It's no secret that mobile apps and games have become one of the best channels for advertisers of all stripes to reach their target audiences. What happens when the eyeballs are on the ad, though? That's where attention comes in. Digital Turbine partnered with Lumen Research to examine ad effectiveness. Check the results below!
First, Lumen’s research showed that an astonishing 98% of gamers viewed the Digital Turbine ad unit. This is in line with the results we see from our in-app measurement providers MOAT, IAS, and DoubleVerify. At a top-of-funnel metric, this is a great start and something that sets mobile apps apart from other digital channels.
That wasn’t the only incredible result uncovered by Lumen.
Methodology
The study was carried out in the UK with 150 subjects aged 18+. Ads created by our DT Creative Labs team showcasing a variety of brands were displayed while participants were playing the Word Puzzle Game. The study was carried out on a mobile device, allowing Lumen to track eye movement via the camera. Respondents answered questions on spontaneous and prompted brand recall, awareness, message recall, and brand consideration.
The results clearly demonstrated the power of in-app, reward-based video formats in capturing audience attention. The ad was shown to those who requested a clue to solve a puzzle in the game.
Results
In the middle of the funnel, looking at the time the ad was viewed rather than just impressions, Lumen measured an average watch time for an ad reached 22 seconds. This has led Lumen to conclude that the ads would generate a global total of 21,828 seconds of attention compared to the gaming norm of 17,160 seconds - a 27.2% lift!
Lumen also compared the attentiveness of Digital Turbine’s ads to other popular channels with brand advertisers, including social, web banners, and even YouTube videos.
Twenty-two seconds for in-game video ads didn’t just beat out other gaming ad channels, but it demonstrated a massive advantage over other opportunities favored by advertisers digitally. Moving down the funnel further, over half of the participants were able to recall the brands they saw in the ads both spontaneously and when prompted, cementing the link between attention and ad recall.
Finally, at the bottom of the funnel, where every advertiser sees the accurate measure of success, 69 percent of participants said they would be ‘very likely’ or ‘likely’ to purchase from the brands in the future, showing that solid engagement levels made participants more inclined to lean into brand KPIs.
“Every day brings more evidence that attention is the metric offering brands the best chance of connecting with (and engaging) their audiences,” said Niraly Jadeja, Senior Research Consultant at Lumen Research, “This work with Digital Turbine offers some of the most compelling examples of attention’s potential. To achieve an average attention of 22 seconds is a significant breakthrough for our industry and will help (and encourage) advertisers to reach the vast audiences that mobile gaming has to offer.”
You can check out the complete study from Lumen Research here.
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