A new report from Mediamind , titled “Video Is Everywhere: Because It’s What Consumers Want”, has produced some interesting results: online video ads, particularly in-stream ads, perform dramatically better than both standard banners and even banners involving rich media, with or without video.
The methodology used was analyzing over 3 billion in in-stream impressions wordwide during the first six months of 2012. One of the formats, the in-stream video ad serving template (VAST), saw an overall click-through rate (CTR) of 2.84%.
Additionally, another of the in-stream formats analyzed, the video player-ad interface definition (VPAID) saw lower overall CTR than VAST but solid interaction rates: 1.63% and 9.57%, respectively (VPAID don’t always require a click-through, as it allows and captures in-video user interactions)
When it comes to completion rates, in-stream video ads also proved higher that regular rich media even with video:
This data matches some other recent studies that have found that online video ads have indeed higher click rates than regular ads.
One of them comes from ad network AdExcite, which saw their campaign for AppleBee’s reach a 1.76% click-through rate, a White Castle effort generate 1.39%, and a Carl’s Junior push deliver 1.49% interaction rates.
More impressive even was a targeted campaign for Activision’s Call of Duty MW3 video game, which generated a 4.03% click-through rate, and GameStop’s Ghost Recon logged a 2.93% interaction rate for a similarly custom targeted run.
All of them are much higher than the standard banner ad click-through rate of 0.10%.
This all means if you want to have an effective ad campaign with high click rates, your best change would be to have a video – specifically an in-stream video.
First step then: get a video.
Next: find a good solution to deliver in-stream ads.
Third step: Start your campaign!
