• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, January 30, 2014

According to the DG MediaMind ‘Mobile Performance Benchmarks’ report that quantifies the relative performance of mobile ad formats, analyzing more than one billion impressions across more than one thousand mobile campaigns since January 1, 2013, CTR performance overall for mobile expandable banners outperform polite banners, 0.63% to 0.28%. Within expandable banners, the verticals that did the best job generating user expansions include entertainment (9.0 %), electronics (8.9 %) and automotive (5.5 %). Both expandable banner and polite banner formats beat out mobile standard banner performance, which earned a 0.09 % CTR.

The research focuses on the performance of mobile formats and features within key verticals with the goal of providing vertical-by-vertical insight into the most effective mobile advertising strategies for brand advertisers.

The Polite Banner is a Flash-enabled banner that uses “polite,” sequential downloading and proprietary compression technology to allow extra large file sizes to fit within standard publisher specs.

The Expandable Banner expands beyond the confines of the traditional banner. Multiple Flash panels can be launched by a click, roll-over or auto-initiation.

Ricky Liversidge, CMO at DG, said “… consumers depend more (and more) on mobile technology for their media, day-to-day communications and connections to the world… (analysis of) these factors… gives advertisers… data that can guide their mobile marketing decisions… “

Standard banner underperformance on smartphones and tablets is driven by their creative limitations, says the report. Because standard banners do not support interactions or banner expansion, they offer minimal opportunity for brands to engage with their target audiences.
In addition to format performance, the study also examined mobile marketing success by vertical. Entertainment and news/media had the highest mobile CTR among the verticals studied, at 1.10% and 1.21%, respectively. Other strong CTR performers include CPG (0.82%) and Retail (0.58%) and Restaurants at 0.50%.

Each vertical was also analyzed to determine the most effective advertising strategy in mobile:

• Entertainment: The top key performance indicator (KPI) for entertainment advertisers was sustained in-market presence. Videos and social sharing were the features most frequently used by entertainment advertisers
• CPG: Image gallery, location and social sharing were the features most often leveraged by CPG advertisers to increase their most important KPI of brand awareness and consideration
• Retail: To get consumers to visit brick-and-mortar locations, video, location, weather and ‘download app’ were the features most frequently leveraged
•  Auto: Image gallery, video gallery and m.site click-throughs were frequently used to keep a featured product, vehicle model or sales promotion top-of-mind with auto buyers

Among mobile rich media formats that include online video, polite rich media banners had a higher video start rate than their expandable counterparts. 3.33% of videos in polite banners were engaged, compared to 1.51% for expandable banners. Because the video player is immediately viewable to users in polite rich media banners, these ad formats also experienced higher video start rates than expandable banners, which require a user to engage with the ad unit first before the player appears in the ad.

Retail and electronics led the way with the highest CTR among verticals:

Click Thru Rate
Vertical	CTR
Retail	0.52%
Electronics	0.41%
Entertainment	0.40%
Financial	0.34%

Polite rich media banners had a higher video start rate than their expandable counterparts; 3.34% polite engaged; 2.62% expandable engaged:

Video Best Performing Verticals
Vertical	CTR
Auto	9.16%
CPG	5.43%
Telecom	3.29%

Auto advertisers were able to achieve sustained engagement with consumers with features that drove awareness and consideration. Features used in CPG ads aimed to create engagement and drive consumer in-store traffic:

In Terms Of Interaction Rate Auto And CPG Outperformed All

• Auto   20.7% engagement with safety, video and cell
• CPG   11.7% engagement with quality, video, social, coupons

Video Attention Span

• 76.2% @ 25% completion rate
• 61.6% @ 50%
• 52.9% @ 75%
• 47.2% @ 100%

Highest Performers In Getting Consumers To Complete

• Auto   79.8%
• CPG   65.7 %
• Telecom   54.4%

For additional information, please visit dgMediaMind here.