Dubai: Half of 1 per cent — that’s the response rate a high content and engaging video ad can generate from viewers.

But when audience responses are getting extremely fickle, even that 0.5 per cent response rate can decide whether a brand is able to connect with them. And in comparison to the success rate of static ads popping up on desktops, that gap is an ever widening one.

“Video within a rich media ad has always added to the interactivity for readers,” said Colm Grealy, CEO of Adforce, a digital marketing firm based in Ireland.

The company is launching its mobile ad network in the region in partnership with Blue Logic Digital based in Dubai.

“These ads have always driven greater response. Our desktops are becoming more work-focused machines. The accessibility of smartphones throughout our day means that we are snacking on news more frequently from morning to the last thing at night.

“However, forcing users to sit through multiple pre-roll video ads will never be a formula for success. High quality ad formats — including 360-degree videos and virtual reality — will drive greater creativity.”

For the region’s ad industry roiled by spending cuts across multiple advertising formats, digital is more than a short-term cure. It provides the very reason for existence.

Current forecasts suggest that digital ad spend in the Gulf markets could touch 20 per cent of the overall by 2019 as against 2015’s 11 per cent. This will principally be driven by increasing web usage over mobiles.

Mobile spend specifically could grow by 534 per cent through 2017 to 8.9 per cent of total ad spend by the end of next year.

With smartphones becoming the platform consumers check for display, price comparisons and make actual purchases, for advertisers how they display themselves on the screens is make-or-break situation. Look good on the screen, chances are the potential shopper will spend more time going through what it offers, According to recent data from the payment services firm PayPal, 76 per cent of shoppers making cross-border purchases do so using their smartphones. The short and the long of it — brands and advertisers need to refresh the way they show up on screens.

“For many publishers, up to 70 per cent of all internet traffic is coming from mobile users,” said Grealy, whose earlier business — Ireland On-line — went on to be acquired by British Telecom. “Adforce is seeing significant growth in browser-based mobile ads while in-app advertising continues to grow.

“The prevalence of larger ‘phablets’ is driving an increasing amount of traffic through web browsers.”

And it’s not only video that’s hitting the high notes with audiences... even audio is.

“We have seen readers respond best to rich media ad formats that often include video and audio,” said Grealy. “Certainly, many early mobile ads followed similar templates. That has changed as smartphones and ad platforms have improved. The introduction of future formats including virtual reality will move the medium forward even further. Audio ads placed before or during an audio stream can also be very effective.”

Then again, much of the hard work on making digital ads accessible has already been done... by the humble desktop.

“The mobile ad market has adopted much of the lessons of desktop from a very early stage,” said Grealy.

“Advertisers can buy programmatically and track and optimise campaigns just as they can for desktop advertising. Mobile advertising also allows to build in dynamic elements that are triggered by unique mobile features such as location or changes in weather. As well as the normal measurement of clicks-and-views, we also track the quality of engagement with rich formats such as video and audio.”

 

 

The do’s and don’ts of digital video ads

• Marketers should ensure that landing pages, response forms and videos and images have been optimised for mobile devices.

• Rich media ad formats quite often drive best response rates and the use of dynamic features help to spark greater interest from the reader.

• Measuring engagement with the ad will provide greater insight including how readers engaged with all of the ad features such as response forms, watching a video to the end or viewing multiple images in a slide show.