Just What Is a Website Takeover, Anyway?
Digital marketing can take on so many forms: social media, search engine optimization and website takeovers. How can you decide what is best for your product and is, ultimately, what your target audience consumes?
The distribution strategy and technology can shape the creative for a communications campaign. This is where the endless possibilities previously mentioned really come into play. You need to understand which channels are the most appropriate for your audience and how they interact with each one. People may use Twitter for news-related information and Facebook for customer service issues, for example.
But what if you need something unique that stands out? On which digital outlet should that live? Don’t just settle for the ad units being offered with a static web banner, that will likely be just that — static — for your results.
Technology and rich media allow for some really cool ways to present and animate your creative. The complex ads can lead to a high level response from website visitors since the ads themselves are so unique.
We recently did some homepage takeovers on ESPN.com in six markets for three separate NASCAR races. Geotargeting allowed us to make this ad buy more efficient while making a big impact. Adding some rich media like cars racing across the page contributed to the impact and drew the consumer’s eye in a very different way.
The takeovers ran over a four-month period and garnered more than 2.6 million user impressions. We ran a similar campaign for this company on the Weather Channel app geared at hunters. We ran the rich media pop-ups during hunting season at peak hunting times of day (early in the morning). This endeavor garnered more than 10 million impressions over a six-week period.
As with any tactic, make sure you know your consumers, and where and how they are getting their product information. Rich media is great for those companies wanting to grow brand awareness, but conducting the right research before launching your plan will help you get the best results for your specific goals.
– Brian Sullivan
