Ads, Popups and Best Practices

Ad best practices are certain advertising methods that maximize an advert’s reach without frustrating the audience.

This process is less an art and more a science now thanks to the work of industry bodies such as the Coalition for Better Ads. The coalition was formed by international trade associations and digital media companies to develop data-driven online advertising standards.

For example, the coalition’s research has found that consumers dislike the following three ad strategies more than any other:

1. Pop-up ads: These ads appear suddenly and block a page’s main content.

2. Prestitial ads: These ads are loaded first, immediately obscuring the mobile page’s content.

3. Ad density greater than 30%: This is when ads take up more than 30% of a page’s vertical height.

2.10.2 Why Are Ad Best Practices Important?

There are two immediate upsides to implementing ad best practices.

The first is that ads that minimize their interference with Google’s indexing lower the risk of relevant content being overlooked by Google’s crawlers.

The second advantage is the UX boost your site receives from well implemented advertising. Poorly implemented ads can slow down page load times and disrupt a visitor’s ability to consume the page’s content.

A well structured site will be user friendly, with minimally intrusive ads, that allows both crawlers to index content and users to consume content undisturbed.

2.10.3 Challenges Publishers Face With Ads

As the sole source of revenue for many online publications, effective advertising matters. Publishers that adhere to best