Banners, patches, information streams... Among so many advertising formats, which one is more efficient?

In recent years, programmatic advertising has become the standard for marketing promotions for more and more brands . As we enter the mobile Internet era, people use mobile phones to connect everything in their lives, and the huge development potential and business opportunities of mobile programmatic advertising are being recognized and sought after by more and more companies. According to iResearch Consulting's "2017 China Programmatic Buying Market Trend Outlook Report", the scale of China's mobile programmatic buying display advertising market was 10.31 billion in 2016, an increase of 206.2% over 2015; it is expected to maintain relatively high growth in the next three years.

With the rapid development of the mobile programmatic trading market, the forms of mobile programmatic advertising are also constantly changing. Currently, the commonly used forms of mobile programmatic advertising include: banner, interstitial, full screen, video patch, information flow , etc. So, what are the characteristics and advantages of these different advertising forms? How to choose brand marketing ? With these questions in mind, this article will provide a comprehensive explanation of common mobile programmatic advertising formats.

Banner Ads

Banner advertising refers to banner advertising and flag advertising, which is the most common form of advertising. It usually appears at the top or bottom of the APP interface, and can be in the form of static images, GIF images, text links, or animated images with multiple frames scrolling.

Advantages and disadvantages analysis

Advantages: 1) Little interference to the audience; 2) Relatively simple to produce; 3) Relatively low bidding costs.

Disadvantages: 1) It is easy to be ignored by the audience; 2) If the design is rough or the targeting is not precise enough, it is easy to affect the audience's online experience, resulting in a bad brand impression and waste of advertising costs.

Gameplay Guide

1) Choose the most efficient size. According to Meishu’s experience, the most common and most effective Banner ad sizes are 320× 50, 640 ×100, etc. Of course, the specific situation depends on the demands of different APPs and different brands.

2) The copy + pictures are a perfect match. Advertisements should mainly include three elements: brand logo, value orientation (product selling point), and call to action. The coordination between these elements must have clear levels, clear themes, prominent selling points, coordinated colors, and of course, must conform to user browsing habits.

3) The file should not be too large. The file size should be smaller than 50-100KB, because users will scroll down directly after opening the page. If the file is too large, it will load slowly and may not be able to keep up with the user's "hand speed", making the ad unable to be seen. Of course, the file size should not be too small, as this may compromise the quality and clarity of the footage.

4) Animation is a plus, but be careful. Animated banners are usually better than static ones. But be careful: a. Do not let the animation distract from the main message of the advertisement; b. The animation should be simple and elegant, not blinding; c. If the last frame of the animation can be combined with the text of the call to action, the click effect will be better.

5) Coordinate with the page content. That is, banner ads must perfectly match the overall style of the page, the context style, and the content, and should complement each other. They should not rely on overly exaggerated or abrupt designs to attract attention. But at the same time, ads should not be overly integrated and difficult for users to identify. Among them, Meisu's dynamic creative center can automatically generate tens of thousands of sets of creatives, and automatically retrieve the creatives that best fit the media environment for display when the bidding is successful, thereby improving marketing efficiency and effectiveness.

Recommended Platform

Most platforms have banner ads; generally, pure tool apps (weather, games , translation, reading, etc.) use bottom banners more often.

Interstitial Ads

Generally, it pops up in half-screen or full-screen form when an application (mostly games and video applications) is paused, passed a level, jumped, or exited. The timing of the display cleverly avoids the user's normal experience of the application. Users can choose to click or ignore. The main forms of expression are static images, GIF images, etc.

Advantages and disadvantages analysis

Advantages: 1) Large size and support for cool special effects, so the visual effect is better; 2) The click-through rate is higher than Banner.

Disadvantages: 1) It is easy to cause delays and waste advertising budget; 2) If the design is rough or the targeting is not precise enough, it is easy to affect the audience's online experience, thus creating a bad brand impression.

Gameplay Guide

1) Coordinate with the application. That is, choose advertising borders, font colors, pictures, etc. that are relevant to the application to increase the attractiveness of the advertisement, reduce user interference, and thus achieve better advertising effects.

2) Choose the most efficient size. The ad size should be equal to or larger than half of the mobile phone screen. Sizes such as 600× 600, 600× 500, etc. can be designed.

Recommended Platform

Generally, game and video apps are the most commonly used media types for interstitial ads.

Splash screen ads

The splash screen ad appears when the APP starts loading, and is generally displayed in full screen for 3-5 seconds (some can be skipped). After the display is completed, it automatically closes and enters the main page of the application, and it is generally not clickable to jump (currently some platforms can support jumps, such as Tencent Guangdiantong , Lingji XTrader, etc.). It can be a static image, multi-frame animation or Flash, etc.

Advantages and disadvantages analysis

Advantages: 1) Seize the "golden 5 seconds" when the app is launched, enhance brand memory, and make the ads more authoritative; 2) Less user interference; 3) Splash screen ads are only displayed when the app is launched, and under normal circumstances, the same user will not frequently launch a single app. Therefore, compared with other forms of advertising, with the same number of ad displays, splash screen ads can cover more independent users.

Disadvantages: 1) Higher fees (PDB or package purchase); 2) If the platform does not support ad redirection, some of the target audience may be lost.

Gameplay Guide

1) If the promotion budget is limited (for example, less than 100,000), it is not recommended to place splash screen ads on popular apps.

2) The review of splash screen advertising media materials is relatively stricter and requires offline review in advance (usually two days).

3) If you are an e-commerce brand owner or an application promotion brand owner (downloading APP), it is best to choose a platform that supports click-to-jump (deeplink).

4) Research has found that 3-5 seconds is the optimal display duration for splash ads.

5) Some splash screen media support regional targeting (sold at a premium). Brand owners who have this need can choose targeted advertising to save budget.

6) Common material sizes include: 640 960, 720 1280, etc.

7) Meishu’s experience in advertising shows that the red envelope image model is suitable for financial advertising, the single image model is mostly suitable for brand advertising, and the puzzle multi-image model or call-to-action model is more suitable for e-commerce advertising, etc.

Recommended Platform

Most APPs have splash screen ads, such as Sohu News , Moji Weather , Kingsoft PowerWord, Mayu , etc.

Video patch ads

The advertising format is streaming media, which is generally divided into pre -roll, mid-roll, and post-roll, and the duration is 5s, 15s, 30s, 60s or even longer. The pre-roll ads are ads that appear before a video plays, the mid-roll ads are ads that appear in the middle of a video, and the post-roll ads are ads that appear after a video ends.

Advantages and disadvantages analysis

Advantages: 1) Combination of sound and image, strong advertising impact and memory; 2) High-quality media resources and high-quality brand exposure.

Disadvantages: 1) The production of materials is complex (time-consuming, labor-intensive and costly); 2) The price is relatively high (PDB or package purchase); 3) Advertisements may affect users' viewing experience and cause offence; 4) Users' dispersed and fragmented usage habits make it difficult to meet the brand's demand for large-scale exposure.

Gameplay Guide

1) Allow users to skip the interstitial ad after watching it for a few seconds. If viewers are forced to watch content they don’t like, the user experience will be poor and advertisers will not only lose money but may also have a negative brand impression. It is better to allow users to skip, and by marking the skipping time point, determine which type of ads the user is more interested in and the degree of interest, and then guide subsequent more accurate advertising push.

2) HD resolution ≥ 640 360; UHD resolution ≥ 1280 720. The recommended file size is 2-5MB and should not be too large.

3) If the promotion budget is limited, it is not recommended to place video interstitial ads.

Recommended Platform

iQiyi , Youku, Fengxing, Baofeng Video, Sohu Video , etc.

Information flow advertising

Refers to advertisements interspersed with content that users browse or read. It may appear in news clients such as Toutiao and NetEase News ; mobile search browsers such as UC, Baidu, and Sogou ; social apps such as Weibo, WeChat , and Momo ; or video apps such as Youku and iQiyi. The main display forms include: text + small picture (the picture is on the left or right), text + large picture, text + three pictures, text + video, etc.

Advantages and disadvantages analysis

Advantages: 1) Less interference to users, higher user experience and tolerance; 2) Compared with other forms of advertising, information flow advertising is easier to stimulate the audience's initiative, prompting them to accept and share, and increase the effectiveness of secondary dissemination; 3) It is easier to avoid ad blocking software, which invisibly increases brand exposure and saves advertising budget.

Disadvantages: As information flow advertising becomes normalized and users lose their sense of novelty, its delivery effect is difficult to achieve as expected.

Gameplay Guide

1) Good text and picture creativity is the first step to increase CTR . That is, the creative ideas for information flow materials should be tailored to the target audience of your product, guided by factual data, rather than relying on experience.

2) The landing page is the key to conversion ! First, the content of the landing page should be consistent with the creative content of the advertisement. In addition, the landing page interface should be clear and easy to operate (such as registration landing pages). Thirdly, the page loading speed should be improved to prevent user loss . Finally, the landing page design should be continuously optimized. For example, you can use tools such as heat maps to analyze user behavior after visiting the landing page, and understand which content on the landing page attracts the attention of most visitors, so as to place content with the best conversion potential to improve conversion rate .

3) Combine with the scene to make the advertisement appear “just right”. That is, on the basis of accurately positioning the target audience, we need to design materials that are highly integrated with the scene according to the audience’s current time period, geographical location, weather conditions, usage (media) scenarios, etc., so as to ensure that the advertisement meets TA’s needs and improve the advertisement’s attractiveness and click-through rate!

4) “Aim at the right target” rather than “misplace the target”. That is, before launching, analyze the media tone, channel category, page content, etc., and then place the company's promotional information around highly relevant channel types and content. However, we know that the current mobile Ad Exchange only carries APP ID information in the ad request, without any information about the user's browsing page context. However, Meisu AdVision (an exclusive advertising optimization product) can use crawler technology to capture all news client channels, contextual content, page keywords and other information without adding code or installing SDK on the APP application side, thereby ensuring that the advertisements are accurately targeted at the interested groups while allowing the advertisements to be presented to the audience "gently", thereby reducing interference to users and improving advertising effectiveness!

Recommended Platform

News and social apps are the most commonly used media types for information flow advertising. For example, Toutiao, NetEase News, Weibo, WeChat, Momo, etc.

Mobile programmatic advertising comes in a variety of forms, of course not limited to the above categories. In actual marketing promotion, many advertisers often fall into the dilemma of choosing which advertising form will bring higher conversions. But in fact, each form of advertising has its own advantages. If advertisers want to conduct brand promotion, splash screen ads and video ads may be more effective; if advertisers’ goal is to achieve conversion results, banner ads, interstitial ads, and information flow ads may be more effective. (Of course this is not absolute)

Therefore, instead of worrying about which one is more effective, advertisers should first consider their own promotion goals and budget standards. If the budget is limited, you can choose the best one based on your marketing goals (if the budget is too small, splash screen, interstitial, and video advertising formats are not recommended); if the budget is sufficient, you can consider choosing multiple advertising formats to be linked and coordinated. Only by choosing the promotion strategy that suits you best can you achieve a better fission effect.

The author of this article @Meishu Technology is compiled and published by (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!

Product promotion services: APP promotion services Advertising platform Longyou Century