Best display ad dimensions - study by Dynamic Logic
Posted: September 1st, 2009 | Author: vlad | Filed under: Quote |New York, August 20, 2009 – Research released today by Dynamic Logic, the leaders in measuring digital advertising effectiveness, reveals ads that are integrated into the content of the page, such as half banners and rectangles, are the most effective in driving online ad awareness and purchase intent. The research, based on 2,390 online display campaigns that took place over the past three years, is from Dynamic Logic’s MarketNorms® database, the largest in the industry. It found that half banners (234 x 60) and rectangles (180 x 150) were more effective than ads that frame the page such as leaderboards and skyscrapers.
I can’t help but frown when I see reseach of this sort.
There does not seem to be a definitive conclusion to the study, but basically smaller dimensions around content as well as rich media and video are better.
Here are some of the potential problems here.
- The data for the study spans over 3 years. That is a long time in the internet ad world. It’s an even longer time for video.
- The small units mentioned, 234×60 and 180×150, immediately make me think Yahoo Finance with its online brokerage ads. Where else are units like this used? Chances are the data for these guys comes straight from there where there is a definitive skew since that specific context for online brokerage ads is probably the best there is
- Everytime I’ve done quantitative research like this, it always came up that the smaller volume sample has better performance. For example, take a normal bigbox, 300×250. Comparing the same creative’s CTR for a high volume placement versus a low volume placement will always show that the low volume placement performs better. This is why it is not surprising that this study’s conclusion on small units, rich media and video have "won" — they have the smallest volume compared to, say, bigboxes.
Could you elaborate on your point about the relationship between CTR and volume?
Are you saying that usually high volume inventory just happens to come from places with low CTR, or that there is something intrinsic about the stats for this in any environment? I mean for all we know the rich media part of this sample could have come from MySpace trash inventory, right?
I think it’s a range of issues.
It can’t be frequency because from the little info we have on that study, frequency seems to be set to 1 across the board.
In this case the novelty of the format may have a big influence since there is almost no wear-out. The sample for rich media with video is only 37-47 campaigns!
I really don’t think that rich media for this sample could have come from trash MySpace inventory. The study was conducted over the range of campaigns that Dynamic Logic was hired to audit. Chances are rich media was fancy rich media in fancy environments with little to no wear-out.
BTW rich media here is not simple Flash, it’s expandable units etc.
Re: CTR specifically, it could be technological issues, such as much more activity for unfiltered bots (proportionally) for small samples. It could be frequency too, of course…