Understanding the World of Ads: Getting Started with UX Research on Advertising Experiences

Ads are powerful tools for reaching new customers and boosting sales. But in today's competitive landscape, simply throwing your message out there isn't enough. You must ensure your ads are seen, understood, and, most importantly, acted upon. While understanding the consumer side of ad experiences is vital, it’s also critical to know how advertisers interact with the range of ad technology, products, and tools. 

This is where UX research comes in. By delving into the minds of both consumers and advertisers alike, UX research can help unlock the secrets to crafting advertising experiences, products, and tools that aren’t just functional and engaging but drive results. In this blog post, our team answers some of the most commonly asked questions we get from our clients and the UX community alike about the ins and outs of advertising experience research.

Answering your questions on Advertising UX Research

What is advertising UX research?

Advertising UX research is about applying research methods to the field of advertising, both with practitioners who publish ads and consumers who experience those ads. When speaking with consumers, the goals are to observe and probe interactions with ads, identify ad effectiveness, and guide ad engagement strategies. When conducting research with publishers and advertisers, the goals are often to understand their processes, the industry, the challenges they have, and the tools they use.

What is the digital advertising ecosystem?

The digital advertising ecosystem includes both the places where ads are experienced by consumers on devices and the tools and platforms that are required for professionals to use to place those ads online, on television, on billboards, and in other locations. At AnswerLab, we conduct research across the digital advertising ecosystem to help understand what consumers want from their ads experience, as well as how platforms and tools can be improved for advertisers. Both perspectives are equally important in building an ads ecosystem that meets user needs across the spectrum.

What is the impact of conducting UX research on advertising experiences?

While advertising may seem like a niche part of a brand’s business, ads are often a core revenue driver for many brands. This makes research on the ad experience a critical part of your research strategy. By understanding user needs on both the advertiser and consumer sides, we can design ad products that keep people engaged and coming back for more.

Some key things Ads UX research can help us understand include:

• With consumers, we can gain deeper insights into how people interact with ads of all types, providing direction on how to create more engaging and effective ads that fit within the shopping journey. 
• With advertising and publishing professionals, we can understand if the ads technology, products, and tools designed for them to place ads are the most effective. 

What type of research methods are common for ads UX research?

UX research for ads leverages the same methods that other UX research leverages. Interviews, surveys, and usability tests are all useful tools depending on the research questions you have and the audience you need to engage. Some examples include using interviews to understand the working environment of the professionals, how their tools fit into their overall workday and how your tools might fit or not fit within that. Diary studies can help engage with professional end users in the industry over time to understand their experiences with tools or with consumers to understand their experiences with the ads over time. 

How can I best design an effective ads research study?

Similar to preparing for any kind of UX research, it's essential to understand your research goals. Creating a set of objectives and defining the foundation of what you want to learn is the first step to ensuring all teams involved are aligned. In tandem, you need to define which audience you’re speaking to. For example, do you want to understand advertisers’ objectives, their challenges, and what platforms they are using to display ads? Do you want to see how they use your tools? Or, do you want to reach out to consumers to understand how your new ad format resonates with them? 

Your answers will help you identify which audience to start with and will inform your research approach from there. If you’re primarily interested in understanding how people utilize your ad tools and products, you’ll want to start with advertisers. Then, you might conduct follow-up research with consumers to validate and dive further into which ad formats are resonating. 

Additionally, make sure you ask yourself who you need to involve on your team to ensure research success. What hypotheses does the team have about which ads or ads products will perform better or worse and why?

Why is reaching advertisers for UX research more complex than a typical recruit?

Advertising roles are broken down across organizations and are often heavily specialized. We’ve also found depending on the size of the company and inconsistencies in titles, role types don’t always have the same meaning from organization to organization. For example, a VP of Marketing at a smaller organization would wear many hats, whereas the same title at a larger organization might be more strategic and hands-off in the day-to-day ads work.

Because it is critical to speak to the right audience, recruiting the right people for advertising UX research can be a more complex and intentional process. For example, if you are looking to understand the usability of a specific tool, you need to speak with the people in the organization who use that tool regularly and not a manager who rarely uses the tool. If your research is more strategic or about process, the manager might be the better candidate for the research. It’s also important to recognize that ad executives' schedules can be very tight, especially at senior levels, meaning you need a clear reason why the advertiser should participate in research.

How do we get the best insights from ad research?

At AnswerLab, we take a specialized approach to advertising experience research to ensure you get the insights you need, regardless of whether your audience is consumers or advertisers. As ads can be a nuanced landscape, we have a few best practices we use to ensure you get the best insights from every study:

Share what you know
When kicking off a new research project, it’s helpful to revisit previously done research, outline what information you already know, and see where the gaps are in your research questions. This ensures your research goes deeper than your current knowledge, and you get the most out of every study.

Go beyond surface-level data
Often, the best way to gain a rich understanding of your research questions is to combine qualitative and quantitative data. Mixed-methods approaches can offer a comprehensive understanding of user interactions, combining big-picture quantitative data with targeted, in-depth qualitative insights. This enables you to make more informed, data-driven decisions.

Consider unique approaches
Storytelling, empathy mapping, and co-creation can encourage personal stories that help you understand participant experiences beyond the tools, advertisements, or ecosystems you might be trying to understand. 

Plan for ongoing data analysis
Think about how this research fits into the bigger picture of your ongoing data analysis. How can what you’ve already learned and what you want to learn in the future be integrated into your workflow? Challenge your assumptions through research to ensure your hypotheses are accurate. Look for patterns and trends across your research, and think about how the next set of research can fit into what you already know. 

How do we handle the tension between consumers, advertisers, and publishers?

When conducting advertising UX research, it’s important to acknowledge the tension that exists among consumers, advertisers, and publishers. Consumers and publishers want to have a good UX. Consumers want to access content. Publishers want to provide it. Publishers must pay for their content, and most of them do so through advertising. This creates an inherent tension because advertisers want their ads to appear and be as effective as possible in these spaces. Accepting there should be a balance is important to inform your research output. As we’re conducting research, these are a few common themes we see that help navigate this tension:

• Focus on the value advertisers can provide to consumers. How can ads be a more positive experience that also meets advertiser goals? How can you stay relevant with timely ads experiences, and ultimately drive value and loyalty? 
• Think about utilizing a range of contextually relevant formats and ad types to engage consumers more effectively.
• Emphasize user-centric approaches because, ultimately, a good user experience benefits advertisers, publishers, and consumers alike.

Want to learn more about our Ads expertise and how we can help you? Get in touch with a Strategist today!

Written by Jennifer Bohmbach and Jane Kim, with additional contributors Sara Currie and Julia Marks.