What makes rich media ads unique and effective are their interactive nature. They include multimedia features such as video, audio, animation as well as text and image elements. Because they are interactive, rich media ads excel at engaging your target audience, which in turn helps you boost brand awareness and drive traffic and conversions.
In fact, the only disadvantage of rich media ads is the extra time, effort, and capital needed to create such ads.
The Elements
Non-rich media ads are made up of just three elements: An image, a CTA and an ad copy, whereas rich media ads can have impactful multimedia elements that allow users to interact with the brand.
The Benefits
Because rich media ads are dynamic and deeply engaging, they are capable of increasing conversions and achieving higher click through rates. Further rich media ads offer a better user experience and are noticeable.
Banner Ads
Banner ads can come in two formats: in-banner and expanding. In-banner ads are regular banners ads with interactive features including slide/scroll options. With interesting elements such as videos, audio, and animation, they are real attention-grabbers. However, in-banner ads don’t move or float and can be ignored more easily. Expanding ads do expand in response to user actions like a click. They can be pushdown ads, multidirectional ads and floating ads. Expanding ads catch users’ attention easily. They also animate across the page for a short duration but don’t spoil the user experience.
Interstitial Ads
This is a full-page ad and covers the publisher’s interface. Usually, mobile apps use these ads during transition points and remain active for a few seconds. An example is an ad that pops up on a video game app when a "Play Again" button is clicked. Such ads usually don’t have an exit button initially but show one after a few seconds. As Google has strict guidelines on providing uninterrupted user experience, these ads need to be employed with care.
Lightbox
Lightbox ads are interactive rich media ads that expand and give users a great user experience. They are effective in capturing the viewer’s attention. Just like floating ads, they first appear small on the sidebar of a page, and once the user clicks on it expand. Users get to interact with the ad through multiple actions.
The difference is worth it
Rich media ads, as mentioned earlier, feature interactive and engaging multimedia elements including audio, video, or animation as against other static ad formats with only text and images. This is a worthy difference, though.
The Right Planning
Only with the right balance of media elements can you make your rich media ad effective. What matters is the creativity and relevance of images, videos and copy, and a compelling CTA. If you get it right, rich media ads can enhance customer engagement and increase conversions.
Ad creation tools
Several online tools are available to help you create a rich media ad.
A popular tool is the Google Rich Media Gallery. Here, you can create refined rich media ads for free using templates, and can be customized as well. You can also utilize video marketing tools such as Idomoo and Wistia to create impactful rich media ads.