When it comes to your online advertising dollar, you have to be as effective as you possibly can. It’s certainly not like shooting fish in a barrel is it? Knowing “what works” and “where” is most definitely half the battle. Fortunately there are statistics that have recently surfaced giving you the entrepreneur clearer sights on a more effective and profitable advertising campaign.
There are a lot of influences that determine the shifts in preferences in advertising consumption: technology, consumer word of mouth, fads and trends etc... but one of the underlying and common themes we are noticing in successful ads are the high impact and entertainment quotient that the ad delivers. It runs in line with the now insatiable appetite for online video entertainment and infomercials via Youtube, AllPodcasts, Dailymotion etc... as well as the recent growth in Internet Television viewer ship. It is safe to say that moving pictures have certainly taken advertising consumers by storm. It has dictated the rapid development of Android Cellular Technology.
How does that affect display advertising? Is it going by the way of the ghost? Not necessarily. Though static display ads are grappling with their toehold in the marketplace, more and more animated images are popping up as the new trend in Display Advertising presentation. There is an ever present shift towards GIF, Flash and HTML5 formats and these are the ones that are getting noticed!
Here’s just a quick rundown on the formats before we jump into the stats, just to make sure we are all on the same page. If you are a solopreneur needing to be your own “creative force” your best and most cost effective bet in staying current in your Ad design is with a GIF format. All you need is a JPEG image, a Graphics program to lay out your frames and a GIF conversion program (there are a few relatively inexpensive ones on the market like: “GIF Movie Gear,”) upload your GIF image to a photo hosting service like Photobucket and you will be provided with the URL addresses that will suit various layouts from websites to email .
Flash is a little more complicated, (not impossible mind you) but if you are not familiar with flash it can be time consuming and intimidating to get a handle on it . What you do gain is a little more liberated and smooth flowing medium when it comes to object movements and glitz. To flash or not to flash has always been a sticky and contentious subject. Google’s algorithm program and flash formatted web pages and flash inserts into HTML pages do not play nicely together. You hear though in the wind every once in a while that Google might change their capabilities and policies in relation to being more flash friendly and if more and more webmasters are using flash, no doubt the consumer will dictate Googles “need and speed” to do so. But at the moment the industry as a whole is grappling with what works best for them... to flash or not to flash, that is the question. What is interesting is that WIX.com who allow you to build solely flash websites has recently made a surprising announcement in that it now has the ability to add HTML. Sounds like flash and HTML are learning to co-habitate and accommodate all preferences across the board.
HTML5 is new and still under development. No doubt it is something to keep an eye out for in the future because that is where the future is heading. It is well worth the time to take a look into and get familiarized with, but as anything new in the marketplace consider it at the moment as an expensive, potentially wrinkle laden, and difficult format to consider. In a nutshell HTML5 is currently under development as the next major revision of the HTMLstandard. Like its immediate predecessors, HTML 4.01 and XTML1.1, HTML5 is a standard for structuring and presenting content on the web.
Now let’s look at what works according to information gathered and released by comScore while touting their success with a brand new analytic program that records ad viewer ship among other things. (Incidentally you can get a closer look at their findings on their website.) JPEG display ads still lead the market with a 42.4% share in this grouping of viewer ship and the ever rising in popularity GIF formats now hold a 14.1% share within the JPEG’s stats. Flash and rich media ads combined together represented an additional 40.3 % of all display ads viewed (Rich media includes bitmap images, vector drawings, 3D models, animations, audio and video. ) Leaderboard style banner ads (728x90) were the most commonly viewed display ad type for size.
Another interesting statistic released by: The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) will help you find the right placement for your advertisement to get the most punch. They recently released their findings in WebsiteMagazine, (you can read up on the list if you search for “Top 50 Ad Networks To Explore”) and what was interesting to note that amid a fall in advertising dollars spent for the recorded time period, there was a substantial and notable growth in mobile and video advertising networks including: including SpotXChange.com and Yume.com. Something you might want to consider.
Finally in the arsenal of advertising placement options, a new Canadian company has hit the marketplace. Though still in Beta format, statistically speaking this company is signing on clients like a sugar cube calls to ants. Advrtz.com is their name and they are boasted of selling over ten million ad impressions in just under 24 hours. Advrtz is a facilitator between ad publisher and ad spot purchaser. Their mandate is quality! As a purchaser you have options available to hone in on your target market as well as remain within your budget. You can purchase flat rate ads and run of network (CPM ) ads. Well worth taking a look into as well.
Though the medium it’s self is ever changing and ever evolving, there are still some standards that remain the same in relation to your presentation. A well defined target market not only helps you communicate effectively, it will also help to locate their presence online to facilitate the most efficient ad placement. Think visually, think from their shoes and be creative. Finally, keep your own eyes open to the ads around you while you are surfing online. What caught your attention? Take a moment out to think why. We wish you good luck and the best of advertising success!
