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Get Inspired: The Annual Creative Insights Report is Here

Nikki Gertner Last updated: December 1, 2021
Tereza Prepadnik

Engagement is everything. If you’re buying or selling media, you’re on the lookout for ad product insights to help boost engagement rates and support campaign goals. To help you make data-informed decisions about your ad product suite, we’re bringing you our 2021 Creative Insights Report.   

Our Creative Insights Report is a roundup of performance benchmarks and creative best practices to help you build ad products that advertisers will love. During Q1 and Q2 of 2021, we analyzed over 5,000 creatives in global markets to determine which types perform best for each vertical and analyze which experiences are most effective at driving engagement. We looked at rich media, VAST video, and VPAID video formats in mobile web and MRAID environments. Each analysis included at least 10 creatives with a minimum of 100,000 impressions observed. 

Let’s jump into some of the highlights. 

Gamified ad products have the highest engagement rates

Leading with a 5.75% engagement rate, gamified ad products see major success compared to other ad product families. In fact, we found that:

Gamified ad products show an average engagement rate: 3.4x that of shoppable ad products, 4.8x that of video circulation ad products, 3.6x that of mobile-first ad products, 10.5x that of location-based ad products

With such outstanding performance, we decided to take a look under the hood. We found that static ads drive users to interact with gamified ad products. 

Static ads drive user play 1.4x better than animated ads

This means media owners and operators looking to drive engagement for advertisers could benefit from doubling down on gamified ad products going into 2022.

Video drives engagement for upper-funnel goals 2x better than mid-funnel

Perhaps one of the biggest drivers of ad product engagement in 2021 was video content. Not only does video drive engagement to support upper-funnel goals like brand awareness twice as much as mid-funnel goals, but we also see it trending across all the ad product families.

Mobile-First Ad Products Video drives 1.2x higher engagement compared to animation // Shoppable Ad Products Video drives 1.4x higher engagement compared to animation

*for ad products with app downloads as the goal

**for ad products with user acquisition as the goal

Although ad products have a variety of visual experiences and goals, it’s interesting to see how effective video has been across different product families. 

Industry and content significantly affect engagement rates

In our study, we break down our creative insights by vertical including: consumer packaged goods (CPG), Automotive, Entertainment & Media, Travel & Hospitality, Food / Beverage / Quick Service Restaurant (QSR), Retail & E-commerce, and Technology. Here’s a sneak peek at some of our findings:

CPG: Featuring products in ads supporting in-store and online traffic drive the best lower-funnel engagement // Technology: Brands win with large-format, mobile-first ads // Entertainment & Media: Video-only ads drive app downloads 3x better than other lower-funnel KPIs // Food / Beverage / QSR: Brands drive the most engagement with fullscreen, mobile-first ads with animation.

Download the Creative Insights Report 2021 to access the full study, review vertical-specific benchmarks, and so much more. 

To learn more about creative transformation with Celtra, visit our page or send us a note to get in touch.