Balancing UX and Advertising Solutions: A Recipe for Success

In the journey to monetise your owned and operated assets, striking the right balance between User Experience (UX) and advertising solutions is a constant balancing act a business will perform. However, it’s not as daunting as it may seem or appear. In this piece, we'll explore the core principles and statistics behind UX and advertising solutions, highlighting the importance of contextual relevance, personalisation, meaningful advertising, A/B testing, data-driven experiences, the customer journey, and the interplay between formats, functions, and emotions.

UX Golden Rules & Advertising Solutions Golden Rules

Both UX and advertising solutions adhere to a set of principles that guide their respective fields. Some UX principles, as outlined by the Nielsen Norman Group, include consistency, visibility, user control, and error prevention, ensuring seamless and user-friendly experiences. On the other hand, advertising solutions often revolve around capturing attention, delivering persuasive messages, and driving user actions. 

Contextual Relevance: The Key to Engagement

Contextual relevance is a linchpin in both UX and advertising solutions. Users expect experiences and ads that align with their current context. Google's research shows that 63% of users are more likely to click on ads tailored to their online activities. The ability to provide contextually relevant content greatly influences engagement and conversion rates.

Personalisation Powers Performance

Personalisation has long served as the cornerstone of digital advertising solutions. Multitude of studies has been conducted echoing this point. Such the 2018 study by Accenture Interactive (now Accenture Song), that an astonishing 91% of consumers are more likely to shop with brands that offer personalised experiences. We purposefully use this to illustrate personalisation is not new news.  

A/B Testing / Experimentations: A Data-Backed Approach

A/B testing and experimentation is a powerful tool for UX designers and advertising capabilities alike. In its most simple explanation, it involves comparing two versions to determine which performs better. There is behavioural science which informs how testing and experimentations should be planned and measured too. HubSpot's research reveals that A/B testing can lead to a remarkable 16.9% increase in click-through rates. This method enables continuous improvement in both UX and advertising solutions. Its worth noting, experimentation is not just above having the right tool, it’s also about having it baked into the culture of the business for the benefits of experimentation to be fully realised.

Data-Driven Experiences

Data-driven decision-making is fundamental to UX and advertising solutions. UX designers rely on user data and analytics to refine designs, while advertising harness placements, creative, call-to-action and audience data to be effective. This is where your architectural enablement and data assets plays a vital role in how meaningfully your business can deliver these experiences.

Mapping the Customer Journey

Understanding the customer journey is pivotal for both UX and advertising solutions. UX designers map out the user's path to ensure a smooth experience, whilst advertising identify touchpoints where ads can influence user decisions.

Formats, Functions, and Emotions 

In the convergence of UX and advertising solutions, the choice of formats, functionality, and the campaign’s ability to illicit positive emotional responses are the plates you simultaneously spin. The format of an ad or placement can significantly impact its resonance with the audience. Functionality must align with user expectations for a seamless experience. Emotions, triggered through creative, design and messaging, are essential for both user engagement and persuasive advertising. 

Putting it into practice

To provide some practical application of the above when thinking of how they could make monetising your owned and operated assets meaningful. The below is assuming you are just beginning your monetisation journey.

Start small with repurposing some current assets, select one or two placements on your homepage or category homepage and pick one channel. This will ensure you’re working with the existing UX and minimising user disruptions, it will give you a baseline on how those placements can perform – bear in mind, performance is a collective of the creative, placement, targeting, offer and or call-to-action.

Make sure you have the right tracking in place, so you are collecting the critical data you need to inform your iterations. Targeting is vital, same mindset here, start small – select categories you feel may provide the right size and opportunity to deliver outcomes. In doing this, you are essentially executing a light personalisation capability. Especially if your segmentation and targeting is not quite ready. 

Make sure you have a clear plan for how you want to test and learn, how many campaigns do you have to test with? What are the success metrics? Not all campaigns or creative are equal as we know, measuring them correctly will allow you a balance view of how your journey is going, and what, where and how you can and need to improve.

Finally, how you leverage the above elements depends on the organisation’s maturity levels, the exciting aspect - no matter where the business is on that curve, you always have room to iterate and improve.