Taking Advantage of Formats

Despite the recent fall of many advertising supported business models, numerous sites still rely largely or entirely on ads for their revenue. In order to better serve the advertisers, many sites are working on various formats to allow a wider array of options, but are the advertisers taking interest?

The latest research from AdRelevence, a Jupiter Media Metrix company, shows that while the range of options available to advertisers has grown, the primary focus of the creative process seems stuck in the realm of the full banner, simple animations and images.

“It appears that while sites are making efforts to accommodate newer ad technologies, advertisers remain grounded in the old standards – simple animations and images,” says Charlie Buchwalter, vice president of media research for AdRelevance.

Sites have gone to great lengths to make many options available to advertisers but advertisers have been slow to respond.

“The latest AdRelevance data shows that smaller ad elements, such as micro buttons, short buttons and short banners, are garnering more exposure than the standard banner.
While advertisers are creating more full banners than other types, the other ads account for the majority of impressions,” says Buchwalter.

Advertisers are definitely beginning to make use of various options, however.

A release from Real Network recently showed tremendous success from a campaign of streaming advertisements.

The Company’s campaign achieved an average click-through-rate of 5.6%, over 13 times greater than the 0.42% industry average for banner ads. In addition, the streaming campaign yielded an average conversion rate over five times higher than RealNetworks’ conversion rate from previous banner ad campaigns.

According to Steve Holderman, executive vice president for marketing, sales and business development of NetRadio: “Streaming media advertising provides a more engaging experience that in turn delivers a more-qualified prospect to the advertiser, and enables higher conversions and greater returns on their investment RealNetworks’ successful ad campaign results only reinforce our efforts to push this medium forward.”

While examples such as Real Networks campaign exist, and despite the availability of alternatives, advertisers are sticking to a few specific types of ad technologies.

According to the report, it appears that while sites are making many efforts to accommodate newer technologies, advertisers remain grounded in the old standards.

“Although rich media is out there and growing, it has yet to surpass the popularity of animated GIFs and JPEG images. As broadband and other high-speed connection solutions become more readily available and online ad technologies mature, however, expect rich media to be a cornerstone of all ads.”