Applied Research for Advertising Products

Abstract

Digital advertising is the financial backbone of the Internet industry and is what allows most companies to monetize the traffic to their Internet products. Past research studies have focused on the user's perception of personalized ads, ad targeting and ranking, however, few articles explore the role of UX researchers in creating the advertising tools themselves and the practices they use. In short, for a set of tools that are critical to most internet companies, advertising tools have received little attention in UX research literature. This case study explores the processes, challenges, and tactics employed by UX researchers in advertising products. It provides tactics to conduct effective UX research in this arena. We explore tactics spanning the gamut from study preparation to conducting interviews to collaborating with sales managers. The hope is that this study will foster conversations in the broader CHI community on the UX research practices for advertising tools.