Ignoring Dark Mode Could Be Killing Your Mobile Conversions

By Kumar Saurav 

Aesthetics are not just about visual elements, but also about behaviour. In mobile advertising, dark mode has been an integral part of the massive shift in user experience, yet many marketers are overlooking the same. 

More than 81% of Android users and more than 50% of iOS users have dark mode as their default display setting. However, review your standard mobile ad inventory and you will discover UX that is still very light mode-centric. What a miss. But more, a missed opportunity.

The Importance Of Dark Mode In Ad Design

It's not just about making creatives "look great" on a darker canvas. It's about users' perceptions, behaviours and how they interact with the ad. Unoptimised dark mode ads do more than look out of place — they breed distrust, decrease engagement, and can even come across as spammy.

We already micro-optimise for everything: device type, OS version, screen size, speed of network etc. What about theme preference? In 2025, not considering dark mode in ad design will be like not considering mobile responsive copy five years prior.

 

The Invisible UX Disconnect

At present, most ad platforms and exchanges do not currently pass on theme preference as a bid request parameter. This means most ad creatives are boringly rendered without offering a user experience of whether the user is in light or dark mode. The result?

● Blinding white creatives, shocking users, in an otherwise muted dark UI. 

● Unreadable text due to poor contrast.  

● Banner blindness exacerbated due to visual dissonance.  

Even worse is that when an ad interrupts the visual flow, it does not just reduce performance, but creates a negative brand imprint.

What Needs To Change?

 

1. Theme-Aware Creative Design

Problems with themes affect more than just the advertised products. Create two versions of each creative — light and dark. This means more than just contrasting colours, but adequate contrast, proper legibility, and consistent tone. Think about the way ad placements from Spotify look different when compared to ads shown by LinkedIn — they were designed for two very different contexts.

2. Dark Mode As A Context Signal

Demand-Side Platforms and Supply-Side Platforms also need to accept theme preference as signal context in adjustments (we treat context as location, time of day, and device type). Theme preference should be made a standard part of Real-Time Bidding protocols and Software Development Kits (SDKs).

3. Performance Benchmarks By Theme

Marketers should treat creatives as A/B tests across theme types and should be able to start segmenting performance data. We may find that this "silent majority" has stronger beliefs once given the right experience.

A few high-performing gaming or fintech apps have quietly begun adjusting creatives depending on dark/light mode settings internally. They’re seeing higher Click-Through Rates (CTRs) and lower bounce rates because their ads blend with the user’s environment instead of competing with it.

There are a few programmatic players beginning to hack together some workarounds based on analysis of app context in real time (scraping background colours or scrapping themes via SDKs). These are hacks, not standards — but it demonstrates demand.

The web caught on early. Lots of modern websites and publishers auto-switch ad themes (especially native units) to align with users' system settings. Mobile is ironically lagging behind, even though it's arguably the most personalised medium.

For mobile marketers, small visual tweaks that respect user context often leads to double-digit increases in CTR, session depth and conversion.

In dark mode environments, when properly designed ads don’t look like ads - not because they lack style, but because they do not interrupt the user’s flow. That's the holy grail of ad experience design.

(The author is the Co-Founder & Chief Strategy Officer at AdCounty Media)