The vast majority of web content creators finance their work with the money they earn from advertising. In other words, the ads posted on their sites should be attractive, useful, and engaging, meaning that users really want to see and interact with. In reality, however, users quite often encounter annoying ads on the Internet, such as those that suddenly play loud music or force you to wait 10 seconds before you can view the content on the page. These frustrating experiences can result in some users blocking all ads, thus giving a huge blow to content creators, journalists, web developers, and videographers who rely on ads to fund their content creation process.
We believe that internet advertising should be better. That's why we joined the Coalition for Better Ads, an industry group dedicated to improving online advertising. The Better Advertising Standards, recently announced by the group, provide clear, public, data-driven guidance on how the industry can improve advertising for consumers. Today we want to share with you how we can support these standards.
New Devices for Publishers
The new Ad Experience Report helps publishers better understand how Better Ads Standards might apply to their websites, and provides screenshots and videos of the annoying ad experiences we've identified so that issues can be easily found and fixed. For a full list of ads to use, publishers can visit our new best practices guide instead.
“Our users always come first for us. That's why we support the Coalition's work and standards for Better Ads. The videos and screenshots in the report are extremely helpful. Using this content, our teams determine what they should do in line with the Coalition's research. We have been very impressed with the level of granularity and transparency Google has provided, and we appreciate this initiative.” - Troy Young, Head of Hearst Digital Media
As we work to ensure a sustainable web for all, we want to help publishers with good ad experiences earn money for their hard work. With Funding Choices, currently in beta, publishers can display a customized message to visitors using ad-blockers, inviting them to enable ads on their site or pay for a pass that will remove all ads from that site through the new Google Contributor.
“Looking back at the last few years, we've noticed that the rise of ad blockers has negatively impacted our potential revenue across all of our properties, particularly in Europe. Funding Choices allows us to tell visitors who use ad blockers how our business is doing and give them the option to whitelist or contribute to our newsroom. We've found that users are often open to the thought of whitelisting the site once they understand how content is created." - Marc Boswell, Senior Vice President, Sales Operations and Customer Service, Business Insider
Funding Choices is available to publishers in North America, the UK, Germany, Australia and New Zealand and will be gradually rolled out to other countries later this year. Publishers should visit our new best practices guide for tips on creating the right message for their audience.
Chrome Support for Better Ad Standards
Chrome has always been focused on giving you the best experience on the web. For example, we know that pop-ups that open in new tabs are annoying, so we block them. As a result of discussions with the coalition and other industry groups, we expect Chrome to stop displaying ads on websites (including those owned or published by Google) that do not comply with the Better Ads Standards in early 2018.
“We support this approach. We consider this a logical step to implement the standard we have agreed upon. It's a step towards reducing the ad-blocking rate, which is quite high in Germany. As a premium publisher, F.A.Z. values quality and does not use ad formats that the Better Ads Coalition describes as annoying to users. It is very important that the user is at the center of this initiative. The data that sets the standard comes directly from users, giving users greater control over their ad experience.” - Thomas Schultz-Homberg Head of Digital Content at Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
For the Future
We believe these changes will continue to provide a sustainable way for content creators large and small to fund their online advertising efforts.
We look forward to working with the Coalition as they develop market rules to support the Better Advertising Standards. We aim to work closely with the entire industry, including groups such as the IAB, IAB Europe, DCN, WFA, ANA and 4A, advertisers, agencies and publishers, to make these changes meaningful to users and the wider advertising ecosystem.
Posted by: Sridhar Ramaswamy, Senior Vice President of Advertising and Commerce
Source: Google Inside AdWords English
