1. Shocking Truths
About Display Ads
Dr. Augustine Fou
http://linkd.in/augustinefou
April 2013
-1- Augustine Fou

2. Over 5.3 trillion display ads were
served to U.S. users last year.
The typical Internet user is served
1,707 banner ads per month.
(comScore)
-2- Augustine Fou

3. Evil is 25 ads per page
Do advertisers know their ads are shown next to so many others?
Top half Bottom half
25 ads
per page!
6 are above
the fold
-3- Augustine Fou

4. Facebook inflates impressions...
2012
1
2011 2
2010 3
4
5
6
7
4 8
Source: Facebook Display Ads | go-Digital Blog
9
…by increasing number of ads per pageview.
-4- Augustine Fou

5. About 5% of impressions
are properly targeted
Source: Nielsen, October 2011
-5- Augustine Fou

6. 40-50% are never in view
“about half are never in view”
“quality problem in long-tail content
sites”
… no wonder click rates suck.
-6- Augustine Fou

7. Viewable Rates by Ad Format
98% viewable commercial break
78% viewable HTML5 expandable banner
76% viewable floating ad
66% viewable expandable banner
54% viewable enhanced standard banner
Source: DG MediaMind, March, 2013
-7- Augustine Fou

8. 3 in 10 Ads Are Never Seen
Source: comScore, March 2012
-8- Augustine Fou

9. Users don’t look... Source: Banner Blindness
… even “branding” doesn’t happen.
-9- Augustine Fou

10. Up to 50 percent of clicks on
mobile banner ads are accidental.
(GoldSpot Media)
- 10 - Augustine Fou

11. CTR by Creative Type
Source: DoubleClick For Advertisers, Q1 2011
- 11 - Augustine Fou

12. Display Advertising
Big Portals Ad Networks Facebook
Large audience Lots of long-tail Massive number of
small websites impressions
Publisher/portal
has more power Advertiser has “Junk” quality and
more power super-low prices
CPM 10’s of dollars 1’s of dollars 10’s of cents
CTR 0.1% 0.01% 0.001%
Shift allocation to get more impressions or lower cost
- 12 - Augustine Fou

13. Pay for impressions vs...
Display Ads
Pay for impressions
Search Ads
Pay for clicks
… pay only for results (clicks).
- 13 - Augustine Fou

14. Would you pay for …
A vacuum
cleaner that
doesn’t work
99% of the time?
- 14 - Augustine Fou

15. The Market Has Spoken
Two-thirds of digital ad spending is already shifted to “performance”
Source: IAB, PwC April 2011
- 15 - Augustine Fou

16. Dr. Augustine Fou – Digital Consigliere
“Display ads are touted for „branding.‟ But
what if users don‟t even look. So while
clicks are not the most important metric,
there has to be some evidence that any
marketing tactic is actually working.”
FORMER CHIEF DIGITAL OFFICER, HCG (OMNICOM)
MCKINSEY CONSULTANT
CLIENT SIDE / AGENCY SIDE EXPERIENCE
PROFESSOR AND COLUMNIST
ENTREPRENEUR / SMALL BUSINESS OWNER
PHD MATERIALS SCIENCE (MIT '95) AT AGE 23
ClickZ Articles: http://bit.ly/augustine-fou-clickz
Slideshares: http://bit.ly/augustine-fou-slideshares
LinkedIn: http://linkd.in/augustinefou
- 16 - @acfou Augustine Fou

17. APPENDIX
- 17 - Augustine Fou

18. Search is always better
Search CTR: 0.19%
Display CTR: 0.05%
Search CTR: 0.25%
Display CTR: 0.03%
Search CTR: 0.13%
Display CTR: 0.07%
Search CTR: 0.24%
Display CTR: 0.07%
Source: Search versus Display | go-Digital Blog
- 18 - Augustine Fou