It should go without saying that retailers must always be looking into new ways to enhance their marketing and advertising efforts. The landscape of online advertising changes so frequently that only those individuals that stay ahead of the curve can truly be assured of making sure they’re crafting the most effective message.
Now, a new study has come along offering yet another guideline for maximizing the effect of your online advertising.
The report from ad server and provider Unicast, called U.S. Analytics Benchmark Report Q4 2010, reveals that ads that engaged a viewer particularly through the use of video performed the best during the last quarter of 2010 and remain the best chance of leaving an impression with consumers.
It marked the fourth straight quarter in Unicast’s tracking that ads with videos turned out to be the most successful at getting consumers to engage.
The findings reveal that in-stream branded canvas ad formats, which generally play a related video before providing regular ad information to a consumer, had the best interaction rate in Q4 2010 at 14.7 percent. Those types of ads also saw a 0.8 percent click-through rate, which was also tops.
Unicast defines the interaction rate as “the total number of positive user interactions divided by the total number of rich media impressions.”
By comparison, push-down advertisements, which display the ad when a user runs his or her mouse over a banner, had a 13.2 percent interaction rate and a negligible click-through rate of 0.3 percent. Expandable ads, which work much like push-down ones, weren’t much better. They only saw an interaction rate of 9.5 percent.
With a consistent period of such strong performances, Unicast believes that the number and scope of interactive ads can only increase.
“The market opportunity of online video is extensive and we haven’t even begun to tap into its full potential,” says Dan Berra, the company’s vice president of business intelligence.
Have you employed video in your ads? Let us know! Leave comments below!
