• by Gavin O'Malley , Staff Writer @mp_gavin, October 6, 2011

What right-minded Web marketer wouldn't love something called a "click activator?" Also known as a "creative enhancement" (again, who could say no that that?!), activators are essentially creative units for online video, which attempt to drive a call-to-action.

They can be simple overlays that encourage viewers to click through to advertisers' sites for additional offers or incentives, or interactive elements that give consumers access to specific data. Most importantly, a click activator is an invitation to engage further with a brand.

Demonstrating their relative worth, TidalTV -- a video-ad tech firm, which, of course, sells activators -- now finds that the units boost click through rates for 30-second online video spots by 87% compared to the same ads without click activators.

"We wanted to quantify how something as simple as an invitation to engage changes the way ... consumers respond to a brand's advertising," said Kevin Haley, Chief Scientist at TidalTV. "By isolating the effect of click activators through a controlled study, we found that they increased CTR significantly."

Self-serving, without question, but TidalTV's research does reveal that the impact of click activators varies significantly by demographic, ad length, and the type of content they accompany.

Most remarkable, the study determined that activators have far less impact when accompanying 15-second video spots. Indeed, compared to the nearly 90% boost given to 30-second ads, activators addition to :15 spots improved CTRs by just 32% -- compared to 15-second spots without click activator.

Also of note, click activators had a less pronounced influence on young adult consumers ages 18-24, showing a 6-8% improvement in CTR among this hard-to-target demo. By contrast, click activators produced a CTR boost among those 25-64 years of age of more than 25%.

Meanwhile, regarding content type, TidalTV found that click activators improved click through rates by 40% or more in the areas of entertainment; fashion & beauty; food; music; movies; and news & information.

TidalTV study was based on data and analysis from its online video network in April, which included 37 brands, 101 creative executions, and 85 million impressions across 44 online publishers.