What Are Rich Media & Advanced Format Banner Ads

Flash is dead, and the development of HTML5 has been nothing but good news for online display advertising. One major benefit of HTML5 is the possibility to build amazing rich media banner ads that drive engagement and traffic to your website far more effectively than standard static banner ads.

Sound good? Read on to discover seven key reasons why you have to start building HTML5 rich media ads today!

What Are Rich Media & Advanced Format Banner Ads?

According to Google, Rich media ads can be defined as the following:

“A Rich Media ad contains images or video and involves some kind of user interaction. The initial load of a Rich Media ad is 40K or more.”

These rich media ads can be built in seconds using the BannerFlow platform and are called Advanced Formats, we’ve listed seven reasons as to why you need to start building them and using them in your online display advertising campaigns today!

1. Chance To Be Creative

Rich media or advanced format ads refer to an inexhaustible list of ad types. Rich media online display ads give marketers and designers that chance to be creative and take advantage of new formats that are being developed all the time. For nearly 20 years, there was very little change in the development of banner ads. Recently the scene has exploded, and today there are many more types of format that are available – take advantage of these developments and get creative!

2. Improve Engagement

Statistics shows that marketers can expect to experience higher levels of engagement on rich media ads; this is great news for brand engagement. Interaction from viewers on rich media ads is a new phenomenon in online display advertising, and therefore marketers need to look at how they are going to measure the success of these new types of advanced format ads. The statistics from eMarketer below show improved engagement rates on rich media ads, as well as other relevant statistics:

3. Amazing Mobile Ads

HTML5 rich media ads have opened up the possibility of creating exciting new types of mobile ads. All HTML5 ads, including rich media ads, can be viewed and interacted with on mobile devices, enabling you to create creative ads for many different channels.

4. Improved CTR and Ad Viewability

Statistics show an improvement of click-through rates and ad viewability on rich media banners compared to standard banners, and, in particular, static banners, as seen in the statistics from eMarketer were previously shown above. AdRoll found that rich media banner ads have a 267% higher click-through rate than standard static banners!

5. Reach Your Audience In Different Ways

As marketers, we know that different segments of your audience engage better with different types of media. Some people engage best with video, other with text, and so on. Rich media formats mean that you can now more effectively communicate with different segments of your audience in the format they prefer.

6. More Memorable

Banner blindness is very real and something that marketers continue to battle against to prevent. Rich media ads provide a new opportunity to cut through banner blindness by being more memorable. When the first banner ad appeared on our screens in the mid-nineties, it enjoyed a high click-through rate. Today, many marketers put much of this high click-through rate down to the fact that viewers had never seen banner ads before, and therefore they were something innovative. However, over the past twenty years, viewers have become accustomed to static banner ads and therefore they have become blind to them.

Rich media formats are new to users, and therefore they will be more memorable and help to prevent banner blindness during campaigns. Such memorable ads will help brand recall and recognition and could very well influence the viewer’s buying decision. Therefore, if you want your brand to be more memorable, start building HTML5 rich media ads!

7. More Data and Tracking

It is possible to collect a lot more data from rich media banner ads than standard banners. Not only will you see impressions generated and click-through rate, but you will also collect data on engagement, video plays and other interactions depending on the type of ad you have built.

Final thoughts: Start Building Advanced Format Ads Today!

HTML5 rich media banner ads mark a new chapter mark an important development in display advertising. Today, it is more challenging for marketers to grab the attention of consumers. Therefore, it is essential that if you as a marketer wants to stand out from the competition, you need to take advantage of the latest technology.

BannerFlow provides a flexible, easy to use and scalable rich media ad solution with BannerFlow Advanced Formats banners. Want to find out more? See more details in our knowledge base!