Embrace Advertising as a Component of User Experience Design

Incorporating advertising elegantly into a digital design is a major challenge for Information Architects, Interaction Designers, and Visual Designers. Traditional advertising banners eat up valuable real-estate on key pages. Additionally, banner advertisements usually generate negative feedback from usability test participants. The manner in which an Information Architect typically plans for advertisements on client web sites is via a set of requirements from a client stakeholder or someone representing the advertising sales team. The User Interface Designer receives a set of standard advertising banner unit specifications that he/she must "design around." The project team accepts the advertising requirements as law. Why wouldn't they? The advertisements are part of the client's revenue model.

The problem lies in an oversimplified advertising model and a lack of courage to transform it into something more engaging and relevant to customers. Here are some ideas to challenge your clients and fellow team members from Design and Strategy:

1. Utilize account preferences or behavior-based data to improve the relevancy of advertisements - Business web sites usually collect and store data about users via their volunteered marketing, communication, and profile preferences as well as their on-site behavior. Depending on what success means to an advertiser on the web site, this valuable user data can help to improve the relevancy of the advertisements shown to each user. Relevant advertisements are less likely to be the cause of user frustration.

2. Enable users to improve the relevancy of advertisements themselves - One way to engage users is to have them rate the relevancy of advertisements themselves. The data collected via a simple "thumb's up" or "thumb's down" rating system, over time, has the potential to provide a rich set of user preferences. If content promotion can be influenced by user preferences, so can advertisements.

3. Change the format of advertisements - Banners have endured because they are part of an established digital revenue model. It is less effort to change this method of delivering advertisements than trying something new and innovative. Additionally, many advertising sales teams are really good at selling IAB standard advertising units. That being said, there are different methods of placing advertisements on digital experiences that could increase the level of engagement on these experiences. Work with advertisers to weave the most popular elements of advertising (the humor, the iconic characters, the products that people want, and the ideals that some consumer brands stand for) into the very fabric of the content that is being delivered on the experience. The digital medium presents opportunities for advertisers to create brand experiences (contests, games, and interactive experiences) that generate a higher level of engagement than static banners.

4. Turn advertisements into user generated content opportunities - Brand recognition and recall is increased when users spend time creating content for advertisements. Increase engagement with advertiser brands by allowing consumers to create their own video commercials, banners, and artwork. This idea can easily be made into a contest that could create a high-degree of interaction with the web site and the advertiser.

5. Make the advertising sales team a key stakeholder in the creative process - The Design team should try to include the advertising sales team in the creative process early on in the project life-cycle. The earlier ad-sales is involved, the more likely they will be open to new ideas for advertising opportunities. Treat these stakeholders with the same amount of respect as anyone else from the client's marketing or creative team. It is likely that an entrepreneurial member of the advertising sales team has been trying to get more creative with how advertisements are delivered on the web site, and is looking for the opportunity to innovate.