Adaptive Ad Load Design for Sponsored Search Markets: Evidence, Theory, and Deployment
Ad-load design is a central supply-side decision in sponsored search: more sponsored slots can raise revenue, but may crowd out organic results and degrade user outcomes. We study this trade-off using a large-scale randomized field experiment on an Android app store, where over five million users are exposed to one through six sponsored slots. Increasing ad load raises revenue by up to 43%, but reduces total search conversions by up to 5% and daily engagement by up to 2.2%. These average effects mask substantial heterogeneity: additional slots generate large revenue gains for high-ad-conversion queries, but little or negative marginal revenue for low-conversion queries. The trade-off also...
| Authors | Mohammad Rashid, Hema Yoganarasimhan |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.LG |
| Published | 15 July 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 15 July 2026 |
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