• by Tameka Kee , August 8, 2008

When is a rich media ad not a rich media ad? When an advertiser doesn't have to pay additional fees for serving it. And with the latest semantic ad units from RAMP Digital, brands like Dockers are crafting banner-based campaigns with full interactivity and a high rate of consumer engagement at a much cheaper cost.

New York-based RAMP Digital is an analytics-focused digital marketing consultancy, and Black Bag Advertising, which handled the media for Dockers, brought RAMP in to help craft a Father's Day campaign that didn't break the bank. The IAB-approved, Flash-based units --which RAMP calls "Ramps"--allowed consumers to choose from an assortment of pants styles, colors and cuts, and then directed them to the appropriate product-landing page if they clicked through. But because the units served less than 40 kilobytes (k) of data, they weren't classified as rich media ads, and were spared the additional ad-serving fees.

"They were able to build an interactive unit without the rich media ad-serving costs, which can make a big difference in a campaign's ROI," said Eric Yang, CEO of San Francisco-based Black Bag. "You can start out with a 25-cent CPM and have it bumped up to a dollar because it becomes rich media, so having that much functionality without the ad-serving costs was pretty big."

Semantic technology powered the interactions within each ad (i.e., serving a pleated, dressy pant when a user clicked on those choices) and RAMP tapped Israel-based advertising tech firm Dapper to develop the semantic API. The widget-like Ramps ran across a number of AOL's Platform-A properties, including Advertising.com and Tacoda, and were behaviorally and demographically targeted to snag 30- to-45-year-old women who were on the hunt for Father's Day gifts.

The campaign ran from mid-May to mid-June, boasting strong user engagement metrics. For example, 97% of consumers who interacted with the ad ended up clicking through to the Dockers Web site, and there were about 8 interactions within the unit per person. And according to Jonathan Mendez, RAMP's founder and CEO, click-through rates (CTRs) on the Ramps were 110% higher than a set of control ads, while the engagement rate was 150% higher.

Both Yang and Mendez said that the ads performed well because they helped pull prospective customers further down the purchase funnel. "Since the RAMP ad ported functionality and dynamic content delivery onto a publisher's page, it allowed audiences to engage with the Dockers products and helped create interest and intent," Mendez said. "This led to higher click-through rates. And people that did click to the site were further along in the purchase path, having already selected a category or even a specific product that interested them."