For the last several years, there has been a big push to get publishers to increase the visibility of ads. Advertisers were feeling ripped off (legitimately so) because they would pay for ads that would rarely actually get seen by a real person. While many publishers are still failing to achieve success in this area, Ranker has really done a great job.
In the past 15-months they have made a number of very effective changes that have more than doubled their viewability on the ads on their web properties.
They took steps like removing slideshows from their pages, running ads that are triggered to load only once they are actually on the screen, and implementing a number of strict guidelines for the ads that they will run. All of this has led to not only a much better viewability rate, but also a decrease in page-load time by 60%.
The effort was made both for desktop and mobile versions of the site, and they continue to try new things to see which one’s work. With extensive split testing and other efforts being made, it is no surprise that the efforts are really paying off.
With lots of different things being tried, Ranker is really setting an example for the industry. You can’t just flip a switch and fix the viewability issues. You need to try new things, analyze data, keep work works, and ditch what doesn’t. Ranker’s CEO and Founder, Clark Benson, confirms this with his comment saying, “We feel the end result is better for user experience, but it wasn’t a clean, easy process.”
