Data Monetization
This strategic project aimed to provide solutions to help advertisers find their target audience in an effective manner. I led a designer and a UX researcher and explored multiple rounds of design and user studies.
The final design was well received by both internal and external users. We are currently working with a dedicated Product Manager to turn this into multiple tactical projects and plan to launch the full version in early 2026.
Problem Statement
When we reviewed the verbiage from our AdSat reports in 2023, we found that one common theme is advertisers complaining about not knowing which audience group/inventory group they should target in their campaign. Some advertisers ended up spending a considerable amount of time with our sales team on this topic, while others resort to setting up multiple testing campaigns to compare performance. We even heard from the sales team that some advertisers end up dropping Yahoo DSP spending because of this inefficiency.
We viewed this as an opportunity to improve the current audience and inventory discovery workflow within Yahoo DSP.
Benchmark Study
Information discovery is not a unique workflow only within the advertising platform. So we don’t want to limit our research on only our direct competitors. Instead, we conducted benchmark studies from sites and tools in online shopping, social media, AI tools, and streaming services.
And we found key findings:
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Powerful and intuitive search capabilities
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Clear categorization and navigation
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Key details at a glance
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Continuous discovery and refinements
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Transparency and ease of validation
Workflow Analysis
Through user interviews, we created User Journey for Audience Discovery and Inventory Discovery. The analysis provided us with many design insights to consider during our exploration.
Cross-functional Design Jam
We invited PMs, engineers, sales, and customer support representatives to join our brainstorming session. Specifically we focused on the three HMWs in this session:
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HMW encourage our advertisers to use DSP UI for audience and inventory discovery
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HMW help advertisers easily search and filter audiences and deals
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HMW assist advertisers in efficiently evaluating the audience and deals
Design Iterations #1
This is a concept design round, where we explored and tested a few low-fi design options.
Landing page concept
Search Filter concept
Result Segments concept
For the landing page, the layout itself was well received. Specifically, users agreed that the Search function, the Categories, and the Quick Filters were the most useful component in the page. The Data Partner, Spotlight, and Recently Created Audience got mixed reviews due to their relevancy and usefulness.
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The overall design feedback of the search filter was positive. But users did call out some confusions regarding the Categories and Market section.
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With the Result Segments, users overwhelmingly voted for Option 4, but minus the upfront description. They highlighted the importance of seeing the full path of the audience segment upfront.
Design iterations #2
We focused on the user preference on the high-fidelity design of the two landing page design, and the effectiveness of the detailed audience search function design.
Landing page - card based
Landing page - search centered
For the landing page, there is no obvious winner. The novice users appreciate the card based design with its visibility and easy access to various audience exploration options. Meanwhile, the experienced users voted for the search-centered version for its focused and clean view. Hence we decided to explore an hybrid approach.
Both the search results page and its filter panel are very well received in terms of clarity and ease of use. We did receive minor feedback about data partners and data methodology, which we will address in later design.
Final Design
Here are a few selected pages of the final design.
