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We are so pleased our team has attended Affiliate World Europe in Barcelona this year!

  The conference was splendid and extremely productive.The market was packed with 300 advertisers, traffic sources, and affiliate networks. It was an amazing experience for our team, full of networking and new opportunities. We were happy to be a part of the biggest affiliate show ever!

If you have clicked here, you’re probably wondering how rich media ads are different from other ad formats. You’ve probably heard the term “rich media ads” at least once in your foray across the advertising realm. But do you know how these interactive ads are different from other ad layouts? If you’re new to advertising, there’s a good chance you might not know what they are. Or maybe you think the old, classic static banner ads are better. If you really think that, you might want to reconsider because rich media ads could be incredibly useful to your business. You could be missing out on a whole lot of ROI and profit if you don’t start looking into them right now. Lucky for you, that’s precisely what this article is for. To find out more about how rich media ads are different from other ad formats and how their utilization can affect your business, keep reading!

Rich Media Advertisements: What Are They?

  Online advertising has become an exciting and innovative space for advertisers, ripe for experimenting with new opportunities. Rich media ads are proof of that. Simply put, rich media ads are the kinds of ads which provide a lot of flexibility and interactivity with the advertisement itself through the use of multimedia elements like videos, images, and audio files. The bottom line is that it becomes easier for audiences to engage with the ad. This makes your company seem a lot more appealing and gives it a unique “personality,” which is interactive and fun. Rich media ads give the average advertisement, usually a one-way banner screaming at a disinterested user, an extra boost. This is one of the ways interactive ads are different from other ad layouts. Some of the best online advertisements in recent years have been interactive rich media ads. They aren’t just used by brands anymore. Advertisers have been using them to promote new TV shows and movies. There are no limits to advertising anymore. You can reach anyone anywhere at any time – provided you have the right strategy and enough resources. Having said all that, it should be no mystery to you about why you should be using rich media ads. If you’re still not sure about how exactly they can help you promote your services, keep reading to find out. We’ll get to how rich media ads are different from other ad formats in a second.

How can Rich Media Ads Help You?

  They provide advertisers with a lot of creative freedom, allowing them to think outside the box and explore fun and unique new avenues of advertising.

Another great benefit is that they work great with mobile ads, making their scope broader and their reach wider. Mobile rich media ads also beat static banner ads and desktop ads in both ad performance and viewability rates. Clearly, rich media ads have a longer-lasting impact on potential consumers than static banner ads or even desktop ads. Mobile rich media ads provide people with greater accessibility, and they can easily interact with these ads on the go. The sort of constant targeting provided by mobile rich advertising can help you in increasing your brand awareness dramatically, as well as giving people a fantastic user experience. What happens then? People associate that excellent user experience with your brand, making them all the more likely to seek out your products and services! Not only will your product have a high chance of standing out from the competition, but it will also allow you to put your creativity on display through a dynamic advertisement. Rich media ads are an accessible tool and can be an invaluable resource in your advertising arsenal. There are several websites you can use to build your own rich media advertisements, one of the most popular being Google Web Designer. You can find several guidelines about how exactly you can work on creating such interactive rich media ads.

The Types of Rich Media Ads

  Chances are you’ve probably encountered all three types at one point or another during your time on the internet.

In-page Ad:

  You’ve probably seen such ads several times scattered throughout a web page. In-page ads are the standard advertisements that appear on the web page, either in the middle of the page or one of the corners.

Out of Page Ad:

  These are the kinds of ads that pop up or open in an entirely different window in front of your web page. They’re supposed to stand out and divert the user’s attention to the ad, but they can easily come off as invasive, spammy and annoying, so it’s best to be careful with these.

In-stream Ad:

  Have you ever seen a YouTube video which featured some ad for a product that you’ve never heard of before? That’s what in-stream ads are. These ads play either before, after, or in the middle of a video. Yes, they can be annoying and invasive but are also a great way to get your point across. In many instances, you can stuff your main points within the first five seconds and grab the viewer’s attention before they have the chance to skip your ad.

The Difference Between Rich Media Ads and Other Ad Formats

  I have a question for you. With such a wide variety of innovative digital technologies that advertisers can take advantage of, would you rather have your ad be interactive and creative, or would you rather it be a dull, unmoving, static ad that displays just one piece of information? That’s what I thought. Static ads are just boring now. Rich media ads are a lot more appealing than regular ads. They’re a lot easier to manipulate and make attention-grabby without looking tacky or garish. The most apparent difference between rich media ads and other ad formats is this; people want to click on rich media ads. What are some of the other reasons interactive ads are different (and better) from other ad layouts? Here’s why.

Simplicity:

  Regular static ads are produced in a simple format and incorporate GIFS, flash images, 2D visuals, and JPEGs. Rich media ads are a lot more versatile, and you can incorporate audio/video aspects, making for a richer and more creative mode of advertising.

Size Difference:

  Static banner ads are usually much smaller in size than rich media ads (less than 200 KB), which means that they’re easier to handle and upload but at the cost of interactivity. Rich media ads are generally a lot bigger than 200 KB but provide a whole host of features that the alternative does not.

Technological Differences:

  Static banner ads use pretty standard technology and visuals. Rich media ads are a lot more compatible with different types of technologies, i.e., Java, JavaScript, and HTML5.

Quality:

  Static banner ads simply do not have the same quality of storytelling and the advanced features of rich media ads which make them so compelling and appealing to click on.

Interactivity:

  While static banner ads usually need to be clicked to be interacted with (after which the user is transferred to a landing page) rich media ads are interactive on their own and can convey a lot of information about your brand even before someone clicks on it.

Versatility:

  One of the more versatile features of rich media ads (unlike static ads) is that users can use the ads to play small, mini flash games, providing a great little boost to the interest levels of the user.

Ad Performance:

  Ad performance is one of the core elements advertisers need to consider. A static banner ad is only measurable using the Click Through Rate (CTR) metric. On the other hand, you can track user experience and engagement with rich media ads using multiple complex metrics.

Information:

  Rich media ads can provide a lot more information than the static ad. Where a static ad would display limited information, interactive ads host a lot more information and can provide more material related to your company to the users, another one of the big ways interactive ads are different from other ad layouts. By now, you should be able to see how much more advanced rich media ads are. It might be hard to admit. But the truth is that these ads are the stepping stones to gaining an interested consumer base that appreciates your creativity. These ads can provide a drastic amount of ROI and a great deal of engagement with potential consumers.

Rich Media Ad Formats

  Still not sold? You might change your mind when you hear about the versatility provided by the different formats of rich media ads.

Rich Media Banner Ads

  One of the most common formats, these ads usually appear above the fold (top front on web and mobile) and are a favorite of advertisers. With these ads, you get the chance of converting a boring old static banner into an engaging, eye-catching, interactive poster. The big benefit of this is that it decreases load time significantly and has high viewability.

Rich Media Interstitial Ads

  These ads are extremely hard to miss and grab a person’s attention dramatically; think full screen. They take up so much space that it makes them extremely hard to ignore. They’re functional on both web and mobile. Their significant benefit is that they are incredibly high on the viewability scale and have great recall value. The downside is its high load time.

Rich Media Slider Ads

  These ads are, as the name suggests, sliding ads, i.e., the ad moves (or slides) as the user interacts with it. These are usually placed at the bottom of the screen. Their significant benefit is that they are high on the CTR scale and less invasive than regular ads.

Rich Media Expandable Ads

  These ads expand to a fuller, bigger size when a user interacts or begins to interact with the ad. You might have seen it. You hover your cursor over an ad, and it opens up and expands. These ads are extremely compelling to look at, and interactive before the interaction even begins. They’re high in viewability and recall value, as well as being very eye-catching with a higher CPM. Their downside, however, is that they have a longer load time due to being so filled with multimedia.

Rich Media Push-down Ads