Ad Formats Face Off
The 4 Major Digital Ad Formats Face Off
Much  has been said about the death of the traditional banner ad, and new benchmarking research from Adform highlights the format’s inability to compete with more dynamic digital offerings. Not only did rich media ads deliver 267 percent more clickthroughs than a traditional banner, but banners also came in dead last in in-screen impressions. Telecommunications companies seem to have already tapped into this trend, as one recent report said they are putting as much as 77 percent of their mobile spend in rich media and video ads.

But even for those underperforming banners, there’s an audience. An analysis by vertical showed content related to law, government and politics provided the highest CTR in standard banners, as well as high engagement. This same content delivered the lowest CTR for otherwise high-performing rich media ads.

Here is a breakdown of the activity on these four types of digital ads, and which categories performed the best on each in the first two quarters of 2014.