Another step towards maximizing ad effectiveness in web3: advertising exposure and views count

3 min
Another step towards maximizing ad effectiveness in web3: advertising exposure and views count

There are two things working against advertising effectiveness: not seeing the ad or seeing it too many times. New additions to Adshares protocol are aiming to help advertisers and publishers navigate these straits.

Limitation per parcel

Once you own a space in the metaverse and want to monetize it with advertising - it’s easy to fall into the trap of linear relation thinking of “the more ads I put up - the more money I’ll make”.

This may be true - but only for a number between 1 and 3 per wall. Above that number, we may be getting adverse effects, as viewers’ attention is getting divided across more stimuli (thus, logically, not processing them enough). It’s physically impossible for consumers/users to process the visual chaos.

Limiting the number of placements on the outside helps us avoid the ad clutter which works against ad effectiveness. Thus, we would recommend not putting too many outside-facing billboards in order to avoid overloading passersby with too much advertising.

However - when the interior is considered - gallery owners might want to place more promotional posters inside their galleries. Therefore - as far as “20 per parcel” seem a lot on the outside - it seems much less when you think “4 ads outside plus 4 per level”.

This is of course subject to further optimization.

Views calculation

When evaluating the ad campaign effectiveness - the absolute first thing an advertiser must look at is the ad’s exposure - i.e., how many times the ad ran.

The second thing - is how many times it has actually been seen in total (Ad Views / Ad Impressions).

The first psychological effect in play here is the “mere exposure effect” - the fact that the things we see again makes them more likable (like a pop radio powerplay you hate at first just to find yourself singing it in the shower months later).

The second one - is called “copy wear-out”. The wear-out depends on two things:

  • “habituation” - when repeated stimulus stops working on us because we stop processing it - it becomes a “wallpaper”
  • “fatigue” - when a viewer consciously says “OK, I’ve had enough of his stupid ad”

So, for any advertiser - getting the number of views necessary to move their target audience down the conversion funnel is the philosophers’ stone, turning advertising copper into gold at the checkout.

The first deciding factor is the number of Unique Views. For example - if you advertise on a web page with 5 ad placements (i.e., top billboard, 2 skyscrapers and 2 mid-text banners) - you theoretically have 5 exposures, yet only one unique/valuable impression.

Using the same principle - the Adshares protocol now allows separating total exposures from unique views. But what’s more - one may set the appropriate time limit for the measure.

For instance - seeing a car ad two days in a row may be wasteful. But seeing breakfast cereals every morning for a week may be optimal. This goes towards introducing exposure capping, also known from present advertising models.

These two modifications add to our constant drive to “metaphorize” as many aspects of ‘traditional digital’ ad buying into on-chain advertising, providing both advertisers and publishers with accurate measurement tools and more relevant data, based on cognitive psychology and advertising science.

Join Discord