Desktop vs Mobile – Planning Ad Layout for Different Devices

Each device requires different angles when it comes to advertising. It is not only a matter of size but placing and volume as well. So how to plan Ad Layout wisely and in accordance with the best industry standards? In this practical guide, we will go through some tools and research that will provide you with useful insights.

TABEL OF CONTENTS

• How to recognise user behavior?
• Which tools to use and what information can you learn from them?
• What tips do key industry reports provide?
• How to plan your unique Ad Layout step by step?

Knowing your audience

Typically, users behave differently on desktop and mobile computers, primarily due to the nature of these devices. Remind yourself in what situations you use the phone, computer or tablet. Due to the size of the computer, you cannot use it in a car, in a queue, in a waiting room or while walking. Smartphones, called by some a small window to the world, are present with us on a daily basis and make it possible to maintain divided attention. Unfortunately, divided attention is also followed by various types of distraction and ultimately the possibility of detachment.

The nature of the Privacy Sandbox has seen the evolution of solutions, and FloC was not the first interest-based You can check how quickly your users get distracted while browsing your content using an analytical tool such as Google Analytics, which measures the average duration of a session. For some of the e-commerce sites we analyzed, the average duration of sessions on computers was 11 minutes, and on mobile devices 6 minutes. In the case of news sites – depending on the item (current affairs, lifestyle, or sport), it took up to 1 minute on a mobile device and up to 2 minutes on a computer.

How can information like this be of benefit to you? It is crucial to determine how much time users spend on your website, and to be aware of how low their scroll reaches your content. With that, you can set a point below which ads will be reaching low viewability and performance. You can also add relevant related content widgets in order to deepen the user’s session. The point of low viewability is no longer as obvious as it used to be. Still, the area above the fold is the most important part of the website, but according to NN/g research, since 2010 users have begun to spend much more time BTF (57% is spent ATF, 80% was in 2010 in the research conducted in 2018.)

Tools to help you out when planning Ad Layout

The best tools that can help you identify the visible parts of your website are heat maps. There are three basic maps that are the most important for you – click, scroll and hover.

In a click map, you are able to see where the users click:

You can use click map in a variety of ways in order to determine user behavior. For example, in this Washington Post article, there are content recommendations in the right-hand column:

Later on, there is another similar widget with recommended content and another one at the end of the article. With clickmap, you can determine what is the most optimal amount of content within each of the widgets, as well as their placement on the website. This is only one example of many other usages of this tool.

Another type is a scroll map, which uses scale to represent how deep the average scroll was:

Most of the tools on the market, like HotJar or Smartlook, mark the average fold for each of the devices. Usually, scroll depth falls quickly around the second or third fold. During our research at Yieldbird, we have found out that most of the articles are read till the end by 50% of users on both desktop and mobile, and viewability drops pretty quickly below them. E-commerce websites are usually scrolled by up to 50% of users to half the length, with mobile user numbers coming in a bit lower than this. It is not a solid rule, as there are some exceptions – the best way to determine this is by testing it yourself.

Hover map-tracks the mouse, following the assumption that users point to where they look. This is not 100% accurate and is available only to desktop users.

Most of the tools available on the market work in a way that records user sessions and processes them so as to create relevant information. Depending on what information you are obtaining and in what way, you may or may not ask the user to consent to participating in such a recording. The best way of determining this is to contact the technology provider. As for the providers, some of the most popular ones include HotJar, Smartlook, or Mouseflow; and a number of them offer packages of sessions for free, but whether that is enough for you depends on how many daily sessions your websites generate.

You can measure scroll depth also through Google Analytics, by using Google Tag Manager, which allows for the measuring of both horizontal and vertical viewability (with the same trigger). To learn how to set a trigger in GTM, visit this support article, as well as this one to learn how to measure scroll depth.

What can you do if you do not have access to any of these tools? The best way is to measure yourself against the competition. It is not the best way to plan your ad layout, so keep it as a last resort; but still, it is an option to consider. In this linked article regarding assessing the quality of the inventory, I briefly go through the process of auditing inventory value and recognizing your competition.

Look for clues in the guidance and policies

There is a lot of secondary research available on the web. Secondary research is a great option, as it is carried on a large scale with a diverse audience, which is something that small and medium Publishers might not be profitable enough to do (due to the large costs of reaching an audience and creating and maintaining a team for data analysis, etc). One of the best sources is the research conducted by the Better Ads Coalition, which contains data for mobile, desktop, and video ads, as well as advertising technologies (and recently updated with Mobile Apps).

For example, let’s take a look at the mobile experience. One of the best-ranked ads are sticky ads on the bottom and the top of the page. Also, both video and standard banners ads within content do not disrupt the user experience. At the very bottom of the list, there are pop-ups, prestitial ads, and video ads with sound on. Similar conclusions were drawn from NN/g research in their article ‘The most hated advertising techniques’ from 2017 (but still relevant).

As we can see, similar types of ads were marked as ‘strongly disliked’, but with higher scores on mobile devices. This is quite a natural occurrence, as with shorter sessions, disruptive ads can cause more annoyance than on desktop – with almost twice longer ones.

Another useful information source are guides, released by IAB. In their Ad portfolio, you will find not only knowledge regarding available ad sizes within Programmatic, but also requirements that ads need to meet (in both placing and formatting). Recently realized guides for Native and IN-APP advertising are also available through the IAB Europe website.

Planning Your Ad Layout – step by step

1. Investigate user behavior: session depth, clicks, and (in the case of desktop) hovers.
2. Find out about the latest reports, policies, and competition behavior.
3. Plan an Ad layout – you can find more detailed tips here.
4. Be careful with successive ad units, prioritizing user experience over ad revenue.
5. Analyze the results and check changes in user behavior after making the changes.

To sum it all up

There are many resources on the web that will help you create the best ad layout, such as secondary research from IAB, or NN/g, which are available for free. Technologies like heat maps usually require some outlay, but the information they provide is valuable for auditing and improving your inventory. Assess what is best for you based on the scale of your business and its complexity, and move forward accordingly. It is worth remembering that technological developments and changing market trends have created room for improvement in your inventory.

Do you have any questions regarding Ad Layout designing?
Feel free to contact us – our team will be more than happy to discuss it with you!

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