Report: Mobile Video Ad Consumption Rises, Native Ads Yielding Higher Engagement Rates

Celtra issued its Mobile Display Ads Performance Report covering the first quarter of 2014 today. The report shows ad performance rates leveled off for the first time since Celtra began reporting on it in 2012. However, areas of growth include video ad consumption, and native ads performed quite strongly. Native ad formats accounted for just […]

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Celtra mobile ads Celtra issued its Mobile Display Ads Performance Report covering the first quarter of 2014 today. The report shows ad performance rates leveled off for the first time since Celtra began reporting on it in 2012. However, areas of growth include video ad consumption, and native ads performed quite strongly.

Native ad formats accounted for just 1 percent of the total impressions, yet engagement and click through rates on native ads outperformed both standard formats and IAB Rising Stars ads. Native ads saw engagement rates hit 14 percent, well above 9.8 percent and 3.4 percent for standard and rising star ads, respectively. Similarly, CTR on native ads topped 10 percent, compared to 5.1 percent for rising stars and 3.5 percent for standard ads.

Native mobile ad performance

Mobile Video Ad Engagement

Celtra reports that video play rates on standard ads have held steady just above 12 percent. Video completion rates shot up from the previous quarter by 52 percent for standard ad formats and by 77 percent for native ads.

Play rates were highest on standard ads at 12.2 percent compared to 9.4 percent for native ads. However, native ads performed better on video completion with 77.3 percent completion rates versus 52.4 percent for standard ads. Across both ad formats, video play and completion rates were higher when they were shown in-app versus on mobile web. Not surprising, video ads were more likely to be played and completed on tablets than on smartphones.

Mobile video ad benchmarks

Video ads saw the highest play rates in the Retail vertical at 20.4 percent. Travel garnered the highest completion rates at 60.3 percent among the verticals measured.

The Technology and Pharmaceutical verticals had the highest click through rates at 4.32 percent and 3.9 percent, respectively.

Ad expansion rates in the Automotive sector saw the highest performance increase. Rates nearly doubled from 0.34 percent in Q4 2013 to 0.65 percent in Q1 2014.

Of the impressions captured by the mobile creative and ad serving firm in Q1, 85 percent occurred on smartphones, the remaining 15 percent were shown on tablets. In-app ads dominated with 60 percent of the impressions versus 40 percent showing on mobile web sites. iOS garnered 57 percent of impressions, while Android is catching up at 42 percent.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Ginny Marvin
Contributor
Ginny Marvin was formerly Third Door Media’s Editor-in-Chief, running the day-to-day editorial operations across all publications and overseeing paid media coverage. Ginny Marvin wrote about paid digital advertising and analytics news and trends for Search Engine Land, Marketing Land and MarTech Today. With more than 15 years of marketing experience, Ginny has held both in-house and agency management positions. She can be found on Twitter as @ginnymarvin.

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