DIGIDAY – 08/01/2020
Lucinda Southern
Historically, media observers called out the use of auto-refreshing ads as a bad practice, something geared to the short term and rather mercenary. But this view is changing and the practice is hardly en route to extinction.
Over the last few months, the number of publisher sites with such ads has been on the rise: The ads within these sites auto-refresh based on triggers, such as the amount of time elapsed, delivering more impressions and thus boosting a publisher’s ad revenue. This is not a new tactic, but one coming back into fashion as publishers are squeezed to extract more value from their advertising businesses. But as is the case with other tactics designed to drum up more ad revenue, publishers must contend with how flagrant examples of this practice impede the user experience.