Just because your ad has high viewability doesn’t mean that the users who see it will remember it. A study by Kargo has recently revealed that “better ad viewability doesn’t necessarily translate into higher recall rates, and that mobile marketers need to consider other factors such as the ad platform, format, size and creative in developing a mobile ad strategy,” according to the Mobile Marketer.

Sorry, but I don’t remember you

The study examined viewability, ad recall, and effectiveness of banner ads across a variety of platforms and formats, finding that in-game ads were the least effective, while Instagram ads were most effective. In a summary of the report, the Mobile Marketer noted that although in-game “banner ads that appear on the bottom of a smartphone screen are viewable 90% of the time to mobile gamers, recall rates were only 11% as those audiences spent 1.5% of their time looking at the ads.”

Despite an estimated viewability of approximately 50 percent, Instagram ads had a 20 percent recall rate – and were over five times as effective as desktop ads, and over 8 times as effective as in-game ads.

Desktop ads had the lowest recall of any of the tested formats at just 3 percent – in spite of the fact that they were viewable 80 percent of the time.

Recommendations

What does this mean for marketers? Kargo advised marketers to explore animated ad formats and video ads, and remarked that “[m]arketers should update performance/measurement scores to incorporate factors other than viewability.” They concluded:

Research shows that factors such as ad creative and messaging, ad placement and the digital environments in which brands advertise in are critical to the overall advertising mix and can lead to building greater brand awareness down the line. The fragmentation of today’s media landscape has created a rift in consumers’ consumption habits — where consumers’ attention is no longer owed but in fact must be earned. In order for brands to break through in today’s attention economy, it takes nothing short of “thumb-stopping” creative for marketers to garner recognition and appreciation.

With these tips in mind, you’ll be well on your way to having users view – and remember – your ads in no time.