Key Takeaways on #ResponsiveDesign Ads from @AdMonsters #TechForum

In an illuminating panel discussion hosted by AdMonsters this week Anastasia Debras, Manager of Advertising Operations from Tribune and Michelle Dennis, Assoc. Director of Ad Product Development from Hearst offered their thoughts on how they conceptualized, and deliver high impact, custom ad units across their responsive design sites. 

1 - Will Flash Ever Die?

It is not going anywhere as long as ad agencies don't update their browsers and older Americans (a.k.a. Baby Boomers) who are not on mobile have influence. It is still a necessity since it has been around for a long time meaning that talent to create flash ads is abundant and affordable. Also, there are extensive flash libraries that developers can easily tap while HTML5 still has a way to go.

2 - Do We Need To Standardize Responsive Ads?

Every publisher has different break points for content delivery to different screen sizes and every responsive site is unique. These factors will make standardization for cross screen and responsive design campaigns somethings that we will not see in the near future. 

"Everyone wants something different and cool." - Anastasia 

High impact advertising for publishers with responsive design sites will continue to rely on direct sales to promote their "native" & custom offers and publishers with in house ad creative capabilities (whether under their own roof or using a specialist technology firm like CheckM8) will win more business. 

5 Digital Advertising Trends for 2015

Let me share with you some of the trends that we at CheckM8 see affecting our publishers and how we address them.

1 – “Native” advertising gets a lot of attention as publishers create text content for their advertising partners but there is still a large market of advertisers whose story is best told through site, sound and motion – video. With a lack of brand quality video inventory, demand is high and CheckM8 gives our publishing partners a variety of formats to create quality supply.

2 – Viewability takes center stage. Google reports that 56% of digital display ads are not seen. This leads to poor performance metrics and lower CPMs. CheckM8 specializes in 100% viewable ads which improves performance simply because a greater % of people actually see the ad. Our demand partners funnel more money toward channels that perform better which leads to higher CPMs for our publishers.

3 – Ad Blindness. The audience is not paying attention to the right rail and banners at the top of the page. Audience eyeballs have been trained to find content. Advertisers who get their message in front of eyeballs get better results and direct more ad spend toward those placements.

4 – Mobile. We already support cross screen and responsive campaigns when they are directly sold by our publishing partners.

5 – Side Door Traffic. The Home Page Takeover is losing its value due to more traffic driven by social media directly toward article pages. Our ad units are high impact, viewable and able to be run on every page.

Take a look at our example links on your laptop, tablet & phone:

• Page Roll: http://www.checkm8.com/?p=517
• Videostitial: http://www.checkm8.com/?p=578

The Videostitial is a great way for publishers to monetize their audience traffic with TV style video ads delivered on a transparent, branded canvas.

* 100% guaranteed viewable with full page display

* 14% Video Completes

* 3.3% Click Rate

* 1.3% Video “Likes”

* Maximizes your reach by working seamlessly across screens – desktop, tablet and phones

* Auto orientates to portrait or landscape viewing and dynamically optimizes for mobile

* Tracking:

o    Starts, Quartiles, Completes

o    Clicks & Likes

o    Average time viewed