Window Shopping at its Most Advanced: AOL Launches Ecommerce App in an Ad Unit
Picture this: you’re sitting at your computer and see a display ad to your right for an outfit that you must have. You click on it, get caught up in the shopping experience and totally forget what you were reading in the first place. Do you try to jog your memory by clicking the back button? Or would you prefer to experience something a little more seamless…
Yesterday, Pictela launched a new product enhancement we’ve made to AOL’s Premium Formats - the “window shopper”.
It has been AOL’s mission to clean up the Web from the beginning of Project Devil. To start, you may recall that one of the most unique features of our ad units is that users don’t need to leave the page when they want to engage with an ad – all of the content is viewable within the unit. The new “window shopper” feature allows a retailer’s ecommerce experience to take center stage, on the same page, over the content a user is currently engaging with. (The user can choose to open this page in a new window at any time.)
Results from our recent IPG Media Labs research study showed that purchase intent grew 263% after viewing an IAB Portrait ad. This shows that consumers are focused on the final step of the purchase funnel, so we’re making it as easy as possible to go from awareness to purchase without affecting their online experience.
Most importantly, this application still drives brand awareness. Marketers are the experts when it comes to the look and feel of their pages, and no publisher can recreate that on their own. We are bringing advertisers the ability to take their technology and time spent creating a beautiful web experience as they’ve imagined them, into functional display units across our properties.
Important to note, AOL does not track what happens inside the window; the data from the user’s ecommerce experience is not shared with AOL.
This new feature is also available for auto manufacturers who wish to showcase their car builder experiences in the Premium Format executions, and is called the “car customizer”.
After yesterday’s launch, the press took notice. Adweek, Paid Content, Adotas and Marketing Pilgrim all picked up the story. Paid Content reported, “One Project Devil ad can contain a company’s entire catalog, and because it’s built like a mobile app that lays over the main content page that brought the user in the first place, the user never has to leave the main page to do some shopping or check out a marketer’s video.”
Keywords: Premium Formats
