be clicked on.

Ad placement tips: Hacking the detection theory

By applying the “monetization fundamentals” tactics, you promote valuable ads that have better chances at getting your visitors’ attention. You can also approach detection theory, viewability, and user experience in a more aggressive manner—and use specific placement patterns that prompt users to click on ads. While this approach is easier to implement, the effects it produces are rather short-term.

1. F-shaped reading pattern

Apply the results of eye-tracking studies to your monetization tactics. The research from Nielsen Norman Group proves that there is a very particular way most people scan through web content. Jacob Nielsen describes this near-universal reading pattern as “F for Fast.” In most cases, users read the first sentence or heading, move down and read another line, and then proceed to skim through the text vertically. Place the ads somewhere along this route to prompt people to look at the creatives.

2. Near-content placement

Place your ads closer to the main content to gain more attention from your audience. Essentially, this method works for the same reason native advertising does—site visitors care about and focus on content. For this reason, users are much more likely to fix their eyes on the ads located in the vicinity of or inside the post (e.g., between paragraphs or photos). Consequently, this setup accounts for a noticeable increase in click-through rates (CTR).

3. Welcome pages

Explore the potential of using welcome page ads on your website. This placement pattern is based on displaying a nearly blank page with an ad before showing actual content to the users. This way, the chances a visitor will actually pay attention to the ad skyrocket (compared to traditional placement patterns).

Although this approach adds prominence to commercials, users’ reactions to welcome pages may be negative, especially if they load slowly. This is why this advertising model should always be subject to A/B testing. Still, welcome page ads are successfully applied by several top-level publishers, including Forbes, The New York Times, The Atlantic and Merriam-Webster.

The bottom line

To build an effective monetization strategy, publishers must start by promoting relevant, high-quality, viewable creatives. Location patterns provide additional results, but require frequent rearrangement. You can then add other ad placement solutions to your system to increase the overall performance of your monetization strategy. Still, the ultimate recommendation is to complement your content with advertisements that users will find relevant and valuable.

(All images provided courtesy of the author.)