Interactive advertising

Interactive advertising is a type of advertising that encourages consumers to engage and interact with an ad. It allows brands to establish and develop communication with their clients.

In this article, we will explain why you should use interactive advertising, highlight its advantages and disadvantages, describe its types, and provide examples of interactive ads.

Why use interactive advertising?

The main advantage of interactive advertising is the personalized experience it provides to users. You can control what is shown to different customers and stand out from the crowd of traditional ad campaigns.

The Journal of Interactive Advertising 2001 states that interactive ads also have some features that improve their effectiveness. You can gather customer data via cookies to create each consumer's profile and show the most relevant ads to them.

Interactive advertising also decreases the possibility of overspending your budget due to poorly coordinated advertising. You can communicate your advertising message to different audiences more clearly by using varied ads.

Like any other type of advertising, interactive ads have their benefits and drawbacks. You need to keep them in mind and know how to deal with them to promote your business successfully. Read more about the pros and cons of interactive advertising in the next section.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Interactive Advertising

Interactive advertising is a great way to develop two-way communication with your clients. On the other hand, it is often costly and time-consuming.

Have a look at the advantages of interactive ads below.

• They encourage potential customers to become a part of a brand. These ads require feedback and let users provide it, so people interact with them much more than with traditional ads.
• These ads boost social interaction between businesses and their potential clients. Interactions are crucial when establishing healthy long-term relationships with consumers. Interactive advertising helps you outperform competitors, improve brand awareness, and increase clients' loyalty.

However, there are also some disadvantages of interactive ads.

• Creativity might be distracting. Interactive ads have greater benefits if you need to capture customers' attention and encourage them to engage. However, it is crucial to avoid the excessive use of creativity and focus on communicating your brand messages to clients.
• Preparation can take a long time. If you want to succeed in interactive advertising, you need to prepare before launching your campaign. Analyze your competitors, gather data to build potential clients' profiles, and ensure that your ads target the right audience.
• Interactive advertising may be expensive. High costs are associated with the need to gather consumer data and create ads. Moreover, it is rather challenging to create these ads independently, and you may need to hire an ad setup specialist, which will require additional expenditures.

Now you know the advantages and disadvantages of interactive ads. Let's take a look at different types of these ads to choose the most suitable ones for your business.

Types of Interactive Advertising

New interactive advertising forms are being developed all the time. This type of advertising can take many forms, but we will consider the most widespread ones in this section.

1. Interactive Facebook ads

According to Pew Research, the user base of Facebook includes 69% of US Adults, which means there is a high chance that you will succeed in promoting your business there. The most popular interactive ads on Facebook and other social media are virtual tours, gaming ads, interactive PDFs, and promoted stories with polls, quizzes, and other similar elements.

Create interactive posts, stories, or reels to reach and engage more people. You can interact with your audience and get more feedback using different polls and quizzes. You can also use live videos to communicate more with your clients in real time and increase brand loyalty.

Lady Gaga's Instagram Story is an excellent example of such an ad. She promotes her new album, "Love For Sale," recorded with Tony Bennett. The story is interactive because you can tap the link and listen to the album.

2. Augmented reality

Augmented reality (AR) is a changed version of the real world achieved using digital elements. Customers like this type of advertising because it lets them create content with the products they need and want to buy.

Today you can find Augmented Reality ads on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and many other social media platforms. You can use AR in your ads to give people an opportunity to try on your apparel or view what your goods will look like in their homes. Customers can interact with certain products, choose the ones they like the most, and buy them from your company.

For example, look at Ikea's design lab, Space10. It enables users to redesign their entire 3D room plans with Ikea's Studio app using LiDAR sensors.

3. Playable in-app ads

According to eMarketer, people spend over 3.5 hours a day on their mobile phones. Consequently, it would be easy to find your audience here.

Playable ads allow your audience to try a product without buying it. Games and entertainment apps enable their audiences to use certain features available only after purchasing a subscription. Fashion brands and other companies often promote their goods in collaboration with existing applications.

Check out an example. In a recent campaign, New Balance partnered with TreSensa to create an app called 'Fresh Foam Cloud Jumper,' where people bounced from cloud to cloud. At the end of the game, there was a call to action to shop for sneakers or play again.

4. In-game advertising

Many people are fond of eSports, so in-game advertising is another great opportunity to promote your company. There are several ways to use interactive game ads, such as creating sponsored features, promoting billboards, and organizing events.

Find out more about your audience through partnerships with digital games or streamers if there are lots of gamers among your clients. Keep in mind that you need to prepare for these campaigns extra carefully because your ads should fit the interface of the chosen game and convey your brand message.

Let's look at an example. In April 2020, Travis Scott, a hip-hop singer, collaborated with the game 'Fortnite' and held a virtual concert. Travis's giant hologram on the main screen and posters within the game promoted his future event and created a unique atmosphere.

5. Display ads

Display ads and banners are one of the most popular types of paid media, so they are almost everywhere on the Internet. It is a great idea to make them interactive to get greater engagement and increase ROI. Banners can open up and show your product in the form of a video, game, poll, or quiz.

The advantage of this type of advertising is that you can use them for contextual targeting. Choose your keywords, and find websites to place your ads on. To choose a site, you can use ad networks that buy and sell ad space to advertisers or find ad exchanges where you can buy ad inventory from ad networks.

This example shows a sports villa banner ad that expands when users hover over it. This feature helps the ad attract more attention.

Here is what this banner looks like when it expands to full screen.

6. Interactive videos

Video ads include interactive elements that show certain product details and lead viewers to your product page. According to MarketingProfs, interactive videos convert more than 11% of users, which is a stellar result, especially compared to other types of video advertising.

This is an excellent alternative to regular ads, as it prevents users from skipping the ad thanks to its engaging content. Moreover, interactive videos are much more memorable. Make your potential clients a part of the story to engage them and provide positive emotions during their buyer journey.

Look at an example from Boursin that takes viewers on a journey through their refrigerator. Users need to move their phones around to interact with this ad.

The most popular types of interactive advertising are Facebook ads, augmented reality, playable in-app ads, in-game advertising, display ads, and video ads. Now that you know more about the types of interactive ads, let's proceed to discover more examples of these ads.

Examples of Interactive Advertising

To succeed in interactive advertising, you need to be creative and test different types of content. Here, we will provide more examples of interactive ads for different industries. Read this section to get some fresh ideas.

The first example is a J & J ad where the brand promotes its new product line. The first banner encourages us to scratch the card and reveal the second picture. This interactive element makes people want to see the picture and encourages more customers to interact with the ad.

The second example is a lookbook for Hector&Karger FW collection called RE_ALITY. It was created in 2015 and was the first interactive fashion lookbook in the world. You can use an app to see the RE_ALITY collection in the form of 3D images. Later on, famous fashion brands like Khaite, Hermes, Gucci, and Carlings also started using AR in their collections.

Our third example includes different Facebook ads that use interactive elements. The first company uses polls in its ad to encourage customers to choose what they want in their Mac' N' Cheese. The second ad is a game where Vans asks clients to help a character collect gifts as quickly as possible. There are augmented reality elements in the third ad. You can choose your lipstick color by trying different ones using a photo of your lips.

Congrats, you learned the basics of interactive advertising and discovered its advantages and disadvantages. You know the most popular types of these ads and are ready to promote your business successfully using interactive advertising.