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Google’s ad format offering has continued to expand in the face of users’ evergrowing banner blindness. This means that there are now more ad formats than ever for publishers to choose from, which maximizes chances of delivering the most impactful ad to your audience. Matching the right ad formats to the right audience will create a win-win situation for publishers, advertisers and users.
Q1 is just around the corner which is the perfect time to try out new ad formats, so here are 5 high-impact ad formats that you should try in 2021.
1. Web Interstitials
Web Interstitials are large, full-screen ads that cover a webpage on desktop or fill the screen on mobile. They are triggered to serve at natural transition points, for example, in-between page navigation when users click on a link to a new page on your website.
At OKO we utilise web interstitials from Ad Exchange, which we find balance revenue performance well against user experience by limiting ads to one per user per hour, but ensuring that high CPMs are achieved on each impression. These are similar to Vignette ads available in AdSense in that they appear between page views rather than on landing pages, although tend to pay slightly more – particularly when combined with Open Bidding.
What are the benefits of Web Interstitials?
- High impact resulting in increased user engagement
- High CPM rates across mobile and desktop
- Impressions are capped at one per hour per user by default
- Compliant with the Better Ads Standards
- High viewability
- Clear exit option so that users’ can navigate away from the ad. For video ads, there may be a 5-second delay
2. Rewarded Video Ads
Rewarded video ads allow publishers to offer users an incentive in exchange for engaging with an ad or performing a specific action. For example, users can be rewarded with access to an article or additional coins in a game in exchange for watching a video ad. With rewarded video ads, publishers are able to specify rewards available to consenting users and decide which rewards will be used for each ad unit.
The Rewarded Ads funnel usually goes like this:
1. Users are presented with the option to view an ad in order to receive a reward.
2. The user then opts in or out and engages with the ad.
3. Once the user views the ad, they then receive the reward.
4. The user consumes the reward and is able to continue using the app.
Rewarded ads are an exclusive ad format and need to be specifically enabled by Google in order to serve and are now available to OKO publishers.
What are the benefits of Rewarded Ads?
- Creates a more positive user experience whereby users are able to continue playing, progressing or accessing paid items
- Users are given the choice to opt-in, making the ads non-intrusive
- Highly viewable ad units
- Higher engagement which results in higher CPMs
Would you like to benefit from the high CPMs that these powerful ad formats bring? OKO can provide access to all these high-impact ad formats – and more! Get in touch today to find out how we can help you optimise your ad monetization setup.
3. In-Article or In-Feed Video Ads
In-Article ads are video ads that are shown in between paragraphs on a webpage. When an In-Article video ad unit scrolls into a user’s viewport, the ad will automatically play but is muted until the user opts in to hear the audio. In-Feed ads share a similar concept but appear in social media feeds without styling that mimics the medium in which they appear.
This type of video ad will automatically play in a muted state when 50% of the ad unit is visible to the user. An impression is counted once the first frame of the video is rendered but users must opt-in to hear the audio. Once the video ad ends, the ad unit remains visible displaying the last frame of the video and presenting users with a call-to-action, such as ‘Learn more’, which links to the advertisers landing page.
In-Article and In-Feed video ads are supported for fixed display ad slots on desktop, mobile web and app.
What are the benefits of In-Article and In-Feed Video Ads?
- Video ads perform better in terms of user engagement and generating higher CPM rates
- Allow publishers to benefit from the high CPMs of video ads without needing to create and publish video content
- Opt-in nature means that users retain control and ads are non-intrusive
- Native format improves the user experience as users are less aware that they are interacting with an ad
- Auto-playing videos tend to generate 5% to 6% higher engagement rates than non-auto-playing video ads
4. Adhesion Ads
Adhesion ads are ‘sticky’ ad units that sit at the bottom of a web browser as a user scrolls a webpage. These ad units are highly viewable as they follow users around your website which means that advertisers will pay more for these impressions.
Adhesion ads can be placed either horizontally or vertically in the sidebar of the page.
What are the benefits of Adhesion ads?
- By default, adhesion ads offer high viewability
- They offer greater exposure to users which increases engagement for advertisers
- Advertisers are willing to pay publishers more as impressions are more valuable
- Users are presented with the option to close the ad, so they are non-intrusive
- Adhesion ads allow publishers to improve the domain’s overall viewability score over time, which translates to greater long-term revenue gains
- Ad size is highly customizable for placements on mobile
- Users can be targeted by Header Bidding as well as Ad Exchange which maximizes revenue
5. Contextual Video
Video ads achieve some of the highest CPMs, but require video content to get the best rates. Outstream removes that requirement, but tend to be less engaging and therefore attracts lower bids. Contextual video aims to solve this problem by pairing video ads with content that matches the page. Smart systems read the page content and find matching video assets from vast libraries and packages it together with video ads. The result is more engaging ads and better rates that outstream but without requiring costly video production.
With the looming death of third-party cookies, contextual video ads are a great option for those looking for powerful monetization solutions that are less reliant of user data. Artificial intelligence considers contextual factors such as webpage topic, specific brand, device and consumer location, before recommending a video.
What are the benefits of Contextual Video?
- Native format and contextual targeting make the format relevant but non-intrusive to users.
- Highly engaging which is beneficial for advertisers.
- Video commands higher CPMs which results in greater revenue for publishers.
