IAB’s In-App Advertising Overview
Advertising within mobile applications is, obviously, a big, emerging beast that is just beginning to rise from the waters. While Apple’s devices and platforms have played the biggest hand so far, Android and BlackBerry have also been key players. In light of this growing market, the IAB recently released its “Prevailing Mobile In-Application Advertising Formats: Version 1.0” report.
“Few new media platforms of the last five years have generated as much excitement as applications (“apps”) on mobile or portable devices,” the IAB notes in its introductory note. The organization points to the personal experiences with mobile devices, in addition to their stimulating screens and interfaces as the foundation for the promising arenas where consumers can be reached by companies.
Though smart phones still make up a minority of the market compared to feature phones, smart phones “far outpace their “less capable cousins when it comes to accessing mobile data services,” the report asserts. “And the proliferation of apps on these devices, tailor-made to offer rich experiences despite the limitations of mobile data networks, is likely to drive only more data usage over time.”
The document released by the IAB on Monday, which is meant to be a guide to mobile app ad formats, looked at platforms offered by Android, BlackBerry, iPad, iPhone/iPod Touch, Palm, Symbian and Windows Mobile.
Among the 14 IAB member companies that responded with the ad formats they support were Associated Press, CNN.com, ESPN.com, Millennial Media and Pandora.
Across all smart phone application platforms, the IAB observed that banner sizes were mostly harmonious. The 6:1 Mobile Marketing Association mobile banner size 300×50. Most of the participating companies supported 300x50s directly, while the others supported a slightly larger format, which would fit 300×50 ads with black or white bars around it.
However, with the iPhone screen sitting pretty at 320×480, IAB notes that 300×50 ads leave room for empty space.
Ads 320×50 in size were the second most common, which solves the potential blank-space issue for iPhones.
The report found that no publisher surveyed offered landscape banners (e.g., 480×75) for smart phone apps, though the IAB expects these formats to begin appearing in the future.
Though dimensions were consistent across platforms, file weights were not – files from 5KB to 15KB were accepted for static banners. “The best practice for buyers looking to build once and run across a variety of app publishers would seem to be to work with and follow the recommendations of a mobile ad network, or else to build as light as possible,” the IAB said.
The 320×480 ad was the most common full-screen-size format across all platforms. Also, while expandables are available, no single format(s) have significant support. This will change over time, according to the IAB.
The iPhone/iPod Touch saw the broadest diversity of creative sizes supported, though the 300×50 or 320×50 were the most common.
For Android devices, the common sizes were typical, with three full-screen formats seeing notable acceptance, in addition to six different banner resolutions that were each 320 pixels wide.
BlackBerry suffers from fragmentation thanks to model-specific formats, which “increase marketer costs, likely deterring spending on in-app ads.”
The iPad is seeing sizes that reflect regular Web ads, though super-large sizes were offered by at least two publishers. These big ads will be interesting to track, the IAB notes.
The emerging best practices are to: build mobile-specific landing pages for in-app ad campaigns, avoid overly heavy creative and landing pages, and don’t re-purpose smart phone (or Web) creative for in-app ads on tablets.
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