Display ads continue to thrive in Europe with total ad spend predicted to hit $17.3 billion (approx. £12.2 billion) across France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK, growing by 14.7% from 2018 (even with the advent of ad blocking technologies).
Despite this growth, many marketers struggle with choosing the right ad format/s for their campaign that will ultimately create the highest return to spend ration possible. Fortunately, the team over at Bannerflow have been keeping an eye and have been generating some interesting research. To date identifying the four major format trends marketers should be concentrating on in display for 2019 (to produce the best results possible).
Video format
In-banner video has been one of the formats biggest successes over the past few years and continues to perform well for 2019. The technique of delivering a video within a banner ad has been proven to increase CTR by an incredible 18.4%. If you need inspiration when creating these types of ads, look for companies advertising who operate with the three industries below who are leading the way with in-banner video.
Industry impression share of video banners
- Telecom – 27.2%
- iGaming – 7.2%
- Travel & Hotel – 6.4%
Dynamic creative
Dynamic creative is display advertising which adapts to the viewer and can deliver specific messages to individuals depending on their location, time zone, age gender etc (dynamic creative ads are currently very popular on Facebook as a delivery format).
While this is still a relatively new format built on recent technological advances it can significantly increase the chances of users taking an interest in our advertising. However only 17.3% of display advertising served last year used dynamic data feeds (meaning there’s definite room for growth and further utilisation). Given how important personalisation is to the modern consumer, this is very low, and we can expect to see that number rise considerably this year.
Mobile format
We’re spending more and more time on our mobile devices, meaning advertisers need to be prepared to think of this as the primary format in which to create their ad specs. 55.2% or all weekend ad impressions happen on mobile, dropping down to 45.5% during the week.
Weekend campaigns now need to be focused on delivering mobile optimised content (similar to the way content marketing is adapting for mobile), and we will see this be put into practice far more heavily in 2019.
A word on banner Sizes
Deciding on the display ad-size and format to feature your content in has always been a primary focus of marketers carrying out this activity.
While the most popular sizes will evoke no surprises and will continue to be heavily used; it’s how marketers utilise the less popular options which can provide an advantage.
Savvy usage in this department can cause your cost per mille (CPM) to drop since the competition is lower for less standard sizes and enable your demand-side platform to perform better since it can learn from more sizes. If you want to get further insight into evolving formats and trends for the display market in 2019, check out the infographic below.
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