Display ads are a primary pillar of the Internet. Love them or hate them, we can all agree – they are everywhere. Billions of dollars circulate every industry every year with banner ads on popular websites.
Flash ads have been the most popular with advertisers for many, many years. They are shiny. They move. They capture attention. They can be made to order relatively quickly and served in real-time to relevant audiences. Millions and millions of Flash ads hit websites across the globe every single day.
But Flash is a dying platform. Arguments against the use of Flash are gaining ground rapidly, and recent events have fueled those flames.
Recently Mozilla, creator of the popular web browser Firefox, outright banned the Flash plugin by default over security concerns. A couple days later, Adobe (creator of Flash) had resolved the issue and Firefox browsers were once again defaulted to allow Flash.
It was only a brief period of outright rejection, but it was a big move by a major voice in web technology, and the ripple effects continue. More than ever, people distrust Flash. Many in the tech industry are calling for all major browsers to block Flash entirely and permanently.
Advertisers are catching on, too. There is presently a large-scale migration from Flash banner ads to HTML5 banner ads. HTML5 is a rich-media format acceptable on all browsers that leaves the CPU usage and security woes behind.
It’s not sudden, actually. Warning signs have been there for years.
Flash has always been buggy, and has always had security issues. The Flash plugin allows savvy hackers to gain remote access to a user’s computer to download viruses or other malicious activities. The tech industry has known about this a long, long time, but Flash has persisted regardless.
Flash has never had native support on iOS devices, and Android hasn’t supported it for the past six versions. These are the two biggest players in mobile device software, and their attitude toward Flash is becoming more and more widely adopted as mobile continues to gain personal usage share over desktops.
This is not just in our heads. There are factual findings to support the prevailing sour attitude toward Flash.
New York-based advertising company Sizmek recently published the findings of a study of rich media display ads from the first quarter of 2015 – approximately 5 billion Flash impressions and 4 billion HTML5 impressions.
Their study showed that 98.6% of Flash impressions defaulted to a static image instead of delivering the intended rich media experience.
…That’s roughly 4 billion, 930 million ad impressions that didn’t do what their advertisers paid for.
Conversely, only 8.3% of the HTML5 ads defaulted to static images. That’s a 91.7% success rate for moving, shiny, rich media advertisements.
The study also showed that in terms of successful impressions and user engagement, HTML5 ads outperformed Flash ads by over 400%.
How can you reduce your spending waste? Simple:
Switch to HTML5.
Flash ads are cheaper to produce up front than HTML5, but considering the cost of showing successful impressions and the lost revenue from those ads’ failures, it’s no wonder advertisers are clamoring to switch platforms.
The shift is inevitable. The world at large will move on – will you move with it?
Don’t be that guy who kept buying cassette tapes till the better end. Don’t do that to your business. Adapt. Grow. Persevere.
Savvy marketers have already made the complete switch to HTML5; other advertisers are in the process of upgrading their ad campaigns from Flash banners to HTML5 banners.
Those that don’t switch will continue to see diminishing returns, and the rate of loss will only accelerate.
It’s not an easy switch – it requires lots of human hours to convert the files. But don’t worry – with all the assets already there, rebuilding ads in a different file type takes much less time than building the ad from the ground up.
And fortunately for you, there is already an infrastructure in place for this migration. Custom Creatives is perfectly capable of converting customers’ old Flash ads into higher-performing HTML5 banners.
Call us today to begin using HTML5 display ads. (818) 865-1267
We’re glad you asked. Our team can convert your old Flash ads into HTML5 for you at $275 per ad.
Got a large order? Great. Call us for bulk rates.
Ditch your Flash banners and your 98.6% default rate. Let us create your new, more-successful HTML5 banners.
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