The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) released an announcement saying that it is launching a whole new approach to ad standards. This is largely in response to the uptick in ad blocking that has been coming out and also complaints from users regarding how intrusive ads are becoming (on some sites). The IAB said, “We messed up. As technologists, tasked with delivering content and services to users, we lost track of the user experience.”
The new program which is being called L.E.A.N. which stands for Light, Encrypted, Ad Choice Supported, Non-Intrusive ads is setup to help make the overall user experience better, while still providing advertisers with great opportunities to get their message out.
In the announcement the IAB wrote, “Among the many areas of concentration, we must also address frequency capping on retargeting in Ad Tech and make sure a user is targeted appropriately before, but never AFTER they make a purchase. If we are so good at reach and scale, we can be just as good, if not better, at moderation. Additionally, we must address volume of ads per page as well as continue on the path to viewability. The dependencies here are critical to an optimized user experience.”
What overall impact this will actually have remains to be seen, but the IAB is certainly an influential group in the industry so it is something all marketers and website owners will want to be well aware of. You can see the full announcement from the IAB HERE.
