Australia and New Zealand are among the least likely nations to
click or dwell on online display advertising, according the Eyeblaster
2009 Global Benchmark Report.
Worldwide, standard banners
achieved a Click Through Rate (CTR) of 0.1% with rich media recording
0.3% across the board. However there were significant differences
between regions with Latin America and Europe recording double the CTR
in Rich Media than that of Australasia and North America.
The explanation given in the report is market maturity:
"In
less mature markets, where users are novice in online advertising, they
receive ads with more open arms. When the market matures, the users’
fatigue together with increased competition for their attention reduces
engagement significantly. The users’ propensity to engage with ads
should be taken into account when comparing benchmarks between
geographies and verticals."
Whilst ad blindness has led to a push towards larger ad units, floating ads, commercial breaks and push down banners the MREC (300x250) and Leaderboard
(728x90) still reign supreme, accounting for 38% and 22% of Australian
and NZ ad impressions respectively. This accounts to more than half of
all ads served through Eyeblaster.
Performance in Australia and
New Zealand also varied widely with industry verticals with gaming
recording the highest interaction rate, with Financial, Sports andTelecom scoring poorly.
Eyeblaster's Australian performance benchmarksFull Report
