Online Video Ads - What Are They? Types?

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Online videos became standard in our everyday life. How many times a week does an average or avid internet user check YouTube or Hulu to listen to that new inspiring song or watch that episode of Simpsons? Perhaps, quite often and video ads become a hotter advertising vehicle. So what are different types of video ads that exist today that we can pick through?

Googling the term brought a very good article by Max Bloom from streamingmedia.com where he shares a glossary of video ads, which is very comprehensive and definitely is worth reciting or even placing on wikipedia for all of us to refer back to.

  • “Companion ad - a banner ad that displays related content concurrently with a video ad” - companion ad are targeted based on the overall site content where the video unit is embedded. It can be priced as keyword targeted ad if it is targeted that way or opted in to the content network, thus CPC will serve as a unit price metric. Or it can be priced as placement targeted and charged per CPM.
  • “Cursor  chase - ads that chase after the viewer’s cursor as it glides across the screen. These ads leap from a fixed ad and follow the viewer’s cursor arrow for a present duration and can be disabled by the viewer at any time.” - Cursor ads are good for branding as they immerse the user into play, thus creating an interactive brand experience.  Advertisers can measure its performance by assessing ad display and interaction time, chase time and number of closes.
  • “Expanding ad - expands in size and direction upon user interaction. ” Advertisers can offer more interactivity and information into this unit while also eliminating the “annoyance factor” since the user chooses to see more if he/she is engaged. Talking about the user control! One can track expanding ad interaction and display time, number of user expansions and contractions, interaction within the expanded portion, manual closes and conversions!
  • “Floating ad - moves across the user’s screen or floats above the content.” Usually, they are good at grabbing attention with motion and copy impact. Creatives have flexibility while choosing size and shape of the ad. Audience interaction metrics include: clicks on floating ad and reminder, floating replays, reminder display and interaction time, manual floating and reminder closes.
  • “Floating with in-page - when a floating ad is finished playing, it leaves behind a smaller floating ad. Viewers can replay the ad, interact, or click-through, even after the initial ad has played.” The benefits are the same as for the floating ad, plus the heightened audience recall provided by the in-page unit.
  • “Free-form expanding - features multiple floating elements placed anywhere on the page that expand like an expanding when viewers interact with them. ” This type has the main benefit of the expanding ad - total user/viewer control.
  • “In-page ads - appear on a web page, outside of the video player or window.” These ads are very familiar TV-style, full motion, full screen and sound adverts that appear in between the ‘white space’ of the web content.  One can measure ad display and interaction time and identify multiple exit links.
  • “In-stream ads -pre-, mid-, or postroll videos that appear in the video player or window. In-stream banners (also known as tickers, bugs or overlays)- often transparent and appear on the top of the video in the player. Commonly appear in the lower third of the video window. ” In- stream advertising is the most expensive online ad format since it is shown to the captive audience that cannot click away from it unless it chooses not to view the requested content. At the same time, it is so much cheaper to produce in-stream online video ads than TV, thus it makes this format so enticing.  Regardless of no control issue from the viewer perspective, advertisers can still optimize in-stream ads through its rich media interactive options that are not existent in TV. Thus, click-throughs can be increased if advertisers create a dialog with the viewer through interactive features.
  • “Interactive video - includes polls, games, or other interactive options in the video ad”. That what I meant in the item above!
  • “Interstitial - advertising placed in between the origin website and the destination website, either physically or in time.” They are quite as effective as banner ads when it comes to recall of the advertising message with click-throughs five times outperforming banners, but they are also twice as irritating! Talking about interruption marketing!
  • “Locked floating - floating ad “locks” into place on the page and will not move as the user scrolls through the content. Keeps advertiser’s message visible throughout the page view.” The same benefits and audience interaction metrics as for floating, minus user control.
  • “Peel down- reveals a glimpse of your ad in a corner of a webpage, which peels down upon user interaction.” This format stimulates the user to play with the content and can actually complement other ad formats for broader awareness and impact.  Advertisers can measure ad display and interaction time, number of peel-downs and closes, and ad interaction time within the peeled down area.
  • “Player skin - ad graphics that surround a video screen.” Could be a great area to enhance your messaging if you think creatively.
  • ” Polite ad - large ad downloaded in smaller pieces to minimize the disruption of the content being viewed.” If all the formats were developed from the user experience perspective!
  • “Pre-expanding - viewer first sees the ad in its “expanded” state, and then it retracts automatically to its standard size”.
  • “Pushdown - expanding ad that “pushes down” rather than covers the content of the page when the ad expands.”
  • “Roadblock - provides advertisers with complete share of ad space by synchronizing any number of display or rich media ads with the video creative.”
  • “Self-initiated video ad - plays automatically on a page, or when rolled over by a mouse.”
  • “Shadow ad - additional ad that shows directly below the video only when it is playing. “
  • “Tabbed expanding ad - presents a range of relevant information into a series of tabbed panels. Each panel can feature video, dynamic data or content. ” This type allows advertisers utilize best elements of their site into the creative, provides extensive space for messaging and interaction, and makes user/viewer experience controllable.
  • “Teaser, or bumper - short video that appears before a full-length video or when a player loads.” These ads were very popular in early days due to its high click-through rates, but what was really going on - is viewers’ disappointment when clicking on seemingly unbranded clip and seeing an ad for some ordinary service of a well-known advertiser.  The surprise was not as pleasant as it seemed. Or, if you do plan to use it, make sure you follow up with the clues campaign and consistent punch line.
  • ” Telescoping - lets users learn more about a product by displaying a long-term version of the video ad at the user’s request. “
  • “Video ad curtain - gives the advertiser complete coverage of the player area with a rich media ad that expands while a video plays.”
  • “Wallpaper ad - ad that changes the background of the page being viewed.”

Finally, the world of video ads made clear! Now, what would be more exciting is to look at the reporting advertisers get on the performance of those ads! Perhaps,  a topic for a next post!

Search marketing, where it is going, the old, the new and the basics

Filed Under Online Marketing, Online Advertising, search marketing, SMX | Leave a Comment

Attending SMX West this week brought quite a number of enlightening experiences: opportunities to get feedback from customers, catching up with people in the industry, learning something new and building new connections.  The ability to reach out and connect to people within the same industry is priceless -as it opens up new doors into sometimes, - surprising interests. 

From the attendee perspective, my favorite session was “The Economics of Search” - where all presenters shared solid expertise and insights on how the search engines business is being progressing and what economic fundamentals apply to make search marketers (advertisers and publishers) more successful. 

Michael Schwarz from Yahoo! Research shared his fundamentals - that he believes hold true:

A) in order to be successful as a search engine, there should be no tradeoffs between revenue and satisfying users and advertisers  

B) in order to be successful as an advertiser, one should be able to discriminate well between the values of search and display ads:

  • Search is for direct revenue and display ads for branding
  • Search is about current intent and display is about demographics
  • Search is spot market, display contracts
  • Search is more mature and available for small advertisers as rates start from 5 cents, display is older and very expensive, but holds opportunities when technology will make it more cost effective and audience effective (better targeting)

Hal Varian, Chief Economist from Google shared his advice on estimating the value of the click from the marginal cost perspective in order to make economic sense in the bidding race.  An advertiser’s profit directly depends on the value of the click, its number and cost. At the same time, what matters most is the marginal cost for every additional click you buy. If you do a simple formula that distributes those values, you will be able to actually see what makes sense -since all three variables will be depicted “in action”.  Also, on average, incremental cost per click (ICC) is always at least 15-20 % higher than a CPC (cost per click)  - thus it makes a difference to pay attention to it to win the bidding game.

Peter Coles, Assistant Professor at Harvard Business School revealed his predictions on mobile search growth - even with 1 search per mobile device per month in 2010 means you could generate $2.3 billion in mobile search revenue worldwide. 10 monthly searches means mobile search will be greater than PC search. 

Thinking of search marketing in the above mentioned terms - from the economics standpoint - makes it so exciting! See more excitement on the similar impressions at SEOmoz blog.

What Are The Benchmarks for Conversion Rates?

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Pondering upon the conversion rate made me wonder what the standard, normal conversion rates for various types of sites could be.  If I am entering online retail business, what should I strive for or measure against when I launch my site?

According to MarketingSherpa’s Ecommerce Benchmark Guide 2007, the average conversion rate on top tier search sites 2006 & 2007 was 4.3% for both years. In 2006, high end of normal range was 10%, most common rate was 2.5 % and low end of normal range was 1.0%.  In 2007, the average rate remained the same (4.3%), but the high end rose up to 12%, thus driving the mode (most common rate) to 3% and leaving the low end the same (1%). So, it is not 50% or 70% that we should expect seeing from online marketing and if we reach 12% - we are the winners! It make sense if we simply look at the formula for conversion rate (total number of outcomes (leads, orders) divided by the total number of unique users), with the former number being significantly lower than the latter.  Of course, these standards apply only to e-commerce sites, which assume purchases as a result of conversion.  Lead generation and content sites might enjoy higher rates since all they track would be of somewhat easier visitor engagement behavior (filling out the registration form, signing up for a newsletter, requesting more information or providing comments and viewing the content).

So what could you do to drive and truly impact your conversion rates? To do so, it is worthwhile to look at the conversion data on all acquisition channels that you employ (email, banners, SEM and organic traffic) separately and summarized.  Once you go through this exercise, it is easier to see where to invest to drive the right traffic to your online store and eventually see those rates go up!

Targeting Methods in Online Advertising

Filed Under Online Marketing, Digital Marketing, Online Advertising | 1 Comment

Selecting the right audience is the key driving factor in online advertising - your marketing campaigns’ performance depends on it almost 90 percent. With numerous tracking systems for monitoring users behaviors online, their ways to interact, their purchase habits, there are a number of targeting variables available to modern marketers. What is a well-targeted advertising? It is more relevant, compelling and subtle. What are the tools we have these days? According to the Advertising Research Foundation in its latest publication titled as The Online Advertising Playbook , there 7 highly usable methods:

Demographic Targeting - the old and familiar approach that defines audiences by gender, age, occupation, household size. It will always be there due to its advantages for broader product categories. It is easy to project behavior for such products based on demographic information and it costs less than tracking individual purchase behavior. More on the tips for successful demographic targeting, read the article on iMedia Connection.

Contextual Targeting - implies placing ads on sites that are related in content to the products, as an example: diet programs ads show up on healthy living related sites, financial products ads are displayed on money and investment sites. Contextual placements catch shoppers at the time when they are thinking about the product or related to it issues, catch up on news or read up on tips.  Due to the fact that shoppers (potential and actual) are caught in the active state - it becomes quite important to select quality sites, with relevant and most popular content to make your campaigns perform.  Site credibility is also important for the product especially when sales occur offline. Thus, it is a key consideration for your branding efforts.  Also, if you are tasked with building a community around your product, having a group of high regarded sites extends your influence further with the already highly engaged audience.  More on the contextual targeting, check this blog post that cites the research study on its effectiveness.

Behavioral Targeting - is the hottest method these days and the most controversial, allows marketers to track users’ site “hopping” through the cookies and come up with models and behavioral patterns for targeting those users later on those sites. Advertisers use these models to serve ads that are relevant to those “mapped” individuals across the various sites. It could be cheaper to do behavioral targeting than a contextual one: you have more points to reach the same audience. At the same time, it has its pitfalls and Jack Jia covers them well in his recent article.

Geographic Targeting - is especially powerful for smaller businesses that would like to capitalize on the local searches for products and services. DMA areas, area codes, time zones, GPS coordinates and IP protocols provide some geo targeting capability and allow marketers maximize the reach.  In addition, it can always bring additional sales to the brick-and-mortar store if you send your shoppers to the nearest location to pick up the purchase. More on the ways you can leverage geo information, read this blog post by Charles Thrasher.

Daypart Targeting - comes back to online advertising from the more traditional media (TV, radio) where it reaches specific audiences. Daypart targeting varies by audience size and specifications, can be very cost-efficient - as you expose your message to the largest audiences at the right time when they want to hear, see, view your message. Internet is used differently throughout the day with the highest percentage of people shopping and surfing the web during the normal business hours at work! According to emarketer, 31% people shop online at work, and if you add more detailed data on at which hours exactly they heavily engage into it - you are in business!

Affinity Targeting - refers to reaching customers on their favorite sites (usually related to hobbies and interests) that they heavily visit and interact with. Those users spend more time online (on those sites), are more favorable to the site content and ads and purchase faster and easier. If you like one site that you visit daily, you are more open to digest the message in the ads and in fact act on it. Works every time.  Affinity targeting especially works for brand evangelism.

Purchase-Based Category Targeting - represents a new method of merging data from the online behavior database to the purchases. It is very efficient, but very costly since you do have to customize the databases for your specific markets.  Companies like Nielsen try to create profiles of the “heavy shaving cream users” and low-carb dinners buyers” and map it against their online surfing patterns and predict their next purchase across product categories.

With all those methods, marketers are indeed empowered to deliver the right message at the right time to the right audience, even when the data is not perfect. Select 2-3 methods that fit your business and marketing strategy and find the good enough fits for your audiences and you are bound to have success.

    Content Disclaimer

      Everything posted on this blog is a product of my own thoughts, ideas, reflections based on the professional interests. It is based on the public information, works of the colleagues and fellow researchers that are cited respectfully and my opinions as an industry professional.