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Optimized Ad Experience (OAE)

The Optimized Ad Experience (OAE) is a setting that helps improve your site’s viewability and overall ad performance. This longer term strategy raises the value of your inventory by reducing in-content ads and shifting focus to your most valuable placements. OAE serves fewer but more impactful ads to boost CPM and provide a better reader experience.

What Are the Benefits of OAE?

  • Higher CPMs: By reducing the number of in-content ads, OAE shifts demand to higher-value units like the Universal Player, the Adhesion unit, Recipe Card ads, and Sidebar Ads. 
  • Improved Sitewide Viewability: Advertisers are more likely to spend on placements that have high visibility, and OAE is designed with that in mind.
  • Cleaner, Better Reader Experience: Fewer in-content ads = less clutter for your readers.

What Changes When OAE Is Enabled?

When the Optimized Ad Experience is enabled:

  • You’ll see fewer in-content ads, particularly on desktop.

  • This is an entirely new in-content logic. OAE overrides custom in-content settings such as frequency (30%, 28%, 20%, etc.) and paragraph spacing.

  • If you have a recipe card, current frequency and targeting will apply. Recipe card ads are not impacted by OAE. 

  • If you have selected "only after text" to avoid ads falling immediately after an image, this advanced directive will still be respected. 

  • Want to go back to your original setup? You can switch back to Custom Control in your Dashboard at any time.
    • Previous custom settings will be saved, and are restored once Custom Control is selected again. 
  • In-Content Mobile and Desktop Health Checks will likely be impacted because they measure the number of in-content impressions per session. You can safely ignore In-Content Health Checks with OAE enabled. 

How Do I Enable OAE?

The Optimize Ad Experience can be enabled within your dashboard on the In-Content Ads Settings Page. There you will find the option to opt in and out of this setting located directly at the top of this page under the Ad Experience section. Dashboard > Settings > In-Content Ads

Screenshot 2025-08-25 at 10.04.31 AM 

What Can I Expect in Terms of Results?

While every site is different, many publishers who enable OAE experience positive results quickly:

  • A temporary dip in RPM may occur, but in most cases, sites see a rebound and long-term improvement due to increased viewability, advertiser spend, and fewer low-value placements. 

  • Early adopters have seen up to a 24.8% increase in overall RPM and up to 15% increases in CPM over a short period.

  • With improved reader experience, readers often stay longer, which can lead to an increase in pages per session and better engagement.

    • Possible increased impressions via refreshes with a longer session duration
    • Potential increases to pages per session
    • With reduced on-page clutter, email forms often convert at a higher rate. 
    • Lower competition for a reader's attention can lead to affiliate links converting at a higher rate. 

Is OAE right for my site? 

OAE is likely a win if:

  • Your site has struggled with low viewability metrics in the past. Particularly, sites that have struggled to consistently reach 70% site-wide. (70%+ site-wide viewability is the goal for increased advertiser spend)

  • You already use other high-performing ad units like the Universal Player, Sticky Sidebar, or Adhesion units, or are open to enabling those units.

  • You’re looking to optimize for long-term CPM growth and a better user experience as opposed to simply increasing ad volume.

When Should You Proceed with Caution?

If your site relies heavily on in-content ad revenue (for example, if more than 50% of your overall ad revenue comes from in-content ads), the shift in logic may not be a great fit right away. It can still be a great long-term strategy, but the short-term impacts on RPM will likely be higher. 

OAE is also not effective if your site relies on highly customized placements or is on a custom CMS (ie, not WordPress).

We recommend reaching out before enabling OAE if:

  • You're unsure how much revenue comes from in-content ads.

  • You don’t currently use other ad units like the Universal Player, Adhesion, or Recipe Cards ads. 

Need Help Deciding?

We’re here to help you determine whether the Optimized Ad Experience is a good fit for your goals. Reach out to the Client Experience Team (publishers@mediavine.com) with any questions.