According to new research from advertising service provider DoubleClick, viewers click the “Play” button on video ads more than they click on image ads. They also found that video ads are typically played two-thirds of the way through and video ad click rates are far higher than those of image format ads.

“Online video ads are quickly becoming the medium of choice to drive both brand awareness and sales,” said Rick Bruner, research director at DoubleClick. “The results show that there are clear ROI advantages to placing video ads.”

Key Findings

• Users click the “Play” button more than they click on image ads.
• On average, video ads play two thirds of the way throughVideo click rates are far higher than image format ads.
• Users are about 4 times as likely to click-through on video ads. Online video ads get click-through rates ranging from 0.4 percent to 0.74 percent. GIF and JPG image ad click-throughs range between 0.1 and 0.2 percent.

Online Video Offers Advertisers More Than Televison

“What’s particularly exciting about these types of campaign performance benchmarks is that they provide marketers with an important leap forward in measuring audience engagement and results that simply does not exist in traditional TV advertising,” said DoubleClick’s Marianne Caponnetto. “The best standard data you get on audience measurement of TV commercials is limited to reach and frequency or specialized brand studies. However, online video metrics available today, like interaction rate, play rate, video completion rate and so on, give advertisers much greater insight into how consumers are actually engaging with the ads and their brands.”