Rich Media Dominates Online Ads: DoubleClick Study
Rich media is dominating the field of online ads, accounting for 37% of all ads served in the third quarter of 2003, according to the DoubleClick Ad Serving Trend Report.
Rich media — dynamic ads that fly across Web pages, pop-ups and any ad that includes Macromedia Flash creative technology — has increased 15% since the second quarter of 2003.
In spite of rich media’s popularity, click rates for the technology have declined each quarter. Still, rich media click rates are more than five times higher (5.4%) than those for non-rich media (1.6%).
Other findings show that standard banner ads still account for the largest portion of ads served, some 58%. But larger sizes are becoming more popular. Leaderboards, a wide unit (728 x 90) that often appear at the tops of pages of content, is now the third most common size and accounts for 8.8% of ads served.
Button ads have lost ground, and skyscrapers, once among the fastest growing have started to taper off.
The volume of ads served has risen to the highest level since 2001, DoubleClick said. The company served 172 billion ads during the quarter — an increase of nearly 19% from the third quarter of 2002.
The DoubleClick Ad Serving Trend Report contains aggregate data from DoubleClick’s online advertising-serving technology. The data is based on 1.1 trillion ads from thousands of clients served since the first quarter of 2002.
