Despite the explosion in mobile advertising (eMarketer pegs mobile to generate $70 billion in the U.S. this year, up from $47 billion in 2016), mobile advertising, by and large, still sucks. Creative is often jammed into small boxes and ad formats that litter websites, and in some cases, marketers use deceptive design tricks to incentivize people to click.
Dozens of subreddits are dedicated to uncovering such stealthy-yet-spammy tactics. A few weeks ago, a screenshot of a mobile banner ad for Chatmost, a competitor to Craigslist, started spreading on Twitter and Reddit because the creative included a small speck that looked like a piece of dirt, encouraging users to swipe their screen as a way to drive clicks.
