‘Call to action’ boosts Web ad effectiveness
Online advertisements that include a “call to action” could increase their revenue by 85 per cent. Changing other elements, such as colour and size, can also significantly improve the return on investment, according to a new study.
Will Becker, managing director for Europe at interactive marketing services provider Advertising.com, which conducted the research, says: “The effects of slight variations in campaign design are startling.”
Advertising.com – bought by America Online in August for $435m (£241m) – used its proprietary Optigence research platform to analyse over 10 million page impressions for three different advertisers, looking at how response rates altered when different design elements were used. One advertiser saw an 85 per cent increase in revenue earned per thousand impressions (RPM) for a banner ad that included a call to action – which can be as simple as “click here” – compared with ads with no such mechanism. Another saw a 50 per cent increase in RPM when the colours used in its ads were varied, while the third achieved a 45 per cent increase in RPM by changing the size of its ads.
Other design elements that were tested included click buttons, creative concepts, and the inclusion of advertiser logos.
Optigence conducts continual analysis of user behaviour, based on data collected from Advertising.com’s performance-based advertising network, representing over 74 per cent of UK online users.
