All You Need to Know About Rich Media Ads
With the digital advertising landscape becoming more and more crowded, it is becoming increasingly difficult for brands to get noticed online. The permeation of ads across the digital landscape is leading to ad fatigue, especially when these ads interrupt the browsing experience of users. Ad fatigue and banner blindness are just some of the challenges that advertisers must overcome to make an impact on their target audience. While digital advertising cannot be ignored, it has become crucial for advertisers to come up with innovative ways to grab the attention of users. Among the best examples of this are rich media ads.
Advertisers must understand what rich media ads are, how to create rich media ads, and how to use rich media ads to maximize the performance of their digital ad campaigns.
What Are Rich Media Ads?
Rich media ads are examples of ad formats that advertisers can use to build brand awareness, deliver better ad experiences, and ultimately improve their ROI. Rich media ads refer to any advertisement that incorporates advanced interactive elements and dynamic visuals, including video, audio, animation, or other elements designed to engage users. The best examples of rich media ads grab the attention of users and drive engagement.
Top examples of rich media ads deliver a more immersive and memorable advertising experience, resulting in higher engagement rates and improved campaign performance. These ads can be created in multiple formats as well, including display banners, interstitials, interactive video ads, and mobile ads.
Features of Rich Media Ads
- As compared to display ads, all examples of rich media ads focus on dynamic visuals and interactive elements instead of static images and text.
- This interactive ad format empowers the user as it requires user interaction to play the audio or content.
- Examples of rich media content that can be integrated into these ads include gaming elements, which make them the ideal format for mobile ads and in-app ads.
- Being compatible with Java, JavaScript, and HTML5, rich media ads can be served across all websites and apps.
Benefits of Using Rich Media Ads
Advertisers should know how to create rich media ads that are engaging, so they can harness the many benefits of using this ad format in digital advertising campaigns.
- Creative & Dynamic
All of the best examples of rich media banners or display ads, by their very definition, are creatively ‘rich’. This ad format offers remarkable versatility, allowing advertisers to promote their brand flexibly, on a larger scale, without being confined by traditional ad space limitations. As an example, rich media ads offer a creative and robust strategy for advertisers to enhance the performance of their ad campaigns. Rich media ads also come with advanced data analytics, which allows advertisers to not only target specific audience segments based on their location or browsing behavior but also to dynamically modify their live campaigns in real-time based on their performance.
- Drive User Engagement
The term "rich media" automatically refers to enhanced media formats, including animations, audio, video, gaming elements, etc. which have become central to ensuring high user engagement. These ads, especially when used in the form of playable ads, boost user engagement by allowing users to get a preview of the advertised brand or product, inviting them to interact with the ad.
- Valuable Metrics
Rich media ads offer access to a wide range of valuable user and performance metrics by tracking multiple key interaction points. They provide insights into the performance of ads, such as engagement rate, time spent, etc. These insights can be used by advertisers to scale or modify live campaigns based on what is working. These metrics are crucial for campaign optimization and offer advertisers deeper insights into understanding user preferences.
- Drive Purchase Intent
Rich media ad campaigns offer more opportunities for improving brand awareness, using interactive elements that keep audiences engaged for longer. Apart from improving brand awareness, recognition, and recall, rich media ads can also be used to drive purchase intent. This consequently helps increase ad revenue for advertisers as well as publishers.
- Better Campaign Performance
All the best examples of rich media ads tell a story. Storytelling is a powerful tool for advertisers. Rich media ads can help advertisers grab the attention of users, engage them, and effectively communicate the brand message, helping improve campaign performance effortlessly.
How to Create Rich Media Ads
Understanding how to create rich media ads is crucial for driving results.
- Decide Your Campaign Strategy
The best examples of rich media ad campaigns are not different from any other ad campaign as both require a solid strategy before anything else. Understand what you are promoting, who the target audience is, and how can the target audience be best engaged. Advertisers should also decide the type of media they wish to use for the campaign and what it will convey, including planning which ad elements should be interactive.
- Create the Assets
Before creating rich media ads or video ads, advertisers should consider the creative assets they will require to build the ads. Make a list of the creative assets needed, like stock footage, in-house videos, imagery, cast or crew required, advertising copies, etc.
- Choose an Ad Builder Platform
You can find several ad builders online. Examples include rich media banner ad builders and OTT and CTV advertising platforms. However, it is important to choose an ad builder that offers advanced features and capabilities, like multiple ad formats, templates, drag-and-drop ad builder, real-time performance tracking and analytics, dynamic creative optimization and dynamic overlays, universally compatible ad tags, etc.
- Build Your Rich Media Ads
Ad builder platforms do not require any technical or graphic designing knowledge, so you can build interactive and engaging rich media ad experiences with ease. Apart from the rich media and interactive elements, your ads may require a compelling ad copy, but it should definitely include a strong call-to-action that drives action.
- Run Ads and Measure Results
Once the ads have been created, it is time to launch your rich media ad campaign. These ads can be placed across all kinds of digital platforms, and they can be used for various marketing strategies, Rich media ad builders also offer robust performance tracking tools that you can use to monitor and optimize your ad campaign in real time.
Complete Creative Freedom
There is much to be said for using an ad builder to create rich media ads. An example of the many benefits an ad builder offers is the ease and convenience it brings to the production process. Ad builders offer better ways to create ads that are more effective and can help improve ROAS. Using the right ad builder, you can plan, execute, and optimize high-performing rich media advertising campaigns. The ads are also much more engaging and generate higher interactions from users. For example, rich media banner ads can overcome issues like banner blindness with ease. With an ad builder, you can choose from a range of successful templates to create your rich media ads. Most ad builders also allow you to track the performance of your live ads based on key performance metrics in real-time. The platforms also allow you to make changes to your live ads and campaigns, allowing you to optimize their delivery and impact based on how they are performing. This helps advertisers make sure that their campaigns are more successful, while also helping ensure that no money is wasted on advertising to an audience that does not interact or convert.
Bests Practices
- Understand Your Audience: While interactive rich media ads are engaging, they will not work if they do not resonate with your target audience. It is crucial to understand your audience and their pain points before creating rich media ads that are relevant to their needs.
- Cross-Device Optimization: Users are surfing the net using a range of devices. It is important to keep that in mind and optimize your ads for different devices.
- Choose Ad Timespan based on Viewer Attention Span: A carousel can hold up to 10-12 images and you have complete freedom to create lengthy videos. However, for maximum impact, it is important to keep the attention span of your viewers in mind while creating ads.
- The CTA: Add a strong CTA that is clear and drives user action, while also conveying the next step to users.
Today, consumers expect instant gratification, which is why the dynamic features of rich media display ads can prove to be invaluable for advertisers.