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value of rich media
Which is why it appeals to traditional marketers
By Jeff Bercovici
It was only a year or so ago that rich media ads were being celebrated for their ability to produce click-throughs at a rate that far exceeded that of static ads.
While that remains a selling point to some, advertisers are increasingly coming to value rich media ads less for the way they get web surfers reaching for the mouse buttons than for their effectiveness as a branding tool.
Overall, the click-through rate for ads served by advertisers and publishers was down 14 percent to 0.61 percent in the second quarter of 2003, according to the latest ad serving trend report from DoubleClick.
Rich media ads continue to be considerably more effective than simple JPEG and GIF ads in persuading viewers to click. Despite falling 15 percent from the first quarter to the second quarter, the click-through rate for rich media ads still stands at 1.87 percent, more than five times the rate for non-rich media ads (0.34 percent).
Certainly fancy ads with lots of sound and movement are less novel than they were a year or two ago.
But the falling click-through rate for rich media ads has chiefly to do with the changing aims of the advertisers who use them, says Kathryn Koegel, director of research and industry development for DoubleClick.
“More and more ads you see, especially rich media ads, are trying to engage people, get them to interact with the creative, and trying to inform them in some way,” says Koegel. “Rich media is being used by a lot more branding-oriented advertisers. More of the creative is not as focused on clicks now as it might be on informing the consumer and trying to get them to take some eventual action.”
The shift in emphasis from direct response to branding likely can be traced to the growing embrace of internet ads by traditional marketers, says Koegel. According to a study published earlier this year by Nielsen//NetRatings, the proportion of online ad impressions generated by traditional advertisers doubled between 2000 and 2002, increasing from 15 percent to 30 percent.
Major traditional advertisers, such as automakers, typically favor rich media for their online campaigns despite the higher cost and greater hassle. In many cases, they held off on web advertising until the technology had advanced sufficiently.
“In addition to having bigger sizes, they wanted things to just be more dynamic,” says Koegel. “They wanted them to look and operate like ads on television.”
For ads – rich media or otherwise -- that aren’t designed to evoke an immediate response, click-throughs are clearly a poor method of assessing effectiveness. A better metric is the view-through, which takes into account any action taken within 30 days of viewing an ad to assess “latent impact.” (An example would be visiting the advertiser’s web site.)
Whereas click-through rates are declining, view-through rates are on the rise. Within the subset of ads served and tracked solely by the advertiser, the average view-through rate exceeded the average click-through rate in the second quarter, 0.63 percent versus 0.52 percent.
The trend report also examined the relationship between the size of an ad and its effectiveness, measured in click-throughs. The most effective ad format in the second quarter was the 250x250 square, typically used for pop-ups. Beyond that, the bigger ads, including the increasingly popular 728x90 “leaderboard,” produced the most direct responses.
“Larger sizes absolutely generate higher click-throughs, if that’s your metric for the impact of an ad,” says Koegel.
August 5, 2003© 2003 Media Life
-Jeff Bercovici is a staff writer for Media Life.
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