In its recently released Global Benchmark Report, MediaMind Research analyzed billions of impressions to help advertisers make the most of their Standard Banner campaigns. In addition, the report contains detailed performance benchmarks for all popular formats for six regions and 50 countries. The study, called “Standard Banners – Non-Standard Results” indicates that in the past few years, CTR for Standard Banners has been steadily declining. The good news is that in 2010 it seems to have stabilized.
CTR stopped declining
When the first display banners appeared in the 90’s, they were greeted by users with a significantly higher Click Through Rate (CTR) as compared to today’s CTR. As online advertising developed and grew in spending and also in sophistication, CTR declined.
Chart 1 indicates that while the trend of decline in CTR began long ago, the greatest decline has been around September 2008. That month, Lehman Brothers collapsed, taking with it the world economy. This had an adverse effect on users’ willingness to click on ads.
An analysis of CTR of Standard Banners indicates that average CTR declined from 0.15% in 2006 to 0.09% in 2010. Yet, in 2009 and 2010 this decline seems to have stopped. Both in 2009 and the first eight months of 2010, Average CTR has remained around 0.09%. This indicates that online a advertising performance has reached equilibrium.
Is not all about clicks
An analysis of more than 100 million conversions from thousands of campaigns worldwide confirms that only about 20% of conversions are the result of a click, while the vast majority is the result of viewing the banner without clicking. These results show that clicks are only a partial measure of online advertising effectiveness. About 80% of the traffic of users that were exposed to the ads is not accounted for when measuring only clicks. Placing conversion tags on the site is a smart move for better measurement of an online campaign.
Benchmarks Overview
The following benchmark tables provide a summary of the results of campaigns that were served by MediaMind between Q3 2009 and Q2 2010. To produce these benchmarks, MediaMind Research analyzed the results of over 200 billion impressions delivered in six different regions and more than 50 different countries.
Chart 10: Standard Banner and Rich Media by Region
Overall global CTR is 0.21%. Rich Media tends to be X3.5 higher CTR as compared to Standard Banners—0.32% as compared to 0.09%. As far as regional differences are concerned, there is a clear rule of thumb. If you are a former English speaking British colony, your CTR and Dwell are likely to be lower. Thus, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have lower CTR performance as compared to other regions. This is mainly due to differences in user behavior and market maturity.
Latin America, South Asia and Europe tend to have the highest Dwell Rate, while Latin America also has the highest Average Dwell Time. Europe tends to have a significantly higher Dwell Rate as compared to North America, Australia and New Zealand, mostly due to differences in user behavior, though in part could be seen in differences in current publisher restrictions.
The benchmark tables contain benchmark averages on interactions, Dwell, clicks, expansions and video metrics. Data is broken down by formats, sizes and verticals. The next 46 pages contain information on 6 regions and 38 countries. The last two pages contain a full description of each vertical and a definition for each of the metrics used.
Benchmarks for Latin America – Q3 2009 to Q2 2010
Performance Metrics (By Format, Size and Vertical)
To read the full Report click here.
