Video Ad
Increasing Engagement & Revenue
2021
Contributions
UX lead
Design
Prototype
Secondary Research
Tools Used
Problem
How might we increase CTR of Yahoo’s Native Video which will in turn increase revenue?
The only way to increase the value of CPC demand is to increase CTR so the new design is focused on that goal.
Design as a solution
- Improve the overall video ad experience
- Help users discover products they are interested in
- Keep the experience native to the property
- Help company increase revenue
- Come up with a design that works with our current tech
- Come up with a design solution that doesn’t overload the page and overall UX remains smooth
Existing design
- Doesn’t follow Yahoo’s standard ad label design
- Text overlay and mute icon are placed together too close which can generate an accidental tap between them
- On top of that, tapping on the replay button & sound icon take users to the advertiser which is misleading and deceiving to users’ intention
Design explorations
We explored many variations of the design and in collaboration with the Product Managers and the Engineers we discussed pros and cons of each design in terms of UX, monetary prospect, and engineering effort.
Bucket tests
We finalized two designs and tested them in 2 buckets with a small percentage of our actual visitors of Yahoo Homepage on mobile.
In the designs, we considered a few things:
- Moved the mute icon away from the overlay message and CTA for clear tap targets for both.
- We used the standard Yahoo ad label where users can find advertiser names and ad feedback options all together within a clear tap target.
- We made use of micro-interaction and pronounced companion card to deliver the message in addition to the video (which is often consumed without sound).
- We added clear Call-to-Action (CTA).
- We added an end card to further emphasize the ad content and CTA.
Bucket Results
- Total media revenue increased
- Total media Native Ad revenue increased
- No statistical impact on retention, time spent, stream clicks or pageviews
- No impact on page load performance
- Total media revenue slightly decreased
- Total media Native Ad revenue slightly decreased
- No statistical impact on retention, time spent, stream clicks or pageviews
- No impact on page load performance
Impact
- Bucket 2 design drove a higher average CTR (+6% vs.+3%) but revenue was negatively impacted due to a decrease in downstream revenue. The data team believes it is unrelated to the experiment, however, we decided to move forward with bucket 1 design while further investigation and optimization are done.
- If avg. +3% CTR increase scales to other mobile web and app use cases, it’s forecasted to add $1.5M/year not including Yahoo Mail.