One of the toughest challenges many marketers face today is getting their content in front of the eyes of the people who matter most to their business, those who will keep them going in the business world.
However, the walls of advertising are tall and thick for one to break into, it takes a lot of chiseling here and there for brands to get in and it’s increasingly become more and more competitive and tough, requiring heftier budgets to pull impact and attention to your products.
Increasingly, the vast majority of consumers use search tools to conduct research before making purchasing decisions, meaning that marketers have had to evolve their advertising approach to capitalize on this change in consumer behavior.
Now, more than ever, users are overwhelmed with ads and information in search, making it more challenging for brands to break through the noise and stand out. With that said, every challenge welcomes a new opportunity that clears it.
Ladies and gentlemen, rich media ads are to the rescue!
Rich media ads offer a rich and engaging experience while delivering superior performance for digital marketers.
We are very excited to watch how brands are going to leverage this new ad format to deliver a more powerful message about their products and services.
In this guide, I will cover how with rich media ads you can improve your ads and get the recognition your brand craves.
What is Rich Media advertising?
Rich media is an online advertising term for an ad that incorporates advanced features like video, audio, or other elements that motivate viewers to interact and engage with the content.
While display ads sell with pictures, and text ads sell with words, rich media ads offer more ways to involve a target audience with an ad.
You can access aggregated metrics on your target audience’s behavior, including the number of expansions, multiple exits, and video completions to earn granular data on the success of your marketing campaign.
Rich media lets brands create complex ads that can elicit strong user responses. Utilizing HTML5 technology, the ads can incorporate multiple levels of content in one placement: videos, tweets, games, from an ad, etc.
If you have a simple goal to generate clicks or a more ambitious goal to create brand awareness, rich media is the format to adopt.
Why you should use Rich Media Ads to Promote Your Business
#1. Grab the Attention of Your Audience
Rich media advertising command great attention from your audience; it helps you present your content in a way that supports the target market to retain more information.
For people who prefer to digest content visually, a user segment that has seen remarkable growth means they can absorb and recall information easily.
Why is this very important? Well, the average attention span of an audience has decreased to just 8.25 seconds.
People are much more likely to understand the messages of your sales promotion copy if it is delivered in a video format as opposed to just text content.
Without this complementary media, you may discover that you are restricted in the amount of information that can be compressed into your ad, or that users don’t hold on to the messaging.
Furthermore, visuals are a marketer’s universal language, although I would not suggest a copy-and-paste job for a multinational campaign, imagery can assist bridge any potential gaps in your messaging.
#2. Improved User Engagement
Clued up with the previous benefit, rich media ads empower digital marketers to increase the user engagement of their ads.
As the ad industry has moved forward with the times, digital marketers have discovered the benefits of leveraging interactive advertisements.
Rich media ads present a better opportunity for your target customers to take desired and beneficial actions.
By incorporating videos, appealing imagery, and graphics you can lower the click barriers of your ad by adding a sense of familiarity and trust to your ad campaigns.
As internet marketers, we know that a high-quality visual campaign adds to the professionalism of our brands, this applies to your advertising too.
#3. Create a Pleasant User Experience
In 2023, most buyers are doubtlessly experiencing some degree of ad fatigue, especially when ads disturb their overall user experience.
This increase in ad fatigue should not be a shock either, being as though the average person comes across
around 6,000 to 10,000 ads daily. So how do we correct this? By offering a pleasant user experience.
Rich media ads help correct ‘banner blindness’ by offering a visual more interesting experience that users can engage with.
This is especially true for mobile users who would otherwise be swiping in the middle of tabs at a glance.
Engaging ad content can help fuel enthusiasm for your brand, as well as the products or services you are promoting.
By implementing rich media into your ad campaigns, you can boost the user experience, driving gains in other important areas too.
Fundamentally, your advertising should not force your users to leave the site, your content should influence them to want to stay and learn more.
#4. Eclipse Your Competition
Offering something truly valuable and unique is a fundamental challenge for all marketers. Rich content can help re-energize your brand perception, this is particularly true for industries where rich media is not widely used.
Being amongst one of the first brands to adopt rich media ads could help differentiate your business from your competitors.
In today’s market, where there is cutthroat competition, implementing interactive ads that provide a superior experience to those who share your industry could make the difference between who they decide to buy from.
#5. constraint-Free Creativity
To a certain extent, Rich media ads can be created in a variety of formats. Marketers and advertisers alike can enjoy the creative freedom to create fun and engaging ads that promote their products and brand.
The advanced features within rich media content allow you to diversify your content but bear in mind, that you should not overwhelm your users.
With that said, be sure to use your ad placement to the best of your ability.
Unlike traditional static banner ads, rich media ads are compatible with a lot of modern web technologies.
Types of Rich Media Ads
#1. Responsive Ads
Responsive ads adapt to the device and screen size, which enable the viewers to enjoy a consistent experience.
It means advertisers can make their ads look visually appealing on mobile and desktop platforms. This ad type can include 360-degree video, 80-degree images, carousels, and surveys and quizzes.
Up to 72% of ads are responsive, which means most advertisers are utilizing this format. If you are not utilizing responsive ads to cater to all audiences, then you are missing out on a lot of dollars on the table.
That’s especially true nowadays since most internet quality traffic is mobile-based. Other advantages of responsive ads include ease to load, extreme flexibility, and superb compatibility with remarketing.
#2. Banner Ads
Banner ads are plausibly the most popular digital real estate marketing form because they have a definite size.
It allows marketers to figure out how much space they have to work with and publishers to choose the size that is suitable for their websites.
Rich media banner ads are a spin on the traditional formula because attention-drawing elements are included to hook the audience in.
The type of elements you might find in banner ads include carousels, 3D, hotspots, reveals, and quizzes.
The advantages of rich media banner ads include easy to load, long-term flexible solutions, low creation cost and.
#3. Video Ads
video ads are One of the most popular rich-media examples. 54% of consumers want to see more video ads from the brands they follow.
It means that the right videos are a powerful way to convey marketing messages and grab attention.
You might have heard of the phrase, “a picture can tell a thousand words”. Well, by that logic you could comfortably argue that a video shares what a thousand images can.
The power of video can speedingly convey product benefits and conveniently relay brand messaging, which makes them a crucial part of any ad campaign.
Video ads can be displayed in reveal ads, picture-in-picture ads, video carousels, and pop-up banners.
#4. Dynamic Creative Ads
Want to target multiple audiences with a single ad? The best way to accomplish that is by customizing the ad to match the user.
Dynamic creative ads enable marketers to change parameters based on the viewer. The parameters that can be modified include date/time, online activity, weather, language, and location.
Up to 88% of US-based advertisers have reported marketing improvements because of personalization. It’s a strategy that allows services to match the audience, which means viewers might be honestly interested in the ad.
The interactive elements that can be included in this ad type include an in-banner video, vote, display shelf, Likert Scale, theater, and ripple.
#5. Page Takeover Ads
Page takeover ads take up a large portion of the page without standing in the way of content. The ads can display in the background or on both sides of the page.
The large size of the ad means that viewers are not likely to miss them.
Combining page takeover ads with interactivity boosts the chances that users will take the desired action.
Special effects and animation add life to the ads, which makes them attract attention. The top ad builders understand that matching the ads with the site brings the best results.
Page takeover ads are ideal for building brand awareness, driving more website traffic, and improving the ad CTR.
#6. Expandable Ads
Expandable ads are used on the Google Display Network(GDN) with customizability to determine how big they get once enlarged.
The ads enlarge in size once a user hovers over them. This minimal amount of interactivity means they are speedily accessible to viewers.
Overcoming ad blindness is one of the advantages of expandable ads. Once they expand in size the viewers are much more likely to notice the content.
Expandable ads differ based on what interaction is needed to expand them. The added digital real estate offers ad designers more room to work with, which means the desired message can be conveniently conveyed.
#7. Interstitial Ads
Interstitial ads have a lot of power to hook users in because they appear on full screen, which is their unique characteristic.
You might be thinking, is that not too intrusive? However, this ad type succeeds because they are strategically placed at transition points.
Up to 57% of publishers make use of interstitial ads, which makes them a popular choice among publishers.
Advertisers leveraging this ad type can expect to get good market coverage and many ad views per day if they have the budget.
The interactive elements included with interstitial ads are video walls, flash sales, gyroscopes, puzzles, and sign-up forms. Other benefits include higher ROI, more impressions, improved brand viewability, and enhanced conversion rates.
Conclusion
Rich media ads, when used creatively and uniquely can have a great impact and yield enticing results for a brand in terms of the user experience
This is because Rich media allow users to interact with a company’s brand advertising, whether it’s through taps, swipes, tilts, pinches, or shakes.
This article has covered extensively rich media ads and I hope you have a clearer picture of what they are now and will adopt them in your next online advertising campaign.
