Why Rich Media HTML5 Ads Get Better Engagement

PRESS RELEASE

Rich media overcomes the challenge of engaging audiences by allowing advertisers to integrate video, animation, and user interaction into dynamic banner ads. Think of it as a miniature website, delivered to targeted users within the same footprint as a traditional ad. Without leaving their current page view, users can browse products, view sale prices, watch videos, play games, share social messages, initiate sales, or expand what they’re seeing to a full screen experience.

This technology fosters better engagement from viewers. In a 2014 study published by eMarketer, dynamic ads enjoyed a click through rate (CTR) 267% higher than static ads. They also garnered more overall engagements, engagement time, and in-screen impressions.

The value goes beyond clicks. These ads deliver useful content, including educational videos, customer testimonials, and product demonstrations. Imagine viewing a healthcare-related banner ad with a thirty-second video explaining why insurance premiums have increased. If the video successfully answers one of your questions, you might return to the website for more advice.

Because users engage at different levels, dynamic ads generate robust analytics. You can track whether a user played the video or game, clicked to enlarge, or pulled up a menu. Just like website analytics, you can see where users engage and when they exit, pulling valuable insights on content that works and content that doesn’t. Static ads have one metric, the CTR, but Google’s DoubleClick Studio reports on 31 types of engagements for dynamic ads.

Advertisers routinely spend large budgets building targeted ad campaigns, only to produce flat banners, relics of the newspaper age.

For most of the past decade, agencies created rich media using Adobe’s Flash platform. Google recently announced they will stop accepting this format in AdWords, DoubleClick Studios, and Display Network. Instead, they’re encouraging advertisers to build dynamic ads in HTML5, a non-proprietary code that doesn’t require plugins.

HTML5 supports visibility and engagement. Unlike Flash, an HTML5 ad can be published across all major platforms including Android and iOS. Since modern web browsers run HTML5 code without requiring client-side plugins, marketers can make more frequent changes within their content management systems, using robust analytics to create smarter ads, for better quality engagements.

Over the past few years, SEBPO has developed workflows to convert existing Flash creative to HTML5, and to help agencies create new HTML5 assets from scratch. To learn how SEBPO can help support your next campaign creation process, please send us a brief e-mail.