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"Big Is Beautiful As smartphone screens get larger, companies have found some success with ads such as "takeovers" that briefly fill all or most of a device's screen. San Francisco app company Fotopedia sells such ads on its iPhone and iPad apps, which let people flip through high-quality photographs of Paris, national parks or wild animals. Marketers including National Geographic and travel websites Jetsetter and Expedia Inc. EXPE -0.23% pay roughly $1 to $1.50 for each user who clicks an ad, which fill a full screen. Like fashion ads in a luxury magazine, the Fotopedia ads appear every 10 "pages" or so of the app. As many as 18% of people who see an ad click on it, said Christophe Daligault, Fotopedia's senior vice president of global operations. On the Web, it isn't unusual for just 1% of people shown an ad to interact with it, marketers said. Still, big ads should be used sparingly, some marketers said. Craig Bierley, director of General Motors Co.'s GM -0.84% Buick advertising, said the auto maker tends to limit takeover ads to major product introductions because otherwise "people might find it annoying.""

Indeed, each of the top five video ad properties,  including BrightRoll, Hulu, Adap.tv, and TubeMogul, as well as YouTube, delivered more than 1 billion video ads last month, according to the new data from comScore.   Following Google's prized property -- which ranked first with 1.41 billion ads -- the BrightRoll Video Network accounted for nearly 1.39 billion ads; Hulu was responsible for 1.33 billion ads; Adap.tv chalked up 1.15 billion ads; while the TubeMogul Video Ad Platform recorded 1.04 billion ads.

Last but certainly not least, Facebook's recently released News Feed targeting options are delivering significantly better CTR. Mobile ads received CTRs 14 times that of desktop ads, on average. The desktop category, which includes News Feed ads and the ads on the right-hand side, saw the lowest CTR at 0.083 percent. The mobile News Feed, by contract, saw an average CTR of 1.140 percent. How does this compare with Twitter? The smaller social network saw an average CTR of 0.266 percent. This would indicate Facebook's mobile ad CTR is four times that of Twitter's. That's impressive. Other highlights from the report include: Sponsored Stories continue to perform better than standard Facebook Ads: Analysis of 13.8 billion impressions in the first and second quarters of 2012 shows Sponsored Story ads receiving 53 percent higher CTR than standard ads. Cost per fan also saw major improvements with 39 percent savings.

"Sam Glassenberg, CEO of Funtactix, which develops social games for major motion pictures like The Hunger Games, said the in-game ad market presents both huge opportunities and new risks for brands and agencies. He cited statistics from NPD and said that there are almost 200 million online gamers out there who play games for an average of 13 hours a week. Yet, the majority of ad spend still goes to TV or banner ads and only a fraction to games, he noted. "How are we going to close that gap?" he asked. The discussion was organized by SponsorPay, a Berlin-based engagement advertising company whose application rewards users that watch an ad with virtual currency and other goodies. SponsorPay is one of a handful of companies out there including SocialVibe, Flurry and WildTangent seeking to help games developers monetize their product and brand advertisers engage consumers with such ads. Games entrepreneur Wilson Kriegel, formerly with Zynga, addressed this potential by discussing his involvement with mega-hit Draw Something, an online drawing game developed at his former company OMGPop, which Zynga acquired in March. The game allows people to draw things and share them with their friends. Since its launch early in 2012, it has seen over 90 million installs, 10 billion drawings created and was a top trending topic on Twitter.  Companies including McDonald's, Disney and Sprint have incorporated their ads into the game. Kriegel said that ad features including in-game banners, game features and in-game call to actions seen a clickthrough rate of 1 percent to 10 percent-unheard of in an industry where average CTRs are 0.7 percent."

"Of the 30 brands that have signed on thus far, only five will be running campaigns in the U.S. Twentieth Century Fox, one of two global launch advertisers, will promote its upcoming film Life of Pi with ads in the Xbox Video app, Xbox companion mobile and tablet app SmartGlass app and the Casual Games app, which spans Xbox and Microsoft's desktop and mobile operating systems. And next month the other global launch advertiser, Nissan, will run ads in the Bing and Xbox Music apps. Though it seems the in-app ads are initially only slated to run within Microsoft's own apps, the company said several publishers-such as The Associated Press, Bonnier Corporation, Photobucket, Slacker Radio and The Tribune Company-have agreed to run the units. In announcing the roster of initial advertisers, Microsoft also put out some stats regarding consumer perception of the ad units. The most encouraging stat found that the ads scored a 92 percent in ad recall, but the other numbers suggest brands may prefer consumers forget their ads. Only 39 percent of respondents said they're happy to see advertising within Windows 8, and only 33 percent agreed that advertising on Windows 8 improved their opinion of a brand."

The social media marketing vendor tracked campaigns for 276 clients in the last quarter and reported Facebook's new mobile ads are already outperforming desktop ads in click-through rates and CPMs by 14 times. Mobile newsfeed ads garnered a 1.14 percent CTR on average. Facebook is banking on the success of mobile ads as well, earning $9.86 for every thousand mobile ads served. That's 13 times more than it receives for desktop ads.

"Like seemingly every startup currently exploring an ad-supported business model, Waze has gone native for its ad platform. Typically startups wade into advertising by working directly with brands then erecting a self-serve platform down the road. Waze sped things up. The company began testing ads in its U.S. app over the summer, working directly with Zipcar, Best Buy and a number of fuel brands and convenience store chains; at launch it has added Procter & Gamble, Dunkin' Donuts, Wyndham Hotels, Whole Foods, Jamba Juice, CircleK and Kum & Go to its advertiser roster. The direct sales channel continues, but Waze has also set up a self-serve platform for its most basic ad units. The self-serve platform operates on an auction model with floor prices set at $1 per thousand impressions. In addition to a branded search result, marketers can pay to plot branded pins at their locations on the Waze map. When users click on these branded pins, they can click a link to the company's website, a number to call the location or-borrowing the idea of drive-to advertising popularized by driving navigation company Telenav-a button that would navigate them to the location."

Mogreet launched the AdStitch mobile advertising service Tuesday, combining high-quality video ads with mobile messaging to help brands easily recoup return on investments. Cox Media Group's Oakland, Calif. television station, KTVU, has been testing a morning weather alert to subscribers along with an ad in the MMS message on mobile phones. The ad in the message typically ranges from five to 15 seconds, but more advertisers want to create shorter clips. The best-performing ad units are shorter, according to Mogreet CEO James Citron. "An automaker knows showing a five- or a 15-second video of a car performs better than 20 characters in text, banner or display ad," Citron said. He believes MMS is the only way publishers can reach 95% of Americans with mobile video.

"Facebook is making quick progress in growing its mobile advertising business, according to major ad platform Kenshoo. It sees 20% of all Facebook ad spend going to mobile. That's a big boost from October when Facebook said 14% of its ad revenue came from mobile. Meanwhile, 71% of Facebook ad spend targeted to mobile phones goes to Android, further proving Facebook has to focus more on Google's OS."

he agency ran several ads on Facebook touting the usual stuff agencies do. Then, as an experiment, they ran an ad that featured a cat named Cous Cous. The ad read, "This ad features a cat. It has nothing to do with Red Square Agency, but we hope you'll click on it anyway." People did. 78 percent more than they did the "regular"ads.

"'We basically had two different campaigns running,' said Carl Corbitt, creative director at Goodness. 'We had student-facing banner ads and a teaser video targeted to college-aged kids visiting Break.com, YouTube and Facebook, while we created a bogus 'Dean Deals' logo for all parent-persuading elements generated by students who visited the site (emails, banner ads, wish list landing page, etc.).  'For the parent-tracking banner ads we created five different banner ads for each of the five parent-types (25 different headlines). The headlines on the banners not only speak to the parent's personality/parenting-style (helicopter parent, BFF, Gadget Geek, etc), but we also added more 'nagging' to the headlines over time.' "

But it's AOL's own properties the company aims to build up as a go-to premium buy for brand advertisers. Display revenue on AOL properties grew by 2 percent. The company is betting on premium ad formats such as its rich-media laden Project Devil units to entice brands to spend more. AOL reported that more than half of the advertisers who bought the ads in Q1 re-upped this past quarter. Armstrong admitted that last year the company's focus was not data-driven, and stressed the firm's renewed mission to ensure that data - meaning results-related numbers proving the value of buying AOL's ad products - is at the heart of its sales approach. People cannot leave the building without data, said Armstrong. Mobile and video ad revenue are key to future growth for AOL, said Armstrong, who said that last summer 75 percent of insertion orders included both platforms. Today, it's close to 100 percent, he said. The company reported that videos, video views, and video revenue rose at double-digit rates, though it did not break out revenues for video advertising.

So what I'm curious about is: Netflix - No ads Amazon Prime - No ads HBO - No ads CBS - ads Are people really stupid enough to pay for ad packed content?

"Target's private marketplace operates similarly to others that retailers like Best Buy and Amazon have developed recently. For example, a user may visit Target.com and check out its high-def TVs. As that user navigates to other parts of Target's site, a brand like Sony or Samsung could run ads aimed at that user promoting their TVs-provided they are sold by Target. But the ads don't have to pertain so closely to a specific product category. Adweek encountered a Subaru ad running on Target's DVD and Blu-ray players page; a peek at the page's site code revealed that the ad was sourced through PubMatic."

Only three news sites - CNN, Yahoo News and The New York Times - out of 22 appeared to use high levels of ad targeting, according to a Pew Research Center study. In these cases, 45 percent or more of the ads were different from one user to the next. Another three news sites - CBS, USA Today, and MSNBC - exhibited moderate levels of targeting where between 29 percent and 40 percent of the ads were different across users. Sites with low levels or no apparent targeting included FoxNews.com, WashingtonPost.com, Time.com, and Newsweek.com. When researchers revisited the sites in January, they found that two - latimes.com and theatlantic.com - showed slightly higher levels of ad targeting. "By contrast, highly targeted advertising is already a key component of the business model of operations such as Google and Facebook," the study found.

"More than a third (36%) of rich media full-page ads used video, and 28% of campaigns used in-banner video in Q2 and Q3. Interaction rates for custom buttons in that ad format -- for getting more information or viewing photos or video, for example -- ranged from 2.2% to 10.8%. For rich full-page ads, Rhythm says adding a mini video player boosts interaction rates for the units by 30%, to 3.8% to 12%."

"Specifically, the mobile video ad resulted in 79% general recall, 58% brand recall, 48% message recall, 24% ad favorability and 15% purchase intent. Here's how those figures compared to online and TV across the same five metrics:   General Ad Recall: Mobile video was 2.7 times higher than online; 1.6 times higher than TV. Brand Recall: 4.8 times/online; 5.8 times/TV. Message Recall: 5.6 times/online; 7.5 times/TV. Brand Favorability: 3.4 times higher than both online and TV. Purchase Intent: 2.5 times/online; 3.8 times/TV."

"But the increase in ad volume trumped the visitor increase. Using data from Media6degrees, AdExchanger reports that Weather.com had almost 7,000 percent more ads on Monday Oct. 29, the day Sandy hit, than it had the previous Monday. Accuweather.com and Wunderground.com also saw ad spikes, although they were far more modest, peaking at a 333 percent 7-day life Sunday Oct. 28 and 163 percent lift Saturday Oct. 27, respectively."

Dawdle on an e-commerce site? Expect ads for that site--even the items you browsed--to stalk you for days, even weeks in ads on other sites. Now those so-called "retargeted" ads are going somewhere else: Facebook's news feed.

11. You're more likely to survive a plane crash than click a banner ad. (Solve Media) 12. 15 percent of people trust banner ads completely or somewhat, compared to 29 percent for TV ads. (eMarketer)