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There really is a reason why publishers insist on animated ads stopping after 15 seconds.

Now I’m not speaking about video ads (with play and pause buttons) which apparently do work better with 30-second clips as per some study results, instead I’m talking about your traditional banner ads that are flash – or video (but look more like flash).

Many sites won’t even allow ads more than 15-seconds in length for a variety of reasons including band-width, file size and demand on their resources, but there are some that do (although I think you’ll be hard pressed to find any major sites accepting these lengths).

Working with a client on a US-based brand awareness campaign for B2B services, I was reviewing the previous fiscal year online advertising results. I found that a Fall ’08 campaign saw expandable ads with some of the creative (flash) at 15 seconds, while others were closer to 30 seconds. The only difference between the two versions were how fast the animation occurred and how smooth it was.

When it came time to refresh Spring creative, the client’s agency made sure that the ads were no more than 15 seconds and that the animation and transition of frames were very smooth so as not to run into the same types of problems that they had previously.

Comparing, results, the biggest thing that jumped out at me was that Interaction rates (the proportion of ad viewers who interact with an online ad by rolling and expanding it) jumped by 4% and brand interaction (the amount of time someone was exposed to your brand with the ad expanded) raised by a full second.

The overall theme of the campaign was the same, while it did have a visual refresh (images only), the overall concept was identical, including the wording of the ads – even how the user was asked to expand and interact with the content and how the company referred to themselves. I also checked ad placement, since in some cases accidental roll overs can be included in these rates – the ads were placed in the same sections, and used the same ratio of various ad sizes.

The only real difference was the content itself once interacted with was the main change in the ads, but a user would not know this until they expanded the ad.

I was tasked with explaining why there was such a large difference with the two ads. I had one of two theories:

1) The imagery used was either much more powerful and eye catching, which definitely may be part of the equation

2) The ads simply got to the punch line quicker. Instead of taking nearly 30 seconds to ask someone to interact with the ad, the new ads took no more than 15 seconds.

My money is on the second theory. I’m sure imagery could have had something to do with things and potentially caught someone’s eye better than the previous campaign, but what kept the attention and encouraged them to expand when the copy was the same? The fact that the user was asked to interact sooner rather than later

When you think about it, 15 seconds is a massive time difference to a user browsing web content who didn’t actually come to the site to see your ad in the first place.

Knowing that you have 10 seconds or less to keep someone on your website, you can apply the same theory in principal to your ads. We know users haven’t arrived at the website to see your ad, so it makes sense that you have a little longer than that 10 seconds to capture a user’s attention since they first have to spot your ad before you can capture their attention.

My personal recommendation? If you’re trying to encourage in-ad interaction make sure that request comes around that 12-second mark for optimal rates. That being said, it’s important to remember that testing to determine what works best for your company is always recommended.

Photo Credit: Daino_16; Stock Xchng