Today we are announcing the release of a major new advertising technique: Auto-Refresh Ads. These ads, when enabled, refresh automatically on a timer when there is user interaction with the page (such as scrolling down while reading an article).
Many ad servers or networks limit how many times an ad spot can be refreshed because they are trying to reduce invalid traffic caused by ad refreshes happening when users are not engaged with the web page. For example, if an ad refreshes every 30 seconds, regardless of user interaction, the user might leave their device for a few hours. During that time the ad could keep refreshing and create invalid ad impressions.
Our implementation of Auto-Refresh ads requires user interaction with the site (such as clicking on galleries or scrolling up or down) before a refresh will occur. This ensures the ad impression is legitimate and the ad spot is viewable in the browser at the time it loads.Â
This new feature can be enabled in the Block Editor page customizations. In the Advertising area, choose "Interval ad refresh." There are three options:
Refresh all ads when possible(default). This is the current default for most sites. Any ad that is eligible to refresh (based on settings in the ad server), will refresh when triggered by a user action, such as a photo gallery slide. However, this technique may refresh ads that are outside of the viewport, thus increasing impressions for ads that cannot be seen.
Do not refresh ads. This setting will prevent all ad refreshes, even if they are otherwise set up to refresh.
Refresh all ads in view due to user action every 5 seconds. This is the new, recommended setting that helps increase ad impressions and ad viewability rates. With this option enabled, the following will take place:
All ads that are eligible will refresh, but ONLY if they are in the viewport (viewable browser area). These new ad refreshes will actually increase viewability scores by reducing the number of ads that refresh outside of the browser area, and by increasing the number of ad opportunities that can be seen by the end user.
The refresh function will only occur after a user action, such as paging through a photo gallery or scrolling down the page to read an article.
The minimum duration between ad refreshes is 5 seconds, which was found during user testing to be optimal. However, since refresh is limited to occur only after a user interaction, most times the duration between refreshes is more like every 10 - 15 seconds.
Refresh will work with all ad servers officially supported by BLOX CMS, including Ad Manager, Google DFP and Open Ad Stream (OAS). OAS has a built-in minimum limitation of 15 seconds.
NOTE:Â This functionality has been prevented from working with wallpaper, impact and popup positions.
