Banners ads saw a 14 percent higher engagement rate and interstitials ads saw an 8 percent higher engagement rate in the third quarter, while the ad engagement rate for expandable banners is 0.87 percent, 10 percent higher than in Q2, mostly due to higher engagement rate on bigger screens such as desktop and tablet this quarter, according to Celtra’s latest report.
The reveal banner is also proving its success with an ad engagement rate of 1.75 percent, significantly outperforming both banners (1.14 percent) and expandable banners (0.87 percent ad engagement rate).
“Higher ad engagement rates are the result of marketers recognizing the importance of creative and message in their advertising – taking full advantage of the HTML5 capabilities and creative technology to build creatives that are engaging, fun and offer a good user experience,” Matevz Klanjsek, co-founder and chief product officer at Celtra, told eWEEK.
The report found the user-initiated video completion rate (Banner: 49 percent, Expandable: 52 percent, Interstitial: 52 percent) was 8 percent higher than in the second quarter, with user-initiated videos in interstitials posting the biggest change this quarter, with a 16 percent higher video completion rate than in Q2.
The ad engagement rate for expandable banners on desktop is now 3.14 percent, 2.6 times higher than in Q2, with the report noting a higher desktop engagement rate is a reflection of more and more creatives using mouse-over as an engagement.
Celtra analyzed nine of the largest verticals, from automotive to entertainment, retail, technology and travel, finding entertainment was the vertical with highest share of impressions this quarter, representing 19 percent of all requested impressions.
Auto-play videos in technology creatives saw the highest video completion rate and video consumption rate across all formats—the highest point being 63.9 percent video completion rate and 73.2 percent video consumption rate in expanded unit.
On a feature performance level, branding and presentation features like product galleries, 360 view and swiping have witnessed the highest feature engagement rates at 22.8 percent, with these features mostly used in food & beverage, retail and automotive sectors.
Klanjsek noted the upcoming holiday shopping season is pivotal for display advertising each and every year, with typically significant increases in activity from industries such as retail, technology and entertainment.
“Those marketers usually invest resources and time to create advanced and engaging campaigns for both direct sales and branding efforts,” he explained. “We are seeing more and more usage of data-driven creative and programmatic assets feeds that are adjusted in real time, which enable marketers to offer consumers the most relevant messages, reflecting contextual data signals such as location, date, time of day or weather.”
Beyond the holiday season, Klanjsek said he believes that there will be a continued increase of dynamic creatives in the coming two quarters as marketers fully embrace creative relevancy and automation in display ads.