2024

LightAd

Programmatic DSP platform for ad experts launching multichannel campaigns across mobile, desktop and CTV. Supports various ad formats from static interstitials to MRAID videos.

Product

DSP platform (desktop-only web app)

Domain

AdTech (programmatic advertising)

Client

LightAd

Role

Sole Product Designer

Activities

stakeholder interviews user flows information architecture form design MUI design system

Metrics

media types supported: 6 cross-SSP identifiers: 5

Challenge

Programmatic advertising across six media formats, several SSPs and multiple channels is very complex by nature, with strict moderation and data rules. Without a structure that hides this complexity, a DSP becomes unusable — and ad experts can't launch campaigns quickly or with confidence.

Outcome

A programmatic DSP built around pre-approved assets and step-by-step disclosure — unified campaign-creation flows, one media-creation process for all six formats, and custom audiences based on five cross-SSP identifiers.

Impact

The complexity stayed manageable for the people running campaigns, so experts could launch multichannel campaigns almost instantly and trust the data behind them, without the tool slowing them down.

Media assets creation feature

LightAd campaigns support six media types — not just plain images or videos, but also interactive ads made with HTML+JS. We needed a unified media creation process that could handle all the peculiarities of each media type while having a consistent look and feel. I started with mapping media formats to media types and found out that there are two ways media can get into the system: upload (including bulk) and manual creation. The first one works for images, videos and potentially HTML collections, the second one is purely for HTML/XML banners.

This observation allowed us to develop five consistent flows already. The sixth one, for dynamic native ads, happened to be very different from the others. Whereas other media types arrive as holistic, ready-to-use pieces, dynamic native ads are being made on the go out of separate bits of information provided. So in this case it's not a bad thing to step out of the pattern.