Research by the news brand highlights the adverse impact of a high-ad environment and the benefits of a low-ad environment, leading the title to espouse a less-is-more approach.
Fewer ads, more effective
- The Guardian carried out qualitative research to understand how people browsed the internet. and quantitative research among 1,800 people to measure behaviour, UX, publisher environment and brand metrics.
- More than half (55%) of readers exhibited signs of “facial confusion” in high-ad environments, leading to feelings of irritation and frustration.
- 73% of readers trusted publishers who operate “low-ad environments” versus 56% in “high-ad environments”; readers also felt more in control in such environments and were twice as likely to say ads felt non-intrusive.
- 63% reported feeling favourable towards a brand in a low-ad environment, while 38% recalled brands in such an environment.
- Pulling all the findings into a single score revealed a 19-point difference between low- and high-ad environments.
The publisher dilemma
The findings echo previous research in this area; a MAGNA study, for example, found ads on low-clutter pages recorded an 82% lift in aided recall among users who had previously used ad-filtering tools.
Digital advertising is an important source of publisher income, so it’s tempting to introduce multiple ad slots and options in order to maximise revenue. But overloading a site in this way inevitably detracts from the experience of users who are there for the editorial content.
That’s even more likely to be true when they’re faced with especially distracting formats like stickies and pop-ups. A paper in the Journal of Advertising Research showed that pop-ups are hugely annoying, floating ads less so; and users’ response to such advertising tends to vary depending on their mindset (whether they’re focused on a task or just browsing).
Publishers need to find the right balance between monetising their content and delivering an acceptable user experience – and that may mean forgoing some short-term advertising revenues.
Key quote
“Seriously, stop wasting money on annoying formats that interrupt and frustrate people. Save that money and reinvest it in digital display advertising where creativity can actually thrive” – James Fleetham, director of advertising at the Guardian (quoted in Press Gazette).
Source: warc.com