Banner ads and other traditional display ads haven't gone out of style, but they do face a pressing need to evolve with the times. Because the real estate on Web pages remains valuable as an advertising tool, the challenge marketers face is maximizing its potential to inspire attention, engagements and conversions.
A partial solution to this challenge is the advent of rich media ads as a form of display advertising. These ads are increasingly being deployed to local media websites — newspapers, radio, TV and other sites that see traffic from concentrated regions with specific audience interests in mind.
This two-part strategy — creating rich media ads and deploying them to relevant destinations — is driving critical gains for marketers, improving performance metrics and flexing the value of display ads, even in the face of rapid landscape evolution.
Embracing the Rich Media Advantage
There is plenty of evidence to justify the use of rich media advertising. According to eMarketer, data from an Adform study shows that the click-through rates for rich media ads can be considerably higher than what standard display ads receive. In the best cases, those figures can be 267 percent greater.
Those numbers are nearly as impressive when it comes to engagement rate. Rich media ads earned a 16.85 percent engagement rate, compared to the 2.14 percent engagement rate of standard banner ads.
Even if those numbers were an exaggeration of rich media's benefits, the data so strongly endorses this type of ad content that it calls for upgrades in display ad strategy. Rich media is effective in any setting, but certain circumstances can help these returns shine even brighter.
Partnering With Stable, Local Websites
Local media websites have the benefit of a loyal, established audience. For marketers, these characteristics are highly valuable. Advertising to a newspaper or radio website audience efficiently targets a specific locale, and the consistent traffic and audience loyalty are assets that guarantee consistent ad exposure.
Engagement and other ad activity is more reliable through these websites because of the nature of their traffic. The stability of these local websites, as well as their built-in audience that's typically diverse as well as locally targeted, make them a perfect destination for any type of display ad, but rich media ads, in particular, offer the highest performance ceiling.
Tapping News-centric Engagement Trends
Advertisements can see differing degrees of performance success based on the industry they represent. As eMarketer points out, news typically squeezes out the greatest degree of rich media ad engagement: 16.5 seconds. Personal finance and sports were both close behind. Because each of these subjects are represented in local media websites, they are natural destinations for related rich media ads. This pairing can increase the potential engagement and conversion rate even more, optimizing an ad campaign by leaning into the ad content's strengths.
Rich media ads will do well in a wide variety of situations, but the loyal local audiences drawn by media outlets will maximize the potential of these ads and create a more competitive online marketing solution.
