The world of mobile advertising can be complicated to understand. Like so many industries that have their roots in technology, the number of different terms, functionalities and formats are akin to another language for the uninitiated. Moreover, since the early days of the smartphone, formats and styles have come on in leaps and bounds. With a vast array of ad designs to choose from, each new iteration offering improved click-through rates (CTR) and revenues, the selection process can be bewildering. For us, the key criteria in ad choice are those that are relevant, don’t annoy the recipient, and at the same time maximise revenue.
Here’s our run down of the top ad formats as they’ve evolved in recent years:
The Past
The Leaderboard and Rectangle
The launch of the iPhone and the increasing popularity of smartphones running powerful operating systems such as Android prompted an immediate need for additional ad sizes that catered for the more advanced handsets and much larger screens. Enter the Leaderboard and Rectangle banners, increasing performance by generating higher CTRs and, in turn, higher CPMs for ads displayed on smartphones.
Interstitial
A 'full page' ad where only the banner and the publisher’s header are displayed on the page. Most often timed at five seconds, the banner appears when a user clicks on a thumbnail to display video or content, so they work perfectly for video content sites. These banners have a CTR that is approximately four to five times higher than traditional banners, and they do not impact existing page impressions or user experience. The Interstitial falls under the YouTube advertising model that users are familiar with: if you want to view something for free, you see an ad first. This can be extremely lucrative, increasing the overall click impression.
The Pop-Under
The mobile pop-under is designed to be less invasive to users than similar ad formats running on desktop. Appearing when a user clicks an image, text or a banner on the publisher’s site, a landing page is opened as the user is directed to the page they have selected to view. This ad format does not impact on user experience, because he or she still lands on the intended page.
Adhesion
An innovative rich media format designed specifically for smartphones, the Adhesion consists of a mobile banner that “emerges” from the bottom of the screen and can reappear and disappear depending on the user's interactions with site content. The success lies in the fact that it can be used on sites where all existing advertising positions are taken, because it populates its own ad position without infringing on others. This therefore creates a new revenue stream, without the need to sacrifice existing advertising properties, as well as having a higher conversion rate than a normal static banner.
The Present
The Overlay Ad
The Overlay is another rich media-like ad unit which auto-expands upon page load, remaining open for a set period of time (normally three seconds), before auto-collapsing into the top leaderboard banner, unless the user interacts with the ad. The unit can be frequency capped to minimise any potential intrusive effect, and is designed to provide a flawless user experience. The use of a transparent background makes the user fully aware that they have landed on the requested URL, as well as seamlessly collapsing - directing the user to the top banner position to provoke engagement. Performance tests carried out show a remarkable increase in both CTR and conversion ratio, boosting both metrics by 30-50%.
Push Notifications
Push Notification Ads or Push Ads consist of three distinctive formats - the Banner Notification, the Text Notification and the Launcher. The first two can benefit from the combination of text and image. The leaderboard banner for the Banner Notification can be enhanced with relevant text under the banner, while the Text Notification Ad in essence consists of a small 72x72 icon and the relevant advertising text.
The Launcher is very different, resembling an actual application icon displayed on the user’s screen and acting as a shortcut that, once engaged by the user, will prompt the device browser to load an advertising landing page associated with the ad. When working in tandem with an application SDK, native in-app ad integration profiles the app user for future targeting, giving it the necessary capabilities for contextual targeting of selected content channels. This user profiling can be used to create a powerful user database which can be leveraged to deliver the most relevant ad, in an optimal location at exactly the right moment in time. We believe that this will be the future of mobile advertising.
The Future
Tablet Sizes
Following the rapid growth of the tablet market in recent years and the resulting increase in traffic volume, representing up to 10-15% of all traffic volumes for 2013 on our network for example, it is natural for ad networks to ensure that tablet traffic is catered to with specific formats. Tailored banner sizes will start with the most popular; Tablet Leaderboard, Tower and the MPU, and all sizes should be integrated based on the guidelines coming from the MMA and IAB in order to adhere to a large spectrum of publishers. The next step will be the incorporation of rich media formats.
By Kieran O’Keeffe, CEO of MobileWebAdz.
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