Google Allows Users to Mute Display Ads

This morning, Google announced a new feature that will be rolling out across display ads over the next few weeks. In the upper right corner of select ads, a small [X] will now appear allowing users to click and “mute” ads from that campaign from being shown to them again. Google believes that this will be a win-win-win within the display ecosystem: users control their ad experience, advertisers don’t pay to show irrelevant ads and publishers display better performing ads.

Based on what Google is telling us, one irrelevant ad could cost online marketers from showing ads in an entire campaign ever again to that particular user. It seems extreme to prevent all ads within the campaign from showing again, rather than just the group containing the muted ad. However, the same ad could be shown again by a different ad company, or the marketer could run a separate campaign targeting specific content. Though muting isn’t a 100% guarantee that users won’t see that ad again, one thing is for certain, online marketers will need to ensure, now more than ever, that their display campaigns are focused and highly relevant. Hopefully, user engagement with this new feature and changes in ad performance will dictate future updates, if any.

For best practices on managing and optimizing contextually keyword targeted display campaigns, read part 1 and part 2 of our You, Google and the Display Network series.