Eyeblaster research global_benchmark_insights_may_2010

Eyeblaster
Benchmark Insights

Using Dwell to Measure
Advertising Effectiveness

“Tell me, and I will forget. Show me, and I may
remember. Involve me, and I will understand.”

Confucius (551-479 BCE)

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Making Display Advertising
The Engine for Automotive Growth
Research
Highlights
• Ads with a high Dwell Rate
are more likely to have a high
Conversion Rate.

• A new study by Microsoft,
comScore and Eyeblaster
shows Dwell’s effectiveness.

• High Dwell triples brand related
search, increases traffic by
69%, and increases brand
engagement.

• Placements in which users
spend ample time on the web
page increase Dwell Rate.

• Ads that are more visible over
the publisher’s content have a
higher Dwell Rate.

• Combining video into your
creative increases Dwell Rate
by 29% and nearly doubles
Average Dwell Time.

Benchmark Insights:
Using Dwell to Measure Advertising Effectiveness

Why Engagement Counts
In 1938, American education reformer John Dewey asserted that “there
is an intimate and necessary relation between the processes of actual
experience and education.”1 According to Dewey, people ‘learn’ through
doing and playing.
In the offline world, the target of advertising is a ‘viewer’ – a passive
bystander that can only direct his eyeballs to the direction of the TV,
newspaper or magazine. Online, the target of advertising is a ‘user’ – an
active participant that can engage, interact and play with an ad.
Engagement is the third dimension of online advertising, beyond the
traditional reach and frequency. While the theory behind the benefits
of interactivity and engagement is clear, Eyeblaster acknowledged the
need for empirical evidence that Dwell does affect brand effectiveness
metrics.
new research provides scientific evidence for the effectiveness of Dwell
as an engagement metric. The research shows that when more people
choose to actively engage with your brand, as measured by a high Dwell
Rate and a high Average Dwell Time, the more the needle shifts in favor
of your brand.
This new research by Eyeblaster, Microsoft Advertising and comScore
concludes that campaigns with high Dwell not only increase brand
engagement, but also drive increased brand related search and increased
site traffic.
An additional analysis by Eyeblaster shows that Dwell has an impact way
beyond branding. Ads with a high Dwell Rate are more likely to have a
high Conversion Rate as compared to ads with a low Dwell Rate.
It would seem that there is more to display advertising than a mere click.
How then, can you increase your campaign’s Dwell? These three simple
steps will help you increase your Dwell and ultimately your ROI:
• First, include placements around editorial content that require thorough
reading.
• Second, combine video into your ad.
• Third, get more assertive and visible with your ads!

1
Dewey, John. Experience and Education. 1938/1997. new york. Simon and Schuster.

3 EyEBlASTER BEnCHMARk InSIgHTS

Benchmark Insights:

Why Dwell?
In the second half of 2008, Eyeblaster released the Dwell could deliver multiple interactions and playing a video merely
metrics. The aim was to define a ubiquitous online metric one or two. Thus, when Interaction Rate is creative dependent,
to help advertisers quickly gauge the effectiveness of online it may prove hard to compare apples to apples, making cross-
Rich Media campaigns. Dwell was developed to capture Rich campaign benchmarking unfeasible.
Media’s essence – interactivity and touch.
Dwell is divided into two metrics: Dwell Rate and Average “Dwell encompasses the whole
Dwell Time. Dwell Rate measures the proportion of impressions course that users go through when
that were intentionally engaged with by touch, interaction or
click. Average Dwell Time measures the duration of a Dwell in engaging with ads”.
seconds for users who engaged. In both cases, unintentional
Dwell lasting less than one second is excluded. Dwell was developed to capture the branding effect of campaigns.
To do that, it encompasses the whole course that users go
Dwell provides an estimate of the share of impressions that were
through when engaging with ads. Rich Media ads need to capture
seen by users with high likelihood. Users’ natural tendency is
users’ attention away from the publisher’s content and make
to follow the mouse cursor movement with their eyes. Dwell
them want to find out more about the brand. As users tend to
measures the proportion of impressions that had a meaningful
follow the mouse cursor movement with their eyes, this is a
mouse-touch, lasting more than one second. While there have
proxy to how many users have seen the ad. Therefore, Dwell
been users who have seen the ads and have not touched
Rate measures whether the ad was successful in capturing
them with their mouse, Dwell allows us to gauge the number
users’ attention by quantifying the proportion of users who
of users that are very likely to have seen the ad, and indeed
physically touched the ad.
take time to explore the brand’s message.
After users have seen the ad, advertisers need to draw them to
Dwell is superior to older metrics such as Click Through
interact and have a deeper brand experience. It is this deeper,
Rate (CTR) and Interaction Rate. CTR measures the share of
all encompassing multi-modal experience where the cognitive
impressions that were clicked on. However, in many cases,
change on part of the consumer takes place, combining touch
users can retain the message from the ad itself and do not
with the audio-visual senses.2 The more human senses involved,
have any reason to browse to the advertiser’s website by
the more emotions evoked and ultimately the more time users
clicking on the ad. For example, users who have seen an ad
spend with the brand, the deeper their overall experience with
for a shampoo can typically get all of the information that they
the brand is and the more likely they are to recall the brand
need from the ad and are less likely to click on the ad and
message.
browse to the advertiser’s website. In this case, the ad has
done its part – users have seen the ad and got the message. Average Dwell Time measures the length of users’ engagement
However, without a click being recorded the ad was deemed with ads, to quantify how long users were exposed to the ad.
completely ineffective, penalizing a well performing creative by Average Dwell Time measures how much time the mouse was
using an inapplicable metric. on the ad, the panel was expanded, the video playing or any
other action taking place on the ad after the user engaged.
Similarly, interactions measure specific actions taken by the
user such as playing or stopping video, clicking, expanding A previous study by Eyeblaster Research has already shown
and other custom interactions. Alas, auto-initiated video, for that today’s consumers are 24x more likely to interact with an
example, can deliver the message without any interaction. ad than click on it, and those that choose to do so engage
After all, TV has been delivering messages without interactions with ads on average for around 43 seconds.3 But what does
for decades. Furthermore, Interaction Rate may be influenced this actually mean for the marketer? While the theory makes
by the number of interactions defined in the creative – a game sense that those ads with higher Dwell work better than ads
with lower Dwell, what happens in practice?

2
lugo, J.E., Doti, R., Wittich, W. & Faubert, J. Multisensory Integration: Central Processing Modifies Peripheral Systems. October 2008. Psychological Science.
3
Eyeblaster Research. Analytics Bulletin: Trends in Time and Attention. Available for download at: http://www.eyeblaster.com/Content.aspx?page=resource&id=74


Benchmark Insights:

Dwell and Branding
new research by Eyeblaster, Microsoft Advertising and comScore
shows that Dwell does have an actual effect on brand metrics.
Campaigns with high Dwell are 3x
The research investigated the differences between campaigns more effective at driving search than
with a low active engagement as measured by a low Dwell
and campaigns with a high active engagement as measured campaigns with a low Dwell.
by a high Dwell.
Uplift between unexposed and exposed was averaged for the
“The robust methodology of the 10 low Dwell and 10 high Dwell campaigns. These average
uplifts were compared to evaluate the impact of increased
research ensured any positive brand Dwell on subsequent brand effects.

uplift observed was due exclusively to The results of the study indicate that users who were exposed to
campaigns with a high Dwell are more likely to search for brand
the increase in Dwell.” related keywords as compared to users who were exposed
to campaigns with a low Dwell. The research found that users
The study examined a sample of high Dwell campaigns and a who were exposed to campaigns with a low Dwell increased
sample of low Dwell campaigns and compared the difference brand related keyword searches by 12%, as compared to the
between them in terms of their brand effects. The robust control group, while users who were exposed to campaigns
methodology ensured any positive brand uplift observed was with a high Dwell increased brand related keyword search
due exclusively to the increase in Dwell. by 39%, as compared to the control group. This shows that
The sample of campaigns was taken out of 800 Rich Media campaigns with high Dwell are 3x more effective at driving
campaigns that were served by Eyeblaster exclusively on search than campaigns with a low Dwell.
Microsoft Advertising sites between January 2009 and June Furthermore, campaigns with a low Dwell increased advertisers’
2009. The 800 campaigns were ranked by total Dwell scores.4 site traffic by 10%, as compared to the control group, while
To ensure a distinct difference between high and low Dwell, campaigns with a high Dwell increased site traffic by 17%. This
the study analyzed campaigns that fell in the top and bottom is an incremental change of 69% between campaigns with low
10% of the Dwell scale. Dwell and campaigns with high Dwell. Campaigns with a high
Overall, 10 campaigns from the low Dwell group and 10 campaigns Dwell also increased brand engagement – increasing page
from the high Dwell group were chosen for the analysis. These views and time spent on the brand’s site.5
20 were selected for having the largest number of impressions,
ensuring the biggest sample sizes for our analysis of over 6,500
panelists. The campaigns covered eight industry verticals.
For each of the 20 campaigns, comScore identified people
that had been exposed to the ads. comScore measured those
panelists’ subsequent online behavior across a four week period
and compared those to unexposed panelists and their online
behavior. These groups were pair matched – the exposed/
unexposed groups were equal except for the fact that the
exposed group had seen the ads, the unexposed had not.
groups were matched to ensure equality according to specific
demographic and online behavioral variables.

4
To capture both the effect of Dwell Rate and of Average Dwell Time, the research examined the Total Dwell which was defined as Dwell Rate multiplied by
Average Dwell Time.
5
Available for download at: http://advertising.microsoft.com/europe/dwell-on-branding


Benchmark Insights:

Dwell and Conversions
While the research by Eyeblaster, Microsoft Advertising and comScore has shown the advertising effect of Dwell, Eyeblaster
Research has found empirical evidence that Dwell works beyond branding. In fact, there is a link between a higher Dwell Rate
and a higher Conversion Rate.

Dwell Rate and Conversion Rate

Source: Eyeblaster Research. Data: Q1 2009 to Q4 2009, Worldwide.

The chart above describes the link between Dwell Rate and The results clearly establish that there is a link between
Conversion Rate. For the purpose of this analysis, Eyeblaster Dwell Rate and Conversion Rate. On average, a higher Dwell
Research analyzed the results of over 13 thousand ads and Rate yields a higher Conversion Rate. Thus, interactive ads
13 billion Rich Media impressions served between Q1 2009 that attract users to touch and play with them will generate
and Q4 2009. Ads were divided into buckets according to interest, and ultimately a higher Conversion Rate.
their Dwell Rate, and for each bucket the average Conversion
Rate was calculated. Conversion Rate is only one measure to validate Dwell. The
aim of Dwell is not necessarily to generate conversions, but to
Interactive ads that attract users measure branding effectiveness. nevertheless, these results
confirm the effectiveness of Dwell – users who Dwell on ads
to touch and play with them will and are allured by the creative are more likely to convert.
generate interest, and ultimately a
higher Conversion Rate.

Benchmark Insights:

Increasing your Dwell
How then can you get a higher Dwell for ads? The second half of this research is dedicated to best practices for getting a higher
Dwell Rate and a higher Average Dwell Time.
1. Place ads in environments where users spend ample time on the webpage.
The longer users spend with the publisher’s content, the higher their Dwell Rate. The chart below presents the link between
Ad Duration, the length of time that an ad is presented, and Dwell Rate. The analysis indicates that environments in which
users spend ample time with the publisher’s content or with the ad exposed, tend to have a higher Dwell Rate.

The Impact of Ad Duration on Dwell Rate



Benchmark Insights:

Consider Instant Messaging. Users tend to spend about
eight minutes with the ads presented. True, during some of
that time the messenger window is covered by the browser
or other programs. nevertheless, when users are actively
chatting, they are exposed to the ads for a long duration.
Imagine the average chat session: you type “Hi”, you wait…
wait… wait… your friend is typing… typing… and then
“Hi” pops up. you type “what’s up?” you wait… wait…
and while you stare at the messenger window waiting for
a reply, you notice the flashing banner of a new movie that
just came out.
As you have nothing better to do, you check it out –
the banner serves as entertainment while you wait. The
combination of long exposure and boredom while waiting
boosts Dwell Rate for Instant Messaging. It is the most
promising indication to date that shows that application-
based ads may even outperform browser-based ads as
technology continually moves forward, for example, mobile
platforms or tablet-based computing.
Dwell is also high in environments where users are immersed
in content for a long time. In news placements, users
spend a lot of time reading the content while their eyes are
moving back and forth on the webpage. This increases the
likelihood of seeing the banners and engaging with them.
The result is a higher Dwell Rate.
On the other hand, social networks tend to have relatively
lower ad duration. Users may be spending a lot of time
on social networks overall, but relatively little time on a
single webpage. Users log in multiple times per day to
update their status, check for messages and see what
their friends are doing, but that takes only a short amount
of time. Thus, users may not notice the banners and the
result is a lower Dwell Rate.

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Benchmark Insights:

2. Use video
Dwell Rate with and without Video

Display advertising competes with the publisher’s content.
Users browse to the webpage to engage with the publisher’s
content, while the advertiser’s job is to lure them to engage
with the ads.
One of the advantages of video banners is that the publisher’s
content is typically static. Therefore, moving pictures tend
to draw attention from the content to the ad. In the Video
Analytics Bulletin,6 Eyeblaster Research showed that video
banners work best when the video is exposed to the user
at first glance. In some Expandable Banners, the video is
hidden behind the expanding panel. A good practice here
would be to have a light preview video visible at first glance to
invite users to expand the panel and view the full video.
The results are that video ads perform better than ads without Source: Eyeblaster Research. Data: Q1 2009 to Q4 2009, Worldwide.
video. On average, adding video to ads increases the Dwell
Rate by 29% as compared to banners without video. Video
Dwell Time with and without Video
also nearly doubles the Dwell Time as compared to ads
without video. These results are similar across ad formats,
verticals and ad sizes.
Video uses both audio and visual elements to combine
senses and tell stories. With the rise of interactive video,
adding touch to audio-visual stimuli will only serve to increase
overall Dwell and increase residual brand effectiveness.


6
Eyeblaster. Analytics Bulletin: Online Video Advertising. Available for download at: http://www.eyeblaster.com/Content.aspx?page=resource&id=81


Benchmark Insights:

3. Get assertive
good display ads are like good salesmen – they need the The leading Rich Media ad formats can be divided into
right amount of chutzpah to get the job done. As with video two main groups. Floating Ads and Commercial Breaks
banners, ads that make an effort to be seen typically get tend to have very high breakthrough as evidenced by their
higher engagement from users. Clearly, there is a tradeoff high Dwell Rate, but for a very short duration, typically of
between higher Dwell Rate and higher Average Dwell Time. around five seconds of Average Dwell Time. Floating ads are
Floating Ads and Commercial Breaks have a higher Dwell shown over the publisher’s content and are highly visible.
Rate, while Expandable Banners and Polite Banners have Commercial Break is shown before the page is loaded for
a lower Dwell Rate and a higher Average Dwell Time. a very short duration.

Dwell by Ad Format



Benchmark Insights:

Both Commercial Breaks and Floating Ads tend to get a As a result, Eyeblaster TV gets double the Dwell Rate of
high Dwell Rate. Many of these engagements are typically regular video ads, while the Video Fully Played Rate is
attributed to users who try to close the banner in order similar to other ads, so users do not turn it off more often
to view the publisher’s content, and as a result marketers than the typical video ad. This indicates that when used
have tended to shy away from such formats for fear of wisely, default sound on can be accepted by consumers
annoying users. in online advertising. For more on Eyeblaster TV, please
download the Analytics Bulletin on Video.7
However, by removing the accidental interaction of less than
one second, we are still left with a positive indication that Polite Banners and Expandable Banners tend to have a
these ads were engaged by consumers. Their low Dwell lower Dwell Rate. This could be seen as many initial loads
time is related to the amount of time that these ads are contain less visually engaging creativity, preferring to hide
typically displayed on screen. These formats can do well the fun stuff behind even a click-to-expand in certain cases.
with short and concise marketing messages. However, the main advantage here is in providing the stage
for longer and more complex marketing messages. Polite
One of the most successful ways to deliver video is Eyeblaster
Banners and Expandable Banners have a longer Average
TV. Eyeblaster TV is a video delivered in a floating ad, with
Dwell Time, which works well for ads that require more
the sound turned on by default with the volume on low.
than a few seconds to understand.
This allows publishers with mostly textual content to deliver
ads transferred directly from TV with a more natural usage
pattern as opposed to merely serving them In-Stream.

7
Eyeblaster. Analytics Bulletin: Online Video Advertising. Available for download at: http://www.eyeblaster.com/Content.aspx?page=resource&id=81


Benchmark Insights:

Conclusion
Dwell Rate is the best ubiquitous metric to measure the effectiveness of
Rich Media display advertising. Dwell offers a time-based measurement
of all media channels to ascertain if consumers are actually looking at
ads beyond panel based data alone. The research indicates that high
Dwell increases brand related searches, elevates site traffic, and boosts
brand engagement. Furthermore, ads with a higher Dwell Rate tend to
have a higher Conversion Rate on average. These results serve as an
indication to the validity of the metric.
There are three best practices that would help advertisers create better
campaigns with a higher Dwell Rate. First, placing ads in environments
in which users spend ample time tends to generate better Dwell Rate
results than environments with short exposure duration. Second, using
video tends to increase Dwell Rate, as video draws users’ eyes from
the publisher’s content. last, exploring more visible ad formats may
lead to a higher Dwell Rate, while rewarding the consumer with more
engaging content increases Average Dwell Time, which in turn will drive
effective campaigns.


Benchmark Insights:

Benchmarks
This edition of Eyeblaster Benchmarks provides a summary of the Research analyzed the results from 170 billion impressions
results of campaigns that were served by Eyeblaster between Q1 delivered in six different regions and more than 50 different
2009 and Q4 2009. To produce these benchmarks, Eyeblaster countries.

CTR by Region for Standard Banners and Rich Media


Overall global CTR is 0.23%. Rich Media tends to have much of thumb. If you are a former English speaking British colony,
higher CTR as compared to standard banners – 0.37% as your CTR and Dwell are likely to be lower. Thus, the US, Canada,
compared to 0.09%. Australia and new Zealand have lower CTR performance as
compared to other regions. This is mainly due to differences
As far as regional differences are concerned, there is a clear rule
in user behavior and market maturity.


Benchmark Insights:

Dwell by Region


South America, South Asia and Europe tend to have the highest The first two pages contain a full description of each vertical
Dwell Rate, while East Asia has the highest Average Dwell and a definition for each of the metrics used.
Time. Europe tends to have a significantly higher Dwell Rate as
One important caveat about using these benchmarks is that
compared to north America and Australia and new Zealand,
they only present the average performance, while the deviation
mostly due to differences in user behavior, though in part could
in performance between ads is very large. As evidenced by the
be seen in differences in current publisher restrictions.
size of the document, we have tried to slice the data into as many
The benchmark tables contain benchmark averages on categories as possible. Still, the averages contain campaigns
interactions, Dwell, clicks, expansions and video metrics. Data that are different in their nature, goals and execution. Therefore,
is broken down by formats, sizes and verticals. The next 32 these benchmarks should be used as a reference only, and not
pages contain information on six regions and 24 countries. with the aim of trying to “beat the benchmark.”

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Benchmark Insights:

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 






 





 











 
















 










 




 


16

  


EyEBlASTER BEnCHMARk InSIgHTS
  
  
Benchmark Insights:



 

 

 
 

 
 

 
  
  
 
 

 
 

 



 




 

 

  
  
 

 
  
  

17



  

     
           

EyEBlASTER BEnCHMARk InSIgHTS
            
            
            
            
Benchmark Insights:


            
            
            
            
            
            
            


            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
  
 
       
            
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
             


             
             
             

             
             
             
             
             
             

 
 
 




Eyeblaster research global_benchmark_insights_may_2010

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