The advertising industry’s fixation on serving maximum impressions continues to damage brand affinity and user experience, argues Adam Gendelman, VP, Head of Sales and Operations at Wunderkind. And that’s created a false choice between privacy respect and advertising performance that data shows doesn’t need to exist.
“The biggest thing, and it’s still an issue today, but it’s this ideology and ethos that this quality or, sorry, quantity over quality method,” Gendelman, told Beet.TV contributor David Kaplan. “Everyone from both the publisher side and the advertiser side in the marketer side is really honed in on that quantity over that quality aspect.”
This approach leads publishers to prioritize impression volume for monetization while advertisers historically have ignored user experience impacts in favor of reach metrics.
Kindness drives performance
Wunderkind’s approach centers on serving ads only when users have completed or disengaged from publisher content, targeting what the company calls “inflection points” where users become more receptive to advertising messages.
“We’re only going to really serve an ad when a user’s done or disengaged with the publisher content,” Gendelman said. “The idea is that no one is going to a publisher website to engage with an advertiser message. They’re going to engage with that content.”
This timing strategy recognizes that user intent determines receptivity, making contextual relevance and moment selection more important than frequency or interruption-based tactics.
Research validates user experience impact
A 2023 study conducted by Wunderkind with 1,000 respondents revealed significant brand affinity damage when ads interrupt content consumption. The research found that serving ads during active content engagement leads to lower brand favorability and reduced purchase intent.
“If you hit a user or serve an ad when they are on the page or interrupting your content consumption experience, that leads to lower affinity with the actual brand,” Gendelman said. “[The is implication is that a consumer] won’t purchase that brand or that product.”
Conversely, 90% of respondents preferred receiving ads only when they had finished engaging with publisher content, suggesting strong user preference alignment with performance-oriented timing strategies.
Performance metrics span full funnel
The user-centric approach delivers measurable results across awareness and conversion metrics rather than requiring trade-offs between user experience and advertiser outcomes. Wunderkind’s data from six and a half years of operations shows improvements in both upper and lower funnel performance indicators.
“We are able to drive anything from an upper funnel metric perspective, click through rate, video completion rate, all the way down to those mid to lower funnel metrics,” Gendelman said. “Getting users back to the site, driving low cost per visits, and ultimately the holy grail is driving ROAS or some sort of outcome for the advertiser.”
This performance across metrics eliminates the perceived conflict between respecting user privacy and delivering advertiser value.
Empathy drives design decisions
The company’s design philosophy prioritizes understanding user objectives and mental state rather than maximizing advertising exposure opportunities. This empathy-driven approach influences both ad placement timing and contextual relevance considerations.
“At Wunderkind, we’re really focused on putting ourselves in the user’s shoes, and seeing what they are trying to get out of that site?” Gendelman said.
Implementation requires mindset shift
Successfully adopting user-centric advertising requires both advertisers and publishers to reconsider fundamental assumptions about impression volume and site monetization strategies.
For advertisers, this means evaluating whether campaign objectives can be achieved with fewer, better-timed impressions rather than maximum reach approaches. For publishers, it requires balancing monetization with user experience quality rather than prioritizing ad density.
“From an advertiser perspective, they really need to hone in on that, again, that quantity over quality. Like for example, what does it take X amount of impressions to get that message across, or can they get that message across with just fewer ads?” Gendelman said.
“From a publisher perspective, it really comes back to the site and UX experience. So what sites need to be really focused on is about, again, not inundating the user with the ads or a lot of ads when they’re on that site. It’s really about scaling it back and really monetizing the site in the way that leads to that user and putting that user first,” Gendelman said.
You’re watching “Rethinking the Rules of Engagement: Kindness & Transparency in Advertising, a Beet.TV Leadership Series, presented by WunderKIND Ads.” For more videos from this series, please visit this page.
