MediaMind: The Sidekick Banner Format Performs Best

Digital advertising solution provider MediaMind has released a new study that examines the best performing display formats.

MediaMind analyzed the Dwell Rate and Average Dwell Duration of over 300,000 creatives. The dwell rate is the percentage of users exposed to a given piece of rich-media content or advertising who interact with that content moving their cursor over it - but not clicking on it.

The dwell duration, therefore, would be how long (in seconds, for example) the user dwelled over the ad. Dwell as a metric is linked to higher brand effectiveness, and some argue that it is a more relevant indicator of an ad's impact than a click count alone.

The top five performing ad formats according to Media Mind are the Sidekick, the Pushdown, the Homepage Takeover, Messenger Ads and the Video Extender. According to the MediaMind research, the Sidekick format delivered a 60-percent higher Dwell Rate than a Polite Banner, and that users are 164 percent more likely to engage with a Pushdown banner.

"As users shift from more traditional media to online advertising, advertisers must recognize that the ad format is an essential part of the creative," says Gal Trifon, general manager of MediaMind and chief digital officer of parent company DG. "From the tiny Messenger Ad to the Homepage Takeover, the right ad format can really make a difference for a brand."