The mobile advertising market in Asia is facing a dilemma. Research shows that pop-up ads trigger nearly 69% of users to leave websites. However, pop-up ads have a 9% ad conversion rate, which is not bad for brands.
According to the latest comScore report, mobile devices represent over 60% of the total digital time spent online in Asia. Since pop-up ads are widely applied on mobile advertisement campaigns, this problem needs to be solved quickly. It boils down to this: Keep the visitor… or get the ad conversion?
This is a tough decision for both websites and brands, because they risk annoying, and thus losing, a huge number of visitors. If a different method, other than pop-ups, is chosen to deliver ads, they could simply be ignored by a lot of potential customers. So, what’s the solution?
Let’s take a look at the success of Snapchat. In 2015, Snapchat went viral with its short, vertical, 100% full-screen videos. Those three main elements perfectly met the needs of smartphone users. Why? Not only does research show that people use their smartphone vertically more than 90% of the time, but they also tend to engage more with video. The brevity of the video is also important, because people typically lose their concentration after six seconds if the content doesn’t hold their interest.
It didn’t take long for other main players, including Instagram and Facebook, to copy Snapchat’s vertical video strategy. The advertising market began to see the true potential of short vertical videos and how they are a viable alternative to pop-up ads, because vertical videos successfully reach and engage users without making the users upset.
Cheetah Ads, an advertisement platform created by Cheetah Mobile, acknowledges this trend and offers brands 6-second, full-screen, vertical video ads that utilize AI technology for greater accuracy. To enhance the user experience even further, these ads are only displayed during a “break point,” such as the moment users finish cleaning their smartphone with Clean Master or right before they enter the next stage of a mobile game.
The mobile advertising market in Asia would be remiss not to take advantage of short vertical video. Big brands are jumping on the bandwagon, and their success rates indicate that users prefer the format over pop-up ads.