Strategy question

How would you determine the optimal number of ads to display on a Yelp page?

Practice this question out loud. An AI interviewer asks it, follows up like a real interviewer would, and scores your answer. Type or speak.

What this question tests

Strategic trade-off reasoning between ad revenue and user experience on a local discovery platform.

Clarify the goal: maximize long-term revenue, not just short-term ad impressions, since Yelp depends on trusted, useful search results.
Identify the trade-off: more ads increase short-term revenue per page but can reduce user trust and search usage over time.
Segment by page type: search results pages tolerate fewer ads than business profile pages where intent is already high.
Propose a testable range, like capping sponsored results to one or two per search page, since higher density degrades perceived relevance.
Design an experiment: A/B test different ad densities and measure both revenue and downstream retention or repeat search behavior.
Define the optimal number as the density that maximizes long-term revenue per user, not immediate ad revenue alone.

Frames the question correctly as long-term revenue per user, not just immediate ad impressions per page.
Proposes a concrete testable range, like one to two sponsored listings per search page, rather than an arbitrary number.
Designs an explicit A/B test to find the trade-off point between ad revenue and user retention.
Segments by page type, noting search pages and profile pages have different tolerance for ad density.

Answering with an arbitrary specific number with no testing methodology behind it.
Optimizing only for short-term ad revenue and ignoring the trust cost to the core search product.

Chapters of the AI PM course that teach what this question tests.