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Consumers Intentionally Engage with Online Ads

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July 22, 2009

Eyeblaster, the leading independent provider of integrated digital advertising solutions, today released a study focused on the measurement of time and consumer consumption of online display advertising. The complete study, “Trends in Time and Attention in Online Advertising” — when and how marketers can retain and sustain consumer’s attention in digital marketing is available for download at http://tinyurl.com/dwell-time.

Eyeblaster used isolated data from a sample size of 42 billion rich media impressions spanning across all formats and global regions, analyzing Dwell Time, a metric that measures engagement as the average time consumers intentionally spend with online ads. Previous time related metrics, such as expansion duration or video duration, were limited to niche formats and creative implementations.

The study segmented multiple groups, and focuses on:

  • Video vs. non-video: Video nearly doubles the average Dwell Time – shows consumers spend 37.7 seconds with non-video in banner ads vs. that of 71.51 seconds.
  • Click thru rate vs Dwell Time: Dwell Time, which measures intentional active engagement is 8.71% compared to an average CTR for rich media at .35% (Dwell Time shows users are 25 times higher/more likely to spend meaningful time on the ad than click on it).
  • Consumer attention by time of day: Dwell Rate is at its highest in the morning, peaking at 9am, when people are prepared to interact, but for not as long as they are at lunch-time when they generally play with ads for longer durations. The data shows CTR picking up in the early evening, and both CTR and Dwell Rate declining as the evening progresses with a drop at about 8.00pm.
  • Performance of Ad formats: Data reveals messenger ads are the top performing ad format, reaching an average 82.98 seconds compared to rich media rectangles (73.46 seconds), banners (58.71 seconds), skyscrapers (37.57 seconds).

“Recent research shows that the lack of suitable metrics as a top frustration for marketers,” said Gal Trifon, CEO and Co-founder at Eyeblaster. “Technology allows us to analyze consumer time spent with display advertising and indicates that consumers intentionally spend nearly a minute with online ads on average. It’s critical to re-evaluate the role of technology and produce campaigns that employ measureable touch-points beyond a click.”

Utilizing Dwell Time, marketers accurately assess consumer consumption and attention for online advertising. Advertisers want to know, “Are users seeing my ads?” and unlike off-line channels like television, Dwell Time can answer a definitive, “yes they are,” providing key engagement measurement irrespective of click-thru. The Dwell Time metric measures key interactions including time the mouse was over an ad, user-initiated video duration, user-initiated expansion duration and any other custom interaction duration. Unintentional dwell instances lasting less than one second are excluded in the calculation.

The study was conducted over a seven month span from September 2008 – March 2009, across North America, EMEA, Latin America and APAC. For a deeper look into the time and attention of consumers in online advertising, download the complete research report here.

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  • Abia Dizon

    I think that’s great… studying the consumers in-depth. Priority should also be given to product/customer support. There are available softwares out there which focuses on this… one worth mentioning is the sufaq (sufaq.com). Another masterpiece by James Brausch.