Whether your customers and prospects are viewing your advertising on desktop or on mobile, certain online ad formats are not well received. Furthermore, specific ad characteristics (including what action the consumer has to take to “dismiss” the ad) greatly factor into consumer ratings and receptivity.
“The Most Hated Online Advertising Techniques,” a recent study from the Nielsen Norman Group (NN Group), presents a valuable consumer perspective. Out of a rating system with 1 being strong like and 7 being strong dislike, the average score for all types of ads is 5.23. The study notes that this indicates consumers are “not rabid haters” of advertising overall but rather “slightly annoyed.”
Dig deeper, however, and the results get worse… quickly. And, no surprise, the findings underscore that people hate mobile ads more than they hate desktop ads.
Desktop ad ratings (1 = strong like / 7 = strong dislike)
Most disliked on desktop
- Modal ads: 5.82 (scoring highest for disliked). These ads appear on the top of site and must be physically closed to move beyond them to the site.
- Autoplay ads (with skip): 5.79. These ads play automatically when you arrive at a website followed by video from the site you are visiting.
- Intracontent ads (with content reorganization): 5.75. These ads move content down the page as it loads and the ad appears.
- Deceptive links: 5.64. These ads appear alongside links you’re actually interested in to download or access information.
Most well-received on desktop
- Right rail ads: 3.81. These are located on the right side of the page.
- Related links: 3.92. These ads sit at the bottom of an article.
- Right rail animated ads: 4.77. These are located on the right with attention getting movement.
- Pre-video with skip feature after 5 seconds: 4.79.
- Retargeting ads: 4.95. These ads follow your activity on website and display items/companies you have explored on another website.
Mobile ad ratings (1 = strong like / 7 = strong dislike)
Most disliked on mobile
- Modal ads: 5.94. These ads did worse on mobile than desktop.
- Intracontent ads: 5.89.
- Pre-video (no skip): 5.70. (Note: Mobile pre-video is unable to be skipped because most native mobile video players don’t allow it.)
- Deceptive links: 5.67.
Most well-received on mobile
- Related links: 4.28.
- Sponsored social media: 5.22. These ads appear in your feed on social media sites.
- Persistent banner positioned at bottom of site: 5.40.
- Intracontent: 5.44.
Takeaways
- There is universal dislike for modal, autoplay video, intracontent ads that move page content around and deceptive links that look like content. Try to stay away from using these types of ads on desktop.
- Nonanimated right rail ads and related links on desktop are both safe to use (not as true for animated right rail ads).
- Persistent banners – no matter where they are positioned – are universally rated as annoying.
- On mobile, both modal and intracontent ads with page content reorganization are most disliked. In fact, the original study uses the word “hated” to describe consumer sentiment. Avoid these types of ads.
- Both types of persistent banner ads used on mobile scored poorly. Stay away.
- On mobile, focus on related link ads as the clear winning format.
A reminder of best practices
- Allow consumers control over ads.
- Don’t block content or take up most of the page.
- Don’t reshuffle content on the page.
- Don’t use pop ups/modal ads.
- Ensure fast loading time.
- Don’t play sound automatically.
- Consideration should be given to the differences between mobile and desktop from a user experience. Common sense dictates the same user experience may only be annoying on desktop… while completely intolerable on mobile.
The NN Group study says it best: “Designers and marketers continuously need to walk a line between providing a good user experience and increasing advertising revenue… If over the course of over 10 years, users are still lamenting about the same problems, it’s time we start to take them seriously.”