Online rich media ads engage users and improve user experience

Online advertising that doesn’t feel annoying, doesn’t disrupt the experience of consuming media content, captures the users’ attention and is also effective. Impossible? Not at all. These are all possibilities available through rich media advertising solutions.

”Consumers don’t hate ads. They just don’t like bad ads”, claims Clément Frey, Director of Media Partnerships at Celtra. Frey visited Helsinki recently to talk about rich media advertising in a breakfast meeting organized by Alma Media.

What is a good ad? A good ad places the UX first when planning creative, Frey explains.

”User experience is the key in digital. We need more ads that users find relevant and engaging, and less ads that are disruptive and intrusive”, Frey says.

Better user experience online can be achieved through creative solutions. The so called rich media advertising can include for example ambitious 360° videos and playful or

interactive elements that change when for example the mobile screen is waved. Ads covering the screen can be smoothly scrolling elements, instead of pop ups that need to be closed separately. Creative solutions work very well in mobile devices, which allow users to interact with ads for example through swiping or even scratching the screen.

According to Frey rich media solutions are more effective than traditional banner campaigns, because they engage the user through interaction that also increases their time spent with the ad.

”And we see this reflected in the metrics, showing engagement rates and click rates are higher with rich media ads, than static ads”, Frey says.

Smart use of data

”Rich media solutions can take advantage of available data on the user, in a way that doesn’t feel over familiar or uncomfortable. For example weather reports, days of the week and location can be utilized in the ad design in a way that makes the ad feel like it’s current and relevant, but not too personalized”, Frey describes.

When discussing upcoming trends in digital advertising, video came up strongly. Frey believes that among other things in 2017 we will see an increase in the use of 360° videos, vertical videos and interactive videos.

”More and more people watch videos on their mobile devices. But mobile users don’t want audio in their videos and mobile videos should also be very short and fill a vertical screen. So mobile videos actually provide new possibilities for storytelling”, Frey points out.

Desktop users shouldn’t however be totally forgotten. Just as it is now for websites, responsive design is progressively becoming the norm in digital advertising.

“Our clients want to run cross-screen campaigns without wasting their time on building and trafficking tens of creatives for the same campaign. This is exactly what we help them to achieve with our universal formats that provide a homogeneous user experience on mobile, tablet and desktop from one single tag”. 

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