Sticky Ads on Phones and the Better Ads List

The ad that will not scroll away

A reader opens one of your articles on a phone. A banner sits along the bottom of the screen, and as they scroll, it stays exactly where it is.

On some sites there is a second one at the top, under a header that also stays put. The article lives in the strip between them.

These are sticky ads, and the large ones are on the list of formats the Better Ads Standards say readers find most annoying.

Since June, that list has had consequences: Google says Chrome will stop showing ads on sites that keep failing it, starting early next year.

What the standards mean by large

Large sticky ads are among the few formats that appear on both of the standards' lists, for desktop and for phones.

A sticky ad is fixed to an edge of the screen and stays while the reader scrolls. It becomes a problem when it takes a large share of the screen, leaving less room for what the reader came for.

Not every fixed unit qualifies. A slim banner that leaves most of the screen to the article is a different thing from one that eats a large part of it.

Where sticky units come from

• An ad network setting switched on in a dashboard and forgotten.
• A theme option that pins a banner to the bottom on phones.
• A plugin added to keep one unit in view through long articles.
• A sponsor package that promised a placement always on screen.
• Two of these at once, each modest on its own.

The last is the one that catches sites out. A slim bottom banner and a pinned sponsor bar can each look reasonable, and together leave the article a narrow band in the middle.

Why phones make it worse

A banner sized for a desktop takes a sliver of a large monitor. The same unit on a phone takes a far bigger share of a far smaller screen.

Phones already give up space to the browser's own bars, and many sites add a fixed header, a cookie notice or a call button. Every fixed element comes out of the same few centimetres.

Fixed units near the bottom also sit where thumbs rest, so readers tap them by accident while scrolling. That click is worth little to the advertiser and annoys the reader.

Turn the phone sideways

Turned on its side, the screen becomes a short letterbox. A banner that looked slim upright can cover a large part of the height, and a fixed header can take most of the rest.

Readers turn phones to look at photographs and video, so galleries and video pages deserve the closest look.

Check the smallest phones your readers use as well. A unit sized for a large phone takes more of a small one, and older phones are still common.

Smaller alternatives

The simplest is an ad placed between paragraphs, which scrolls away with the article like any other part of the page.

Where a fixed unit is wanted, one slim banner with a clear close control does the job without crowding the text.

A sponsor who wants visibility can have a credit line under the article's headline and an in-article unit, which are seen in context rather than tolerated.

And a unit that expands when touched should stay closed until the reader chooses to open it.

A worked example

A regional magazine publisher puts each issue's features online: long articles about the towns, trails and restaurants of its area, read mostly on phones.

Its article pages carried an ad network's banner pinned along the bottom edge and, as part of a sponsor's annual package, a sponsor bar fixed beneath the site header.

On a small phone the two fixed units and the header left the article a band in the middle of the screen. Turned sideways, the band nearly vanished. Readers wrote in about it.

The mechanism was addition. Each unit had been agreed separately, by different people, and nobody had looked at them together on a small screen.

The sponsor bar became a credit line under each headline and an in-article placement, with the sponsor's agreement. The bottom banner stayed, alone, with a close control.

The gallery template, which had its own fixed unit nobody remembered adding, was changed too.

The publisher also rewrote its sponsor packages, so next year's agreements describe placements in the article rather than a unit that stays on screen.

Checking your own pages

Use a real phone, preferably a small one. Open the home page, an article, a gallery and a category page, and scroll each to the very end.

Scroll slowly. Some units sit quietly in the page and only fix themselves to the screen once the reader has moved past them. Note every one, then turn the phone sideways and do it again.

For each fixed unit, find what adds it: a network setting, a theme option, a plugin or a sponsor's code. Write it down, so the next change is deliberate.

Switch an unwanted format off where it is set, in the network's settings or the theme, rather than hiding it with code of your own, which can break a network's terms.

Then open Search Console and find the Ad Experience Report. It says whether Google has reviewed the site's pages and what it found.

The counter-case

Not every fixed element is a problem. A slim call button or a compact header on a service business's site is not an ad, and the standards say nothing about it.

A site read mostly on desktops will feel less pressure from the phone list, though large sticky ads are on the desktop list too.

And Chrome's filter is not the only judge. Readers on any browser find a large fixed unit annoying, and some respond with an ad blocker, which removes every ad on the page, not just that one.

Wherever ads run, the advice holds: one slim fixed unit at most, and the rest in the article.

Before the filter starts

1. Open three articles on a small phone.
2. Scroll each one to the very end.
3. Note every unit that stays fixed on screen.
4. Turn the phone sideways and scroll again.
5. Find the setting behind each fixed unit.
6. Keep one slim unit at most.
7. Read the Ad Experience Report in Search Console.

Step four is the one most checks skip, and it is where a unit that passes upright most often turns into a large one.

The full list of formats, and the report for checking them, is covered in Chrome will block annoying ads next year.

Frequently asked questions

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