gemiusAdMonitor: Common yet less popular – most frequent and most effective display ads in CEE

Cristina Blanaru Digital & Media, Marketing

Traditional formats turn out to be most popular in CEE, even if they generate less clicks than the more interactive ad forms, is one of the conclusions of gemiusAdMonitor, a study just made public by Gemius. Moreover, the most active market sectors, as it is in the case of “Finance, Insurance and Brokerage”, do not seem to be very attractive to the internet users, noting some of the lowest average CTR values.

Online advertising is expected to be the future of worldwide marketing, and CEE is no exception in this global trend. Although the preferences in digital advertising differ in each of the analysed countries, the results of gemiusAdMonitor report for H2 2011 concerning 6 selected European markets – Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Romania – offers  some general conclusions.

After the first half of 2011, when Slovakia had the highest average CTR among the studied markets, it was Poland that gained the best result, reaching almost 0.6% of CTR on average in the second half of 2011. This is an increase by 10pp. A significant growth in average CTR (11pp.) has also been observed in Hungary, which advanced to take the third place among the countries with the highest average click-through-ratio, surpassing the Czech Republic. The last position is occupied by Romania, where the average CTR value is almost 3 times smaller than in the top-ranked Poland.

As it was observed in the previous gemiusAdMonitor report, high CTR results do not influence the popularity of an ad format. Even though regular banners generate less clicks, they are most popular in all countries included in the analysis.

The share of these traditional ad formats exceeds 85% of all campaigns measured by Gemius across the 6 studied markets. When it comes to the most clickable ad forms, Pre-roll is in the lead – on 5 out of 6 studied markets (except Czech Republic) this format attained the highest CTR. It is extremely popular in Poland, being the second most often used ad form in the country. Interestingly, in Bulgaria – where it generates the largest number of clicks – its share on the advertising market is not significant yet. Other internet ad formats that proved most effective across the CEE countries are: Video, Wallpaper and Toplayer.

As far as the different market sectors are concerned, it is “Finance, Insurance and Brokerage” that has the largest share of ad impressions in most of the analysed countries, particularly in the Czech Republic (over 31%) and in Hungary (over 33%). Apart from the above-mentioned, also the companies active in “Telecommunications”, “Leisure Time”, “Trade”, “Food” and “Automotive” are most active online advertisers in Central and Eastern Europe. However, this does not mean that internet users find them most appealing. The financial segment, for example, occupies one of the lowest positions in the ranking of highest CTR values per sector in each of the CEE countries discussed in the gemiusAdMonitor report.

The engagement of web users in online advertisements of different market sectors depends on market specifics. And so, in Bulgaria the internet users are most eager to click on ads concerning pharmaceuticals, while in the Czech Republic and Romania, clothes & accessories seems to be the most attractive category. On the other hand, Hungarians are most susceptible to online promotion of media, books, CD & DVD, and Poles are lured by household products. Interestingly, in Slovakia “Telecommunications” is one of the most clickable categories.

Detailed info are available in GemiusAdMonitor report. gemiusAdMonitor reports are available on a quarterly basis in Bulgaria, the Czech republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Romania.

gemiusAdMonitor is a periodic report prepared by Gemius, basing on the results of gemiusDirectEffect (ad server for agencies and advertisers) and AdOcean (ad server for publishers) research. The gemiusAdMonitor project presents the ranking of most popular online ad formats and a wide range of indicators for internet campaigns. The report describes the advertising activity within chosen sectors of online market such as: Finance, Telecommunications, Trade, etc.

Gemius is the leader in the field of internet measurement and consultancy in Europe and in the Middle East. Originating in Poland, Gemius has expanded across the EMEA region and is currently operating on thirty markets.