Eyeblaster released its Research Global Benchmark report for 2009, which provides an analysis of the performance of different types of display ads like banners and rich media ads. The research found that while clickthrough rates for standard banners improved with an increase in size, size did not factor into the performance of clicks on rich media ads.
“In rich media, size is only one component of banner visibility on the site,” says Eyeblaster.
“In Standard Banners, by their nature, size is a large component of the ads’ visibility and therefore affects their performance,” Eyeblaster adds. “Rich Media ads, on the other hand, have more “dimensions” than two—pixels are augmented by flash, video and expansions that catches the users’ attention. Therefore in Rich Media, size portrays only a part of the performance picture.
A couple of interesting findings from he report include:
– Video improved performance for most rich media ads, by 71% overall
– Expandable strips had the highest interaction rate of any rich media format, followed by expandable banners
“Size is now in the heat of an industry debate, as publishers are offering larger and larger sizes in the hope of increasing the marketing effectiveness of ads on their site,” Eyeblaster says in the report. “Advertisers, on the other hand, are faced with options to allocate their budget to either bigger size or other rich media features.”
Eyeblaster found that ads that raised awareness of a corporate brand, rather than specific products, had the highest interaction and “dwell rates.” More information can be found in the firm’s report. (pdf)
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