Strategies for Advertisers to Maintain Mobile Audience Attention and Minimize Ad-Blocking in Videos
In the digital age, advertising researchers are delving into the impact of various advertisement placements and delivery methods on mobile user experience. A recent study sheds light on practices that can improve user experiences, focusing on designing seamless, personalized, and minimally intrusive ad experiences.
The study, which analysed data streams like visual fixations, heart rate, electroencephalography, skin conductance, and facial expressions, aimed to evaluate users' attention, engagement, and emotional responses towards advertisements and the content they are integrated within.
Key practices to improve the positive user experience (UX) with advertisements on mobile platforms involve personalization and dynamic content, quick access to value, simplified navigation and interaction, optimized content presentation, smooth and speed-optimized performance, one-handed usability and accessibility, flexible onboarding and ad exposure, behavioural analytics, and iterative optimization.
These practices are grounded in general mobile UX and engagement research. Incorporating real-time brain and body data — such as attention, stress, or emotional state — could enhance these best practices by dynamically adapting ad timing, content complexity, and interactivity to the user’s current cognitive and physiological state, making advertisements contextually relevant and less intrusive.
Three practices were found to lead to a positive user experience with advertisements: maintaining user volition to engage with advertisements, limiting the disruptive nature of advertisements, and incentivizing viewing. The research emphasizes the importance of balancing the need for advertisements with the need for a seamless and engaging user experience on mobile devices.
The findings suggest that tailoring advertisements to user interests can improve user engagement and experience. User autonomy in engaging with advertisements is a key factor in enhancing the mobile user experience. Offering incentives for viewing advertisements can also improve the user experience on mobile devices.
As advertisers continue to examine the influence of various advertisement formats and distribution methods on mobile user engagement, these practices offer a promising direction for creating more user-friendly and engaging advertisements on mobile platforms.
Media analytics, including facial coding, can be utilized to dynamically adapt ad timing, content complexity, and interactivity to a user's current cognitive and physiological state, enhancing the user experience. This practice, grounded in mobile UX and engagement research, could lead to more contextually relevant and less intrusive advertisements.
Incorporating technology like facial coding in media analytics can help in tailoring advertisements to user interests, thereby improving user engagement and experience on mobile devices, as emphasized by the research.
