Profit on Clickable Ads ePaper.jpg

Clickable Ads: Why you can't afford not to use them

By Mads Mikkelsen | Jul 04 2017 | Business | Insights

Many types of digital ads have been introduced since the term ‘digital advertising’ was first coined back in the beginning of the 90’s. Some of these ads have proven successful. Others have not. Clickable Ads in the ePaper is one of the formats that’s proven particularly successful. 

We’ve looked at our customers’ Clickable Ads performance to give you an idea about their revenue potential. You will also get a few pointers on how you as a publisher can increase your Clickable Ads’ performance and decide on the right pricing.

The Effectiveness of Clickable Ads

To explicate exactly how effective Clickable Ads in the ePaper are, we did a comparison between the average Click Through Rate (CTR) of five popular advertisement formats. And as you can see in the figure below, there’s no denying the effectiveness of Clickable Ads in the ePaper.

Click Through Rates (CTR) for Selected Advertising Formats

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Comparison of selected advertising formats' performance. The Clickable Ads' (ePaper) performance is derived from our custom developed ePaper tracking measures among 118 newspapers actively using Clickable Ads in the ePaper. The other advertising formats' performance is derived from Adform's Digital Advertising Benchmark Report 2015.

With a CTR more than five times higher than Standard Banners, Clickable Ads is certainly a format that’s worth your attention.  

How to Boost Performance

In order to convince your advertisers to invest in Clickable Ads, there’s a set of variables heavily influencing the CTR performance you have to know about. These variables are day of the week, position in the ePaper, size and colour.

1. Day of the week

Of these variables, the far best performance influencer proves to be the day of the week the advertisement is published. Specifically, releasing on a Saturday proves to increase the CTR the most by impressive 3,00%. The reason Saturdays, and to a minor degree Sundays with 1,76%, outperform the weekdays is ascribed to the readers having more time to interact with the ePaper and, by extension, also the advertisement.

2. Position in the epaper

The position in the ePaper also plays a role when it comes to CTR effectiveness. By placing the advertisement on the last page in the ePaper, the people who have taken the time to read through the entire publication and have a little more time to kill, are much more likely to do so by clicking the advertisement on the last page. Placing the advertisement on the last page impacts CTR by an increase of 0,19%.

3. Size

In the case of Clickable Ads, size does matter. Especially advertisements displayed on a full-page experience significant increases in CTR with as much as 0,70%, compared to advertisements of smaller size.

4. Colour

Colour is a tricky variable to isolate from other variables such as  ad copy, but there’s no doubt it plays a role in the ad’s performance. By comparing different overarching colour themes, blue clearly distinguishes itself from other colours by adding the most positive effects to the CTR with increases of 0,19%.

When approaching advertisers, we urge you to take these variables into consideration and actively use them to provide the appropriate guidance and enable your advertisers’ success.

Deciding on the Right Pricing

Increasing digital advertisement revenues might not seem straight forward. But empowering your advertisers with insights on how well ePaper advertisements can perform also provides you with the arguments to charge more for your Clickable Ads. Remember, you are providing a top of the class advertisement platform to your advertisers. And it’s a format that’s very easy to use.

How to set It up and Make More Money

All you need to set up Clickable Ads for your advertisers is a link to the desired landing page. In the ePaper, Clickable Ads will catch the readers' attention with a brief double flash. This functionality alone justifies charging a price premium, and with a direct link to their webshop advertisers will gain access to relevant segments with high purchasing powers.  

To sum up: As a publisher, you have a great opportunity to increase ROI by fully exploiting the Clickable Ads’ potential. And providing advertisers with performance data by means of your analytics setup and additional insights on the variables boosting performance, strengthens your position to bargain premium prices.  

If you want to learn more about Clickable Ads and how to increase their performance, feel free to get in touch with our Business Consulting department or contact me directly using this email: mam@visiolink.com.


Mads Mikkelsen

Author

Mads Mikkelsen

Business Development Consultant