Finding Yields New Angle On Rectangle, Reaps Far More User Time Than Leaderboards, Skyscrapers
- by Joe Mandese @mp_joemandese, April 7, 2009
The finding is significant for several reasons, and has the potential to shake-up the online advertising marketplace where leaderboards and skyscrapers often command higher advertising rates than rectangles.
"It really depends on the sophistication of the publisher, and how they price them," says Scott Hoffman, CMO of Lotame, who added that while their ad rates often fluctuate, the three advertising formats often are seen as interchangeable in the online marketplace.
But they are not, he says, at least on the basis of the amount of time online users spend viewing each of the ads. While the Lotame analysis did not measure clickthroughs, actions, brand recall or awareness, Hoffman says time spent is a pretty good surrogate for overall ad effectiveness.
"We did this study, because people are clamoring for new metrics on how things perform, and how things work. And we had this tool for measuring time spent with online advertising," he explains, adding that the relative value of rectangles makes sense given their positioning on most Web pages, falling in the middle, where a lot of user time tends to gravitate.
"When you load a skyscraper, it probably doesn't load fully before a user scrolls down the page. And when users scroll down a page, leaderboards get partly obscured," Hoffman explains.
While the relative effectiveness of rectangles may seem intuitive, Hoffman says many industry insiders might be surprised by the magnitude of difference.
"I think everybody is looking at the relative values, but what as shocking to me, was how much more exposure rectangles get," he says.
In order to measure the impact of the time spent with an online ads, Lotame's "Exposure Tracker" technology counts the time users actually spends viewing an ad without counting time when the ad is obscured, minimized or scrolled out of view. Lotame claims the method represents a more accurate accounting for the impact of an online ad impression, and dispels the notion that all online ad impressions are equal.
Agreed...but the benefit of rotating all three sizes is that you are hitting consumers at each stage of their visit to a specific page. In addition, the use of three sizes of the same basic creative, in rotation, creates a sense of familiarity. It is the familiarity that helps catch the users attention. If all ads are the same size and locked into a fixed location on a site, as many are, the end result would be a greater degree of banner blindness.
Let's face it more about location than shape. It is not that the rectangle is the best. It is that being located in the middle of the content is the best. The MediaPost page that I am typing into now has a rectangle ad in the top right corner, and I guarantee you it is not performing at the premium level described in the article based on the fact that it is not located in the center of the main content area.
This is consistent with what we've seen for years across my clients. We typically use all sizes due to their varying costs and placement but the rectangle is always the best performer.
Wow, they did a study to find this? Anyone testing pay per click ad formats discovered years ago that rectangles outperform skyscrapers.
This just verifies for me the primitive state of display advertising technology online. Wake up, display is dead.
Now let's talk what's in those rectangles?
Blah, blah, blah, an offer, or video? And what about passive viewing vs. active interaction? What if the viewing results in annoying when its right smack in the middle of something interesting?
Average interaction time for a video (according to latest DoubleClick study) is 11 seconds and the larger the format the better.
My years of banner development have shown what this study has officially confirmed. the 300x250 banner tends to work with the content and thus won't be ignored like the other sizes. It also doesn't seem intrusive and annoying like the many proposed overlays and rich media banner specs that those with the push-tv-model want to make a reality.
While technology will be important, brands need to embolden their agencies to develop compelling ads that are placed better than the shot-gun random approach of today's online media buys. We control so much and can track so much but we don't dare spend time and research to build and design advertising that is in context to the media space. Design firms typically get only a spec in which to build banners and nothing else.
I thought it was common knowledge at this point that 300x250’s performed better and yield higher eCPM’s.
From an aesthetic standpoint, rectangles that are in the ratio of phi .0618 , or Golden Rectangles, have been hearalded as the most pleasing rectangle to the human eye.
That would be a banner approximately 350x216 or 300x185.
Approximately the same shape as a credit card.
I believe it's relevant content (in the ad) that matters. Once BT is executed across all of the web, I think CTRs will prove that ads are useful but just not in the old media model of "spray it and hope you hit the 1% interested in what you're offering".
This study makes no mention of the type of content in the ads? For instance typically the 300x250 ad blocks will show video ads, or animations that simulate video since the shape of the ad is convenient for such a format.
Video ads will of course be "watched" longer than a non-video ad.