Editor’s note: The following was originally posted on Teads’ Blog by Eric Shih, Global Senior Vice President of Business Development
Video has more power to engage, educate, and entertain than any other medium. But it needs to be done right, especially when used as an advertising tool. A successful video ad brings the needs of the user, brand, and publisher into alignment. It’s useful, not intrusive. Complementary, not distracting. It needs to be viewable, high-quality, and of course, mobile-optimized.
This mobile-first approach led us to become one of the first ad technology companies to join the Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) Project, an open-source initiative to build a better, faster mobile web for everybody. The AMP HTML format empowers publishers to easily create mobile-optimized content that loads in a flash, offering a great user experience on every screen and platform. For technology companies like Teads, the AMP Project offers the opportunity to participate in a growing performance-based ecosystem as an advertising platform for a faster web.
As the inventor of outstream video advertising and the leading video advertising marketplace in the world, according to comScore, we knew it was important to follow the latest developments in technology. For us, that meant adapting our products to work with AMP HTML. This included updating our pioneering inRead format, which opens up vast quantities of premium video inventory by placing ads within the heart of editorial content. Instead of expanding into view and then collapsing away as the user scrolls, the video would always remain open in AMP HTML, ensuring a consistent page layout and seamless reading experience.
The updated format worked great, and it still had the advantage of being viewable while remaining subject to user control. Results were so positive, in fact, that we adopted AMP HTML’s behavior everywhere our ads appear – on desktop, mobile web, and in mobile apps.
Like us, many of our exclusive publisher partners have been part of the AMP Project since the very beginning. Now nearly 100 of them are telling great stories and sharing important ideas on fast-loading pages that meet users’ need for speed. These include Trinity Mirror, L’Express, Ouest-France, Público, Rodale, and Mashable, to name just a few.
“AMP HTML delivers our most optimal mobile browsing experience,” Amir Malik, programmatic director for Trinity Mirror, told us. “Being able to marry this with native video advertising allows us to not only make revenue from the fastest-growing area of digital but to do so while respecting our users.”
Along with these publishers, we’ve been delighted to see that video ads perform significantly better on AMP’d pages than on the traditional mobile web. Completion rates are 15% higher, clickthrough rates have jumped by 200%, and our ads appear 18% more frequently. This tells us that faster performance and relevant, respectful ads don’t just prevent abandonment and ad blocking — they also increase engagement.
If you’ve ever waited impatiently for your favorite site to load, only to watch an annoying pop-up take over your smartphone screen, you can probably understand why user engagement decreases. That type of experience doesn’t unlock the full potential of video advertising. We need a better approach, and the AMP Project is central to Teads’ mission of providing one.
Posted by Eric Shih, Global Senior Vice President of Business Development