Mobile video content is most popular in the first 30 days after publication. Now that should come as no surprise, but it does have implications for media archiving and monetization. From our customer data, we’ve found that on average, 88.8 percent of mobile video views take place in the first 30 days, with 95.5 percent taking place within a 90-day window. Publishers may use this information to fine-tune their media storage policies, or they may choose to target ad insertions only within the first 90 days after a piece of content is published. After 90 days, the value of most video assets (not all) goes down significantly.

With the release of Limelight REACH Version 4.8, our customers now have direct control over video deletion and ad insertion policies right from the OpsCenter interface. Both can be adjusted at a granular level, with users determining how long both primary videos and advertisements should remain active. Maybe they should all stay active forever, but maybe old video assets are just taking up space.

One of the great things about online gaming is the ability to extend the life of a title through a series of software updates. As any fan of Angry Birds knows, there’s a little thrill when the update comes in, and suddenly you have a flock (?) of new levels to play. But what’s in it for the game publisher? If the updates are free, as they often are, what’s the payback for the extra time and money invested in a single game?

Beyond building consumer loyalty, game upgrades open up new avenues for other forms of monetization. As we’ve talked about before with our download manager solution, there’s no reason to waste the time when a user is downloading a new file. Instead turn that upgrade experience into a revenue generator. Deliver interactive and video ads through the download interface. Or, create a retail storefront. Offer virtual goods and rack up micro-transactions online. Sell products for the offline world that promote fandom and extend the game brand even further. Advertising and upselling are common in other media. It’s only because the online gaming industry is still in its early stages that these tactics have barely begun to surface within the game experience.

For online gaming, a lot of the rules and best practices have yet to be sorted out, and that means there’s money being left on the table. Where monetization is concerned, there’s a lot of opportunity ahead.

Over the past several years, there has been much debate in online advertising over the value of a click. Once thought of as the ultimate goal of every online campaign, a click has now become one of many success metrics by which you can benchmark ad campaigns. After analyzing over a year’s worth of global campaign data from EyeWonder Interactive Advertising Services, we have discovered a few nuggets of information about the click and how to increase your campaign’s chances of achieving a higher click-through rate (CTR).

First let’s start with the basics. CTR and impressions have a negative correlation. This observation is sometimes referred to as “creative burnout” meaning that there is a decrease in ad effectiveness as exposure frequency increases. The first 2 million impressions of an ad will usually yield the highest CTR possible with a considerable drop-off in clicks as each additional million impressions is served.

Easy enough to understand. But what makes someone click on an ad? Or not? If CTR is your goal, here are three factors that can influence ad clicks and tips on what you can do to make sure your next online ad campaign is a success.

1.     Number of Words in an Ad. The average # of words in an ad (main panel) is about 14. The ideal number of words, as in the number in which you gain no further CTR improvement from adding or subtracting words, is 11. If you use 11 words instead of the 14 average, you will see a 5.5% increase in CTR. With each additional word, your CTR diminishes drastically. So what’s the lesson to be learned? Keep it short and sweet and you’ll get the clicks.

2.     Promotions/Sweepstakes. The chart below shows the effects of including a promotion (contests, coupons, sales) within an ad unit. The dark black line represents the average CTR across all ad units. With a promotion, you can expect about a 14% increase in CTR over the average and a 28% higher CTR than a campaign with no promotion at all (all other variables held constant). Lesson? People like free stuff, or at least the chance at free stuff.

3.     Size of the Call to Action. The size of the Call to Action (CTA) has a dramatic effect on an ad’s CTR performance. The average CTA size (as a % of the total ad size) is 6%. Having a 10% size CTA increases your clicks by 30%. This is a significant improvement in performance for such a small adjustment in CTA size. What have we learned? Tell people what to do, but make sure it’s big enough to catch their attention.

By Kyle Weisbrod, Product Management Program Manager,
Limelight EyeWonder Interactive Advertising Services

As US political groups wind up to raise and spend billions of dollars in advertising for the 2012 elections, the advertising landscape looks vastly different than it did during the last presidential election cycle. In 2008, in the presidential election alone, over $1 billion was spent. Many analysts are predicting that the Republican and Democratic candidates for president will each spend over $1 Billion in the 2012 general election. That’s $2 billion+ and we aren’t even talking about campaigns for Senate seats, governorships, or money coming from Political Action Committees for advertising. Meanwhile, advertising spend continues to move online, growing at a pace of over 14% each year.

Interactive advertising provides incredible advantages for political campaigns. Political campaigns move quickly and the mood of voters and what they want to hear about can change fast. Using the tools of online advertising, campaigns can quickly respond to the changing landscape and ensure that they are getting the most effective message to the right group:

•    Target messages to specific geographic, demographic or behavioral target markets. Want to get a message about ethanol subsidies to Iowa? Or wetlands protection to people with environmental leanings? No problem.

•    Utilize social media. Political campaigns are a perfect fit for social advertising. Potential voters are more than happy to advocate on behalf of a brand or cause, just look at all the bumper stickers. Utilizing functionality in display ads that allow users to share the ad or “like” the candidate or cause will increase advocates and increase qualified impressions.

•    Track performance of certain messaging easily. Is your message getting people to donate money? Volunteer for your campaign? Post your ads on their Facebook page? Sign up to attend a campaign event?

•    Put it all together and optimize messaging for target groups. Some rich media ad servers can automatically optimize the messages that are generating the user behavior wanted (e.g. volunteering for a campaign) to each target group, ensuring the message that works is the message users are displaying. Have a new message you want to test out? Just pop it in and let user responses determine how frequently it should be shown.

•    Use online campaigns to drive offline messaging. Political campaigns can use online reporting and optimization to see what is working and what isn’t to help tailor TV, direct mail and event messaging for each audience. Think of online advertising as a focus group that can tailor your message so it’s pitch perfect.

In 2004, the Dean campaign was heralded for pioneering online political advertising but came up short in connecting in to the real world. In 2008, the Obama campaign drove significant campaign donations and organization from its online campaign.  Since then, Sarah Palin has virtually run all of her public communication through her Facebook page. No doubt those who find success in 2012 will be making the most of online media early and often. 

A new technology relationship with Medialets mobile ad platform, announced this week, allows Limelight EyeWonder Interactive Advertising to create and deliver ads to more than 200 premium publishers via Medialets Universal SDK.

By utilizing Medialets Creative API, EyeWonder can leverage a slew of new ad formats and features previously only available on Medialets’ proprietary platform, such as video, growable ad units, social media sharing, SMS and send-to-a-friend capabilities and embedded maps.

By opening its ad platform to third-party rich media providers like EyeWonder, Medialets helps facilitate a scalable, flexible way for premium publishers and marketers to maximize opportunities for significant ROI on mobile media buys. The availability of this new inventory offers a wealth of possibilities for engaging audiences with robust rich media and video ads on a variety of mobile and connected devices.

Our own Jonathan Cobb, CTO for the Limelight Mobility and Monetization group, recently participated in an interview with John Ebbert over at AdExchanger.com. He discussed the new REACH Interactive product, challenges that publishers face in the mobile video space, and the growing publisher ecosystem. What also surfaced in the interview were three specific trends in mobile video advertising. Here’s what Jonathan sees happening in the industry today, and what’s just over the horizon.

1. Publishers are looking for more control.

Initially, online video publishers were content to let ad networks do most of the monetization work. Now, however, they’re looking to control more of the action. Increasingly publishers are taking a hybrid approach, combining ad network relationships with direct ad sales that let them capture premium rates on their most valuable inventory.

2. There will soon be a glut of mobile video inventory.

As consumers get used to the idea of watching video on their mobile phones, publishers will increase their mobile distribution, and that will raise the amount of available ad inventory. However, even though there will soon be an oversupply, most of the new inventory will not be associated with premium content. Premium mobile video content will still be relatively limited and will command higher rates.

3. Standardization in metrics

Mobile ad measurement is evolving, and there’s an increasing push to standardize metrics. The more advertisers come to rely on the mobile channel, the faster we’ll start to see consensus around how to define and measure mobile audiences.

If you need a laugh this morning, check out one of the new video banner ads we’re running. Seriously, this thing is funny. Plus, it lets you download a free “quick tip” on driving in-banner ad engagement. No registration required.

Check out the demo here. Trust me, you can’t help but chuckle. Maybe it’s the mustache.

Ad produced using Limelight EyeWonder Interactive Advertising services

Here’s a new one. Shazam, the company known for its app that lets you identify and tag songs with your phone, has now raised a substantial amount of money to get into the interactive TV business. It’s adding a twist to the old example of using “web TV” to buy a piece of clothing your favorite TV star is wearing. Shazam’s approach is to partner with retailers and television networks to tag shows and commercials in a way that lets consumers open up a mobile app and instantly get access to information about products on the TV screen. See a shirt you like? Shazam wants you to be able to learn more and buy it instantly right from your phone.

The strategy here is highly innovative, but it also exemplifies a trend we’re seeing in the advertising world where companies want to bridge the gap between online and offline experiences. QR codes solve the same type of problem, as do location-based apps like Shopkick that allow consumers to check in at physical locations and earn online credit. Now that more of our world is Internet-connected, we need ways to bring the online and offline domains together.

According to a recent survey conducted by Group SJR and Liz Claiborne Inc (and reported on my Mashable), nearly half of smartphone owners, and more than half of tablet owners, plan to buy more products on their mobile devices in the future. That’s good news for the mobile commerce sector, and it suggests we’ll continue to see further innovation in the industry as retailers recognize the growing value of this new channel. In recent months we’ve seen a rise in QR code activity, new mobile ad formats, location-based apps, mobile payment apps, and other technologies designed to influence mobile shoppers and facilitate purchasing. What’s next on the horizon?

Today we are introducing Limelight REACH Interactive, a new service for in-app advertising that takes the best of our mobile video solutions and combines it with our award-winning interactive advertising technology. REACH Interactive lets publishers insert in-stream video ads into their mobile applications in a way that engages consumers, but doesn’t take away from the primary app experience. It does this by making pre-roll and post-roll ads “tappable,” allowing users to open new microsite landing pages, all without ever leaving the app. In other words, consumers can learn more about the ads they’re viewing (a benefit to advertisers), while at the same time publishers stay connected to their audiences within the app domain.

Other benefits of REACH Interactive include:

• Easy integration with iOS and Android devices
• Enhanced analytics, including data on video start and end times, playback duration, user interactions, buffering events, and more
• The ability to pause video playback for ad interaction
• The ability to make ads unskippable

You can see a demo of REACH Interactive here. The new product launch also comes with a re-branding of our entire line-up of Limelight Networks mobile solutions. All mobile solutions now fall under the REACH umbrella, which includes REACH Video (formerly REACH), REACH Ads (formerly ADS), and the new REACH Interactive.