In lecture five we had a look at the formats paid online ads can come in.
The most basic of these is Text ads, e.g. Google Ads, these ad’s are extremely effective for traffic to websites. When a brand wants to create an impression online rather than just direct traffic the following two formats are more suited. These formats can be used in different ways including a full homepage takeover or sponsoring a targeted section of a site.
Rich Media Ads.
Rich media ad formats are in general more expensive and difficult to design. Types of Rich Media are ‘Expanding’, ‘Peel-Back’, ‘Floating’, or Video. Most of these will interfere with the user experience on the website they are on e.g. ‘Expanding’ will expand a small ad across a page when the user interacts. A full list of Rich Media types can be found here: http://goo.gl/qd4Wa
One thing publishers have to be aware of with rich media ads, is that there has to be a clear ‘Close’ or ‘X’ for the customer to shut down the ad. Otherwise the ad will annoy the customer if they cannot read the content on the webpage they have visited and the publisher will loose readers as a result.
Display Ads.
Display ads can be found on webpages mainly on the Leaderboard, Skyscraper or MPU (Mid Page Unit). The MPU is the most popular position for a display ads and generally receives the most click through’s. The display ad can include text, images and animation to portray the message and usually will click through to the a dedicated landing page on the client website.
My own experience is with display ads and while they are great for brand awareness (which is difficult to measure) I believe on a limited budget, text ads to direct traffic would be more effective. I do find as a consumer the MPU is where my attention is directed when on various websites.
Marketing- Digitally 