The Fewer Ads Project: How Less Noise Might Actually Make More Money

How the entire digital publishing industry mistook a screaming clown with a megaphone for a business model.

Pesach Lattin (ADOTAT)
May 01, 2025

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Pop-Up Purgatory: How UX Became the Enemy of Revenue

Let’s take a moment to remember what the internet used to feel like. You clicked a link, a page loaded, and you read the article. That’s it. No jazz hands. No “wait, before you go!” overlays. No autoplay videos yelling about cryptocurrency. It was civil. You might’ve even learned something.

Then the spreadsheet guys showed up.

Suddenly every empty corner of a webpage became an “opportunity.” Ad slots multiplied like cockroaches in a takeout container. One day it was two banner ads. The next, you needed a machete to cut through the interstitials, sticky footers, sponsored widgets, scroll hijacks, and “read more” traps that were really just Trojan horses for more inventory. Somewhere along the way, user experience—the thing that keeps people actually using the internet—got tied up, gagged, and shoved in a basement.

Why? Because someone did the math wrong.

The Age of Digital Ad Excess (And the Idiots Who Loved It)

Let’s talk about Mike Warsinske. In the late 2000s, he ran a little sideshow called OverAdMedia. “Media” is generous.

It was more like a slot machine glued to a fire alarm. OverAdMedia had a genius-level bad idea: pack up to 100 ads onto a single page—yes, one hundred—then buy traffic using pop-ups to send people to those pages.

The user journey was basically “click, scream, escape.”

There was no content. There was no value. There was no shame. But for a hot second, there was a revenue stream. Until everyone realized it was garbage. Warsinske got caught, the scheme collapsed, and the entire industry feigned shock, clutching its pearls while quietly taking notes.

The lesson publishers should’ve learned was don’t be like Mike. What they actually took away was hey, this works until someone notices. And thus, an era was born.

The Industry’s Slow Suicide Pact

Let’s not pretend OverAdMedia was a blip. It was a preview. A lot of “respectable” publishers basically followed the same blueprint—just with nicer fonts. They crammed in more ad slots. They let autoplay run wild. They signed revenue-share deals with shady widget companies offering “You Won’t Believe What Happened Next” clickbait straight out of 2012. They ignored load times, ignored mobile performance, ignored anything that even vaguely smelled like “experience.”

Because impressions were still selling. And if CPMs were falling, well, just show more ads. Problem solved.

Except it wasn’t. Because for every new ad slot they added, three things got worse:

Page speed tanked
Bounce rates spiked
Trust evaporated like cold brew left in the sun

Users fled. Or worse, they stuck around long enough to install ad blockers. Today, 42% of global internet users block ads. That’s not a stat—it’s a referendum.

Advertisers Are Not Morons

Here's where the industry did itself no favors. In chasing every last impression, publishers forgot something critical: advertisers don’t want to advertise in garbage. Cluttered, chaotic pages might get a few cheap clicks, but they don’t build brand equity. They don’t convert. They don’t even make you look like a real business.

Worse, search engines and social platforms caught on. Google rolled out Core Web Vitals to punish sites with slow, janky UX. Facebook and Instagram started de-ranking low-quality content. And demand-side platforms began optimizing for attention—not raw impressions.

The arms race for ad slots didn’t just annoy users. It made publishers less attractive to buyers.

And yet, even now, there are still sites out there trying to milk this broken model. It's like rearranging deck chairs on the Hindenburg.

The UX Rebellion Has Begun

Luckily, some publishers are finally waking up—and no, not just the indie hippies running donation-funded newsletters out of Portland.

Dotdash Meredith, of all companies, has declared war on garbage UX. They’re cutting low-quality content. They’ve built their own AI-powered ad targeting engine, D/Cipher, to ditch cookie-based tracking and focus on context instead. They’re working with OpenAI to enhance that tech further. The entire strategy is built on a simple premise: if your content is actually good and your ads are actually relevant, you don’t need to ambush people with garbage.

Even Freestar, a company that exists to monetize every square inch of a webpage, has joined the quality crusade. They’ve tested cutting ad units in half—and found that while revenue took a brief dip, traffic from top sources jumped 28% almost immediately. CPMs climbed. Reader trust rebounded. In other words, less made more.

This isn’t charity. It’s long-term strategy. Because when you stop treating your audience like walking wallets, they start acting like loyal readers again.

So, What Now?

The “more ads = more money” equation is officially dead. It was never good math to begin with. What worked in 2010 doesn’t work in 2025. Today’s internet is about efficiency, respect, and trust. The publishers who thrive going forward will be the ones who understand:

UX isn’t a “nice-to-have.” It’s your product.
Less inventory can mean better performance—if the experience is clean.
Advertisers want to be where users aren’t furious.

The pop-up purgatory era is ending. But only if the industry’s willing to stop lighting matches in the dumpster.

New White Paper: The Liquidity Crisis in Ad Tech: DSP Payment Gaps and Market Impact: 📣 Welcome to the Real Programmatic Crisis Playbook

This white paper you’re about to read?
Not meant for the masses.
Not being handed out at conference cocktail hours.
Not quietly whispered in LinkedIn echo chambers.

FOR ADOTAT+ MEMBERS.

💡 What Freestar’s Heather Carver Just Whispered Loud Enough for Everyone to Hear

Freestar isn’t exactly new to the adtech rodeo—but lately, they’re riding differently. Less cowboy, more precision choreographer.

When I asked Heather Carver, who leads the charge over there, what flipped the switch, she gave the kind of answer that says more between the lines than on them: “Just the way of the world now ;)”

Translation: the market’s changed. And the companies that don’t read the room are about to find themselves talking to empty chairs.

Carver isn’t claiming Freestar was a mess before. Far from it. “Not that we were a dumpster fire,” she told me, “just taking extra steps to be super buttoned up.” And buttoned up apparently means power moves:

They just launched AP (yes, that AP)
Boston Globe is in the pipeline
Fortune is next on deck
And they’re about to get loud about the adtech elephant in the room: overblocking of premium content

In plain English? They’re tired of watching brand safety tools treat award-winning journalism like it’s some kind of malware. And they’re not alone.

This new posture from Freestar isn’t just a flex. It’s part of the larger flight to quality we’ve been banging on about. Publishers are tightening their ships. Adtech firms are cleaning their pipes. And the ones who do it first? They get the Fortune contracts while everyone else debates the definition of “high-quality inventory” in a Slack thread nobody reads.

Heather and her team aren’t waiting around for IAB panels to catch up. They’re making noise, closing deals, and pulling UX and brand alignment into the core of their pitch. Because in 2025, you don’t win by screaming “scale!” louder. You win by showing your inventory doesn’t suck—and that your partners won’t wake up in a Daily Mail sidebar next to a toe fungus ad.

The Metrics That Actually Matter (Hint: It’s Not Fill Rate)

Why advertisers no longer care how many ads you stuffed on a page—and what they’re actually measuring now.

Let’s get one thing out of the way: if you're still worshipping at the altar of fill rate, you’re not just behind the curve—you’re behind the whole damn racetrack.

Once upon a time, digital publishing was ruled by a single, dumb rule: more impressions = more money. Ad slots were king, and the fill rate was the golden calf. Publishers fell over themselves trying to crank out as many pageviews and ad calls as technically possible, even if it meant duct-taping another banner ad to a user’s scrolling thumb like some cursed carnival ride.

But guess what? Advertisers evolved. They got tired of throwing money into the content trash bin. And they started demanding proof—real proof—that their ads were actually being seen, absorbed, and acted upon.

And that, my friends, is when the house of cards started to tremble.

🚫 Fill Rate Is Dead. Long Live Attention.

Fill rate tells you how often your ad space was filled. Not how long the ad was seen. Not whether the user noticed. Not whether it led to anything meaningful. It’s like counting how many people walked past a billboard while ignoring whether any of them were awake.

So what’s replacing it? Time-in-view, viewability rates, and quality CPMs—also known as qCPM or vCPM if you're feeling spicy. These metrics actually measure impact. Not theoretical exposure, but real-world eyeballs and engagement.

Time-in-view tracks how long an ad stays visible within a user’s viewport. It tells us whether a user had the opportunity to process the message. Not whether they clicked—because, spoiler alert, no one clicks anymore unless you’re offering Taylor Swift tickets or free crypto—but whether they saw it. And that’s half the battle.

qCPM/vCPM? That’s the evolution. These metrics take into account whether the impression was viewable, brand-safe, served to a real person, and delivered with a frequency that doesn’t feel like a stalker in banner form. The buyer gets what they want. The user isn’t ready to stab their screen. The publisher gets a higher CPM for fewer impressions. Everyone wins—except the snake oil vendors still selling “100% fill rate!” as a value prop.

🧼 Clean Layouts, Clean Money

Let’s talk design. Because if your site looks like a Craigslist ad crashed into a slot machine, no amount of “targeting precision” is going to save you.

Cluttered pages aren’t just ugly—they actively destroy monetization. Users leave. Brands panic. CPMs plummet. Platforms punish you in search results. Your site gets mentally categorized as “the place where I went to read about baking powder and was assaulted by five autoplay videos and a fake virus warning.”

Meanwhile, smart publishers—yes, they exist—are rediscovering the ancient art of whitespace. Not everything needs to blink. Not every square inch needs to be “monetized.” In fact, studies show that layouts with 30–40% white space actually increase user engagement. Why? Because people can read the content. They can see the ad. They can breathe.

When ad units are integrated logically—within content, alongside natural scroll patterns, or in stickies that don’t interrupt the user’s flow—they perform better. Full stop. They get higher viewability, longer exposure times, and higher CPMs. A publisher who cuts ad clutter might initially lose a few impressions, but what they gain is value per impression—and that is where the money lives now.

🔁 The Buyer Shift: UX or GTFO

Here’s the part that should make every publisher sweat: buyers are watching your UX signals. And not with binoculars—from inside your dashboard.

Demand-side platforms (DSPs), header bidding tools, and programmatic buyers are now actively scoring inventory based on things like:

Time-on-site
Bounce rate
Scroll depth
Viewability
Ad clutter ratios

And if your page is a war crime against design? They’ll bid lower. Or skip you entirely. Welcome to the age of algorithmic reputations.

Advertisers are shifting toward fewer, better placements. They want clean, trustworthy environments where their message lands softly and stays a while. And they’ll pay more for it. CPMs are rising for publishers who respect the reader. They’re dropping like a rock for those who still treat users like walking impression buckets.

🧠 Real Case Studies, Real Wake-Up Calls

Let’s name some names—not of the villains this time, but the early adopters.

The Telegraph in the UK? They leaned into attention-based metrics, focused on time-in-view and user experience, and guess what—they increased campaign pricing and strengthened relationships with advertisers. Not by adding more banners. But by making each one worth more.

Freestar, who we mentioned last time, has gone hard in the opposite direction of their programmatic peers. Their initiative to reduce ad density across partner sites led to a paradoxical result: revenue held steady or increased, bounce rates dropped, and CPMs climbed. Less clutter, more clarity, better performance.

Dotdash Meredith, meanwhile, isn’t just cleaning up content—they’re baking in AI-driven ad placement to ensure that the right ads hit the right users, without relying on third-party cookies. Their entire strategy? Better UX, fewer distractions, smarter targeting. It’s not rocket science—it’s just common sense that finally got a data layer.

🧾 Let’s Break It Down

Here’s a reality check for anyone still hoarding ad slots like they’re Beanie Babies in 1998:

Metric	Measures	Old Result	New Reality
Fill Rate	% of ad slots filled	Looked good on paper	Worthless without viewability
CPM	Cost per thousand impressions	Encouraged volume	Dead without attention
Time-in-View	Duration ad is visible	Not tracked before	Correlated with outcomes
qCPM / vCPM	Viewability + quality	N/A in legacy systems	Preferred by buyers
UX & Layout	Readability + load speed	Ignored	Premium signal for pricing

📣 The Real Takeaway

Still chasing fill rate? That’s like bragging about how many flyers you handed out in Times Square. No one cares. What matters now is whether your ads work—and that means they need to be seen, understood, and remembered.

This is a value economy.
This is an attention economy.
This is a trust economy.

The publishers who are killing it in 2025 aren’t the ones with 15 ad slots per page—they’re the ones who earn their impressions through clarity, focus, and intentional design.

The house isn’t burning. But if you’re still selling junk inventory at bulk rates, your roof is definitely smoking.

“Better” Can Be Measured: How UX Drives Revenue

Forget vanity metrics. These numbers actually move the needle—and the money.

🔍 The Accusation:

For years, digital publishers treated “user experience” like parsley on a steak—decoration at best, ignored at worst. As long as the fill rate was full and CPMs trickled in, who cared if users fled like they’d opened a phishing email?

But here’s the problem:
UX isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s the product.
And the ones who figured that out? They’re not just keeping their users—they’re making more money while doing less damage.

📜 The Evidence:

Speed Matters (And No, 5 Seconds Isn’t Fast)

Every 1-second delay = 7% drop in conversions (Akamai)
<3.5s Time to Interactive = 50%+ better retention (Google)
Sites loading in under 2s? <10% bounce. Over 5s? Bounce hits 38%+ (Portent)

Clean Layouts Outperform the Banner Graveyard

Sites with <3 ads per page = 20% higher CPMs (IAB)
Sticky banners = +300% time-in-view without annoying users (Google MCM)
High white space design = +40% higher CTR (DeepSee)

Attention is the New Currency

Users on page for >3 mins are 2x more likely to convert (Chartbeat)
50% scroll depth = 30%+ higher ad viewability (Lumen Research)
Attention-optimized layouts = Premium demand, better RPMs

Mobile-First Isn’t Optional Anymore

Tap targets >48px spacing = -35% misclicks (NNGroup)
Core Web Vitals (LCP/FID/CLS) passed = 24%+ higher conversions (Google)

Clutter Kills (Quietly and Effectively)

Autoplay video = +22% exit rate (Nielsen Norman)
Content-to-ad ratio of 90:10 = best retention + monetization sweet spot (Forbes)

⚠️ The Catch:

Improving UX feels like a gamble because fewer ads means fewer impressions—at first. The short-term dip in volume scares decision-makers. But those who stuck the landing?

Made more money. With fewer ads.
Cleaner layouts lead to higher CPMs, longer sessions, and more loyal users. You don’t need 10 banner ads when two smart ones work harder.

🔥 The Big Question:

If every data point tells us better UX increases revenue, why are publishers still operating like it’s 2012—with scroll-jacking pages, surprise pop-ups, and videos that shout from the sidebar like drunk uncles?

Seriously—what’s your excuse?

🎤 Industry Response:

📈 Freestar reduced ad density by 40% for one publisher and saw:

+15% session duration
+12% CPMs
+8% return visits

🧠 Dotdash Meredith is using AI-powered ad targeting (D/Cipher) to deliver relevant ads with less reliance on cookies—and without wrecking UX.

📊 DeepSee & Lumen are helping publishers quantify attention—not guess at it—so they can get paid more for better design.

🧠 Thought Bubble:

Publishers who still treat UX like it’s the intern’s side project are playing the short game—and losing. Today, design is monetization. Load speed is ROI. Whitespace is revenue.

The fastest way to increase revenue might be the one that looks like a downgrade on paper: fewer ads, better experience, more loyalty. It’s math. Clean math.

🧾 TL;DR:

Metric	UX Impact	Revenue Outcome
Load Speed	Higher engagement	More pageviews & conversions
Viewability	Longer time-in-view	Premium CPMs
Scroll Depth	Better retention	Higher ad effectiveness
Fewer Ads	Less clutter	More valuable inventory
Mobile UX	Fewer exits	Cross-device loyalty

🧠 Why You Need ADOTAT+

And What You’re Missing if You’re Still Mooching the Free Version

Welcome to the part of the internet that doesn’t insult your intelligence.

If you think this issue on The 30% Rule was bold, biting, and just short of starting a small UX revolution—wait until you see what we saved for the people who actually support independent media. That’s right: ADOTAT+ is where we stash the good whiskey, the real receipts, and the names we can’t say in the free version because... lawyers.

🧨 Here’s What You’re Missing This Week:

1. Real-world case studies of publishers quietly dropping density and watching revenue go up
(Yes, you read that right. Fewer ads. More money. Because users are not cattle, and advertisers are not dumb.)

2. Confidential insights from inside the world of SSPs and DSPs finally admitting what everyone knows:
Ad clutter is killing performance, and they don’t want your junk inventory anymore.

3. Exclusive metrics on how Google, Apple, and even certain DSPs are silently deprioritizing bloated sites, and how to avoid being algorithmically ghosted.

4. Internal benchmark cheat sheets that show what top-tier publishers are doing right now to ride the UX wave without tanking yield.

5. The roadmap your CRO should’ve written if they weren’t too busy begging for more autoplay units from 2014.

💸 Still Not Convinced?

Here’s a fun fact: while most publishers are rearranging the deck chairs on their Titanic-sized ad stacks, ADOTAT+ members are already reading the iceberg map.

We’re showing them what to fix, what to ignore, and how to pitch UX upgrades without sounding like they just came back from a Figma retreat in Portland.

Because ADOTAT+ doesn’t pander.
It delivers the real, the ruthless, and the revenue-focused

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The Fewer Ads Project: How Less Noise Might Actually Make More Money

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