I wanted to share my Christmas List with some family members so I used the Trakt app to “share” my list via the Messages.app on iOS. The share post looks amazing but it’s what my family (and everyone else) sees on their mobile device that I’d like to point out and hopefully get Trakt to think about changing.
At the very top, and the first thing everyone sees, is a HUGE ad with an interactive button that is very misleading. You can’t even tell there are movie posters just under that enormous ad and there’s no indication to scroll past the ad to see the actual list. I understand the need for ads but I’m hoping the team at Trakt doesn’t realize this is what’s being presented to everyone. Besides, I’m a VIP member, so what I’d love to see is VIP member links with NO ADS so this doesn’t happen.
I agree that ad is very bad and misleading. It’s going to depend on who is viewing the page, it’s possible to get something bad like this or something normal for a streaming TV show or better quality ad.
The only thing we can really do is report the ads to our provider and have them block misleading ads like this. It’s an issue with the ad industry as a whole with these low quality clickbait ads.
We’ve thought about that, but ultimately the VIP benefit is for you to not see ads, not for others. I looked into it before and it would significantly reduce the ad revenue if we did this.
In 2024, we are planning to revisit how ads are presented and sourced for Trakt with the goal of making them more relevant and less lame. Will also look into “sponsored” type of ads which should be extremely relevant to our audience.
I pushed an update last week that moves any ads below the initial list items. This is updated on the desktop and mobile website. This hopefully improves the initial user experience a lot and initial impression.
