Back to work

Yahoo

Ad Tech Video UX Monetization

Reworking native video ads to capture lost revenue

My RoleUX Lead

ScopeRedesign · UX improvement · Revenue optimization

PartnersEng · PM · Research · Data Science · Legal

ToolsSketch · Flinto

TL;DR — The outcome

+6%

CTR increase

The shipped design drove a +6% average CTR lift on Yahoo Homepage mobile video ads

$3M

Forecasted annual gain

Projected revenue uplift if +6% CTR scales across all mobile web and app — not including Yahoo Mail

$254K

Revenue per quarter

Incremental revenue per quarter from mobile web Home alone

Yahoo’s native video ads had UX problems quietly costing revenue. I redesigned the experience, ran a two-bucket live test on real Yahoo Homepage traffic, and the winning design is forecasted to generate $3M in additional annual revenue once scaled across mobile web and app.

The problem

The existing ad experience was losing clicks — and trust

Yahoo’s native video ads were underperforming on CTR. The only lever to increase CPC demand value was to increase click-through rate, which made this a design problem with a direct revenue line.

How might we increase CTR of Yahoo’s native video ads to capture lost revenue?

What was wrong with the existing design

Text overlay and mute icon are placed too close together, generating accidental taps between them
Tapping the replay button or sound icon takes users to the advertiser’s page — misleading and deceiving to users’ intention
Doesn’t follow Yahoo’s standard ad label design — inconsistent with user expectations across the platform

Existing Design — mWeb

Misleading tap targets, no CTA, non-standard ad label

Design principles

Four design principles that shaped every decision

Every design decision was guided by four principles — balancing UX quality, revenue potential, technical feasibility, and page performance from the very start.

Fix all existing issues and improve the overall video ad experience — clear tap targets, standard ad label, trustworthy interactions

Work within current tech and asset sizes — no design that requires new infrastructure or significant external team dependencies

No UX overload — the redesign must not impact page load performance or disrupt the surrounding content experience

Increase CTR to increase revenue — higher click-through rate directly increases CPC demand value and total ad revenue

Design explorations

Many variations, one rigorous filter

I explored a wide range of design directions in collaboration with PMs and engineers — evaluating each against UX quality, monetization potential, and engineering effort. Every concept was stress-tested against all six design goals before being considered for a live bucket test.

A snapshot of design explorations — evaluated across UX, revenue, and engineering effort

Bucket tests

Two designs. Real traffic. Data decides.

We finalized two designs and tested them on a small percentage of actual Yahoo Homepage mobile visitors. Both designs addressed the core UX issues from the existing experience.

What both designs improved

Separated the mute icon from the overlay message and CTA — clear, distinct tap targets for each
Standard Yahoo ad label with advertiser name and ad feedback options in a single clear tap target
Micro-interactions and a companion card to deliver the ad message even when video plays without sound
Clear Call-to-Action button to drive deliberate, intentional engagement
End card to reinforce the ad content and CTA after the video completes

Bucket 1

Conservative companion card treatment

Bucket 2 — Shipped

More prominent companion card treatment

Results

Both designs improved the experience — Bucket 2 drove higher CTR

Both designs were tested on real Yahoo Homepage traffic with a small percentage of actual visitors. Neither design negatively impacted any UX KPIs — Bucket 2 drove the stronger CTR result and was selected for shipping.

Bucket 1

+3%

CTR increase

Total media revenue increased
Total media native ad revenue increased
No statistically significant impact on retention, time spent, stream clicks, or pageviews
No impact on page load performance

Bucket 2 — Shipped

+6%

CTR increase

Total media revenue increased
Total media native ad revenue increased
No statistically significant impact on retention, time spent, stream clicks, or pageviews
No impact on page load performance

Impact & decision

Bucket 2 shipped — generating significant incremental revenue

Bucket 2 drove a higher CTR than Bucket 1 (+6% vs. +3%). It was shipped.

The design drives incremental revenue without touching UX KPIs such as retention, pageviews, stream clicks, or time spent. The result validates a core principle — improving user experience and hitting business goals are not in tension.

$254K

Revenue per quarter

Incremental revenue from mobile web Home alone

$3M

Revenue per year

If +6% CTR scales to all mobile web and app use cases — not including Yahoo Mail

Reflection

What this project reinforced

💡

What I learned

Business goals can be achieved by offering users a better experience — this project proved it directly. Fixing broken UX raised CTR and revenue simultaneously
Live bucket testing on real traffic is irreplaceable. No amount of internal review predicts real-world behavior as accurately as actual data from real users
Collaborating with engineers during explorations (not after) surfaces technical constraints early and avoids costly late-stage pivots

🔭

What I’d do next

Bring the success of mobile design to desktop
Iterate further on the mobile version to push CTR even higher now that the baseline is established
Add closed captions to the video — this would improve usability for users watching without sound and potentially increase CTR further