[Paper Review] What Aspects of Mobile Ads Do Users Care About? An Empirical Study of Mobile In-app Ad Reviews

Jiaping Gui, Meiyappan Nagappan+1 more|arXiv (Cornell University)|Feb 22, 2017

Green IT and Sustainability24 references18 citations

TL;DR

This study analyzes over 40 million app store reviews to identify the most common user complaints about mobile in-app ads. Using manual analysis of 400 sampled reviews, it finds that UI-related issues—especially ad frequency, timing, and placement—are the top complaints, with visual obstructions and disruptive behaviors like auto-downloading or crashing the app also frequently cited. These findings offer developers actionable insights to balance ad revenue and user experience.

ABSTRACT

In the mobile app ecosystem, developers receive ad revenue by placing ads in their apps and releasing them for free. While there is evidence that users do not like ads, we do not know what are the aspects of ads that users dislike nor if they dislike certain aspects of ads more than others. Therefore, in this paper, we analyzed the different topics of ad related complaints from users. In order to do this, we investigated app reviews that users gave for apps in the app store that were about ads. We manually examined a random sample set of 400 ad reviews to identify ad complaint topics. We found that most ad complaints were about user interface (UI) related topics and three topics were brought up the most often: the frequency with which ads were displayed, the timing of when ads were displayed, and the location of the displayed ads. Our results provide actionable information to software developers regarding the aspects of ads that are most likely to be complained about by users in their reviews.

Motivation & Objective

• To identify the most common aspects of mobile in-app ads that trigger user complaints.
• To understand how ad-related reviews impact app ratings and user perception.
• To provide developers with data-driven, actionable guidance on ad placement and behavior to minimize negative user experiences.
• To systematically analyze ad-related complaints in app store reviews, focusing on UI and non-UI aspects.
• To move beyond anecdotal advice by empirically identifying the most frequent complaint topics in real user feedback.

Proposed method

• Collected and analyzed a corpus of over 40 million app store reviews to identify those mentioning mobile advertising.
• Filtered reviews based on ratings and textual content to isolate ad-related complaints.
• Conducted a manual, qualitative analysis of a statistically significant random sample of 400 ad-related reviews to identify recurring complaint topics.
• Categorized complaints into UI-related and non-UI-related aspects, focusing on frequency, timing, placement, and functional disruptions.
• Used thematic analysis to group complaints into distinct topics, with emphasis on user experience impact.
• Correlated complaint topics with user ratings to assess their relative impact on app perception.

Experimental results

Research questions

• RQ1 What are the most frequently mentioned aspects of mobile in-app ads that users complain about?
• RQ2 How do ad-related complaints affect app ratings and user perception?
• RQ3 Which UI-related factors—such as frequency, timing, and placement—most significantly contribute to user dissatisfaction?
• RQ4 What non-UI behaviors of ads (e.g., auto-downloading, system changes, app crashes) are most likely to trigger complaints?
• RQ5 Are there consistent complaint patterns across different app categories?

Key findings

• The majority of ad-related complaints were related to user interface (UI) issues, particularly ad frequency, timing, and placement.
• The most frequently cited complaint topics were the frequency of ad display, the timing of ad appearance (e.g., during critical interactions), and the visual placement of ads (e.g., obstructing interactive elements).
• Non-UI issues such as automatic file downloads, changes to system settings, and app crashes caused by ads were also significant sources of user complaints.
• Ads placed in visually obstructive locations—such as the center of the screen or near clickable buttons—were especially disruptive to user interaction.
• Complaints about ads in the so-called 'paid version' of an app were common, indicating user expectations of ad-free experiences in premium content.
• Ads that blocked or crashed the host app’s functionality were among the most negatively perceived behaviors, significantly degrading user experience.