Does a native-styled partner unit get more clicks on articles?
Our article pages showed a partner offer unit that looked like an outside ad. We restyled it to match the site's own design. Over 19 days, clicks on the partner unit rose 47.1%.
Won Responsive 19 days Called at 90%
The hypothesis
By making the partner unit look native to the site, we will give readers more confidence that it comes from a trusted partner, resulting in more clicks.
Readers on article pages are used to skipping anything that looks like an ad. If the partner unit matched the site's own design, it would read as part of the page and earn more trust.
What we changed
The partner unit restyled to match the site's own design
Var A kept the same offer and position but restyled the partner unit to match the site's design, so it read as part of the article instead of a third-party ad.
- Partner unit restyled to match the site
- Same offer and position
The result
Clicks on the partner unit rose 47.1% with the native design
Over 19 days, the native design drew 47.1% more clicks on the partner unit than the original, on mobile and desktop combined. The lift cleared our confidence bar, and we implemented the new design. This test tracked clicks only.
What we took from it
Readers trusted the unit more when it looked like the site
The original unit looked like an outside ad, which made it easy to skip. Matching the site's design made the offer feel like part of the article, and more readers clicked. Later tests on this page built on the new design.
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